electricity
We Need a True Debate Over Income-Graduated Fixed Charges
A state bill to cap the fixed charges utilities can collect in California would shut down an important debate about equity and rate design. Here’s a better way forward.
Electricity rate design is unavoidably technical. It also has huge implications for equity, climate change, and ensuring a grid that works. Rate design can be used to promote many different goals, from efficiency to bill stability, but it always entails distributive decisions. Rate design determines how we distribute the costs not just of electricity, but …
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CONTINUE READINGReviewing Agency Indecision
The Third Circuit straightens out a quirk in FERC law, to the benefit of renewable energy.
A case decided by the Third Circuit last week is important for two reasons. It clarifies an important procedural issue applying to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). And it upholds an important policy shift regarding renewable energy by the country’s largest grid operator. Since you’re probably more interested in the second point than the …
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CONTINUE READINGWill public power advance decarbonization?
Increasing public control of energy systems may not facilitate decarbonization
Over the past few years, there has been a push in both Europe and the United States for a “Green New Deal” in which decarbonization efforts would be pushed by aggressive, direct government investments in clean energy technology and infrastructure. But in much of the United States and in Europe, large portions of the electricity …
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CONTINUE READINGAdvancing renewables through electricity restructuring
Reducing barriers to siting new electricity generation can help advance renewable energy production
Our electricity system will be crucial to decarbonization efforts, both because much of our current energy comes from electricity, and because decarbonizing sectors like transportation will require significant electrification. And electricity is the sector where we have had the most success in decarbonization so far in the United States. But there is still more to …
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CONTINUE READINGWays of Price Making, Inflation, and Energy Price Shocks
This post was originally published on the Law and Political Economy blog as part of a symposium on inflation. Energy prices have been much in the news over the past several months, occupying a prominent place in mainstream discussions of inflation. Higher prices for oil, natural gas, coal, and electricity are all pushing up inflation across …
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CONTINUE READINGGetting Down to the Nitty Griddy
The Texas Blackout and the Politics of Price Making
As has been widely reported over the past week, some Texas electricity customers are now facing astronomically high electricity bills as a result of the recent power grid crisis. Under the Texas system, which is as close to a fully deregulated system of electricity provisioning as we have in the U.S., retail customers are allowed …
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CONTINUE READINGA Tale of Two Blackouts
Learning from the Texas and California Power Grid Failures
The Texas blackouts earlier this week have reminded us once again of the vital importance of electricity as part of the basic infrastructure of everyday life and the terrible consequences that ensue when the grid fails. Recent reports indicate that dozens of people have died as a result of the extreme weather and blackouts and …
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CONTINUE READINGGuest Bloggers Alice Kaswan and Kirsten Engel: Untapped Potential: Emissions Reduction Initiatives Beyond Clean Power Plan Are Warranted, Workable
New Report Analyzes Potential for Further Emissions Reduction from Existing Sources
Guest post by Alice Kaswan (University of San Francisco School of Law), Kirsten H. Engel (University of Arizona School of Law) It’s been a month since the D.C. Circuit heard oral arguments on the Clean Power Plan, and the nation is in wait-and-see mode. But our report, Untapped Potential: The Carbon Reductions Left Out of …
CONTINUE READINGGuest Blogger David Spence: Why Some Electricity Markets Will Struggle With Decarbonization
David Spence is Professor of Law, Politics & Regulation at the University of Texas at Austin
Recently the New York Times published an article chronicling the financial problems experienced by one of the world’s premier developers of concentrated solar power (CSP) facilities. The financial headwinds facing CSP are a sign of a more fundamental problem electricity markets face: namely, capturing all of the important values we attach to electricity production. Most …
CONTINUE READINGThe Significance of EPA’s Proposed Power Plant Standards
Although they won’t have immediate impacts, EPA’s proposed rules for new coal plants will indirectly help shape the future of the industry.
There’s an uproar over EPA’s proposed rules for CO2 emissions from new coal plants, even though no one expects anyone to build a new coal plant for at least a decade. I’ve argued (here and here) that the industry won’t have standing to challenge the rules because they won’t have any imminent impact. In fact, …
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