The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection on Jan. 6 announced the start of the process to develop the 2022 Comprehensive Energy Strategy (CES) to plan for the effective management of the state’s energy supply, distribution, and demand. The CES is expected to analyse Connecticut’s future energy needs, identify strategies to reduce cost for…...
Regulators across the U.S. are accelerating electric transmission projects worth tens of billions of dollars to bring renewable power to consumers and make the grid more resilient against extreme weather events. Infrastructure updates have also garnered bipartisan support on the federal level, with more than $65 billion allocated for clean energy transmission and grid development in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act enacted by the Congress last month.
The growing incidence of extreme weather events has triggered regulatory and legislative efforts across the U.S. to improve the reliability and resilience of the energy system. Winter Storm Uri, which caused widespread outages in the South Central U.S. in February, prompted a regulatory upheaval in Texas, which suffered the brunt of the storm, leaving more than 4.5 million people without power. California has adopted measures to ensure reliability in the event of extreme weather in the summers of 2022 and 2023. Federal regulators have approved new cold weather electric reliability standards.
Interest in offshore wind energy has reached new levels driven by supportive federal action, ambitious state procurement targets, and evolving technology. Recent developments include federal approval of the second commercial-scale project, and plans to hold up to seven new lease sales by 2025 in the East Coast, as well as the West and Gulf Coasts. Despite the progress, the industry faces opposition with recent lawsuits challenging the approval of the nation’s first major offshore project, the 800-megawatt (MW) Vineyard Wind I venture, over its potential impact to the fishing industry and endangered species.
Discussion around performance-based regulation (PBR) continues to evolve as utilities and regulators explore a framework aimed at strengthening the connection between utility returns and performance.
Interest in carbon pricing mechanisms has deepened as lawmakers and regulators explore policy tools to address emissions reductions in order to reach ambitious clean energy and climate goals. Cap-and-trade is figuring more prominently as an efficient market-based means to achieve significant carbon reductions and create an incentive to invest in non-emitting technologies.
Carbon reduction goals are driving policy support to keep financially-struggling nuclear generation plants operating and encourage new reactors. The fuel diversity and zero-carbon attributes of the resource are fueling the policy debate over its role in meeting state and federal energy and environmental goals.
Energy storage is becoming an increasingly important part of the power mix to accommodate the exponential growth of intermittent renewables required to accomplish ambitious decarbonization targets set by U.S. states and utilities.
A growing number of states are turning to grid modernization initiatives aimed at creating a more flexible system that can accommodate the proliferation of distributed energy resources (DER) and other solutions that meet changing customer needs and climate goals.
As the power and transportation sectors shift toward decarbonization, federal and state regulators are examining hydrogen's untapped potential in lowering emissions across industries ranging from energy storage to heavy-duty vehicles.
The importance of U.S. state renewable portfolio standards (RPS) continues to grow, with recent changes reflecting the trend of strengthening renewable energy targets. Several states have expanded their RPS programs to broader clean energy standards, which establish milestones to achieve a carbon-free electricity supply.
