Joseph Kelliher, Chair, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission |
At the National Electricity Delivery Forum, sponsored Energy Department and the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, experts offered diverse perspectives, excerpted below, on the role of electricity delivery infrastructure in addressing climate change, demand growth, and energy security.
Keynote panel speaker Joseph Kelliher, chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission:
- Climate change is an energy issue as much as an environmental issue, and must be addressed through an approach that balances the two.
- Addressing the energy supply challenge will require a high level of integration in state and federal regulation, fuel diversity and strong demand response.
- Additional generation and investment in transmission and distribution will be required, with a strengthened grid needed to move electricity from wind resources, which often are located far from where their power is needed.
- The role of coal, electricity prices and demand levels will be different in a scenario that addresses climate change as well as energy supply.
Phil Sharp, president of Resources for the Future:
- Utility managers and boards need to make decisions now, and can no longer act based simply on least-cost options.
Commissioner Sam J. Ervin IV of the North Carolina utilities commission:
- On nuclear energy, “We have failed as a society to address the problem of what to do” with this waste. Continuing inaction would effectively foreclose a carbon-free contribution from nuclear power.
Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change:
- A mix of energy sources is needed, including nuclear and coal, along with renewables and a “lot of efficiency in the near term.”
- Coal’s long-term viability depends on carbon capture and sequestration. If not, existing coal-based plants will need expensive retrofits as the technology becomes available later on.
Kurt Yeager, executive director of the Galvin Electricity Initiative:
- Planning for demand growth has focused almost entirely on electricity quantity, quality is also vital. “We have to change the value proposition on electricity,” viewing it as “a smart service, not a dumb commodity.”
- Delivery systems must be modernized; the capacity of existing transmission lines could be increased by 30 to 50 percent with available technology.
Excerpted from an article by Todd Cunningham, published in Electric Co-op Today.