Greening the U.S. Electricity Sector: How Far, How Fast?

This presentation will review progress to date in decarbonizing electricity, discuss future possibilities and describe some of the obstacles, which are yet to be overcome. The ongoing transition from coal to natural gas is resulting in reduced U.S. GHG emissions, but pursuing this trajectory may not be the best option for our grid. Natural gas may displace not only baseload coal, but also renewable resources. It also introduces new dimensions for reliability and power market challenges.

Nevertheless, U.S. renewable capacity is expected to continue to grow spurred mainly by state Renewable Portfolio Standards and tax incentives. The challenges of operating the electric grid will continue to grow along with the penetration of variable and uncertain renewable resources. If more variable capacity is built in absence of adequate transmission capacity needed to deliver electricity from wind resources to the consumers, this will further aggravate transmission congestion, increase wind curtailments, and increase electricity costs.

Most importantly, technology that could alleviate some of the generation emissions problems and difficulties in system operations is in its infancy or not acceptable because of cost or other reasons. Such technology includes energy storage, CCUS (carbon capture, utilization, and sequestration), and nuclear generation. On the other hand, as part of modernizing the grid, substantial improvements should be expected in integrating demand response and distributed resources into system planning and operations. This will require progress in resolving regulatory conflicts, creating new avenues for achieving higher energy efficiency along with market efficiency.