Arthur van Benthem

Great work by Synapse Energy Economics, Berkeley Lab and E4TheFuture in codifying Distributional Equity Analysis for distributed energy, and elevating it as and equal companion to Benefit-Cost Analysis. I'm hearing growing equity concerns about DERs - e.g., rising rates for renters/households/business who can't quickly weatherize/electrify/buy solar/storage/EVs; those "left behind" on natural gas. What if a project/program/investment passes BCA but worsens equity? Awesome to see these questions go mainstream - and a rigorous approach! I am looking forward to working on DER equity analysis! DOE page links to a long and short guide, and registration for a June 25th webinar: https://lnkd.in/gsC2WhKy #energyequity #distributedenergy #energyjustice

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A new E3 study looks at the impact of different clean energy accounting frameworks on systemwide or "consequential" carbon emissions under voluntary clean energy purchases. The study uses E3’s California RESOLVE capacity expansion model (https://lnkd.in/giG8wYN9) to dynamically evaluate changes in system dispatch and investments over time under both annual and hourly matching approaches. We find that annual and hourly matching approaches result in similar impacts on long-run, consequential carbon emissions except under a relatively narrow set of circumstances. We also find that hourly matching will be much more difficult and costly to achieve in real life than in a capacity model context, and will expose participating customers to significant market risk due to the overprocurement that is required to match hourly demand during the most challenging hours. Finally, we conclude that long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs) will continue to be needed to finance capital-intensive clean energy projects, underscoring the important role of demand for PPAs from both the compliance and voluntary markets in facilitating clean energy development. We thank Meta for its partial support for this analysis; all report conclusions and findings are our own. Find the blog post and download the full report here: https://lnkd.in/giVBVzCR. E3’s Arne Olson, Kush Patel, Elizabeth Mettetal, Gregory Gangelhoff, Angineh Zohrabian, Ph.D., Hugh Somerset, Ruoshui Li, and Joshua Spooner contributed to the report.

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How can utilities address energy affordability through the ratemaking process? We summarize different approaches in our latest Center on Global Energy Policy factsheet. 🌐 🔌 💵 Traditionally, efforts to mitigate energy insecurity have focused on downstream solutions like bill assistance and weatherization. However, upstream innovations in utility ratemaking hold significant potential to address the structural causes of energy affordability. Innovative ratemaking approaches, such as segmented rate classes, low-income discount programs, and budgeting strategies, offer promising pathways to reduce energy burdens on disadvantaged households. These approaches, when implemented thoughtfully, can help balance the needs of utility shareholders with the social goal of energy affordability. What other mechanisms are available? Please share in the comments below! Abby Austin, Qëndresa Krasniqi, Diana Hernández, Emma Shumway, Michael Gerrard, Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, Beth Colleton, Robert Johnston #EnergyInsecurity #EnergyJustice #Utilities #Ratemaking

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On behalf of the Green Energy Consumers Alliance (GECA), Senior Researcher Joshua C. and Assistant Researcher Elisabeth Seliga prepared a policy brief that presents a cost comparison of electric supply options offered to residential customers served by investor-owned utilities in Massachusetts. AEC’s analysis finds that residential customers are paying a premium for electric supply provided by Third-Party Competitive Suppliers compared to electricity provided by electric distribution companies and Municipal Aggregation programs. AEC also finds that previous estimates of cost premiums associated with Competitive Suppliers have underestimated the extent to which they raised average residential electric rates by not considering the cost savings associated with Municipal Aggregation programs, which often offer rates lower than both Competitive Supply and Utility Basic Service. Read the policy brief here: https://lnkd.in/e4AsNXWS

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Interesting paper on heat pumps, IRA, and industrial policy. h/t Tyler McMahon Key section: "We find several concerning trends in the market for heat pumps that industrial policy implementation should take into consideration. First, heat pump manufacturers continue to pour enormous amounts of their financial resources into investor compensation in the form of dividends and stock buybacks, rather than making larger investments in expanding capacity. Second, acquisition activity among these manufacturers appears to be speeding up in the wake of the IRA’s passage, with a few multibillion-dollar deals already announced or recently consummated. Third, there are concerning signs that consolidation at the local level of installation and distribution may lead to price increases down the line, with manufacturers acquiring regional distributors and private equity firms acquiring HVAC installers at a concerning rate. With the price of heat pumps continuing to rise, the risk is that the increased demand from IRA subsidies may simply be captured by consolidating interests in the heat pump supply chain, meaning that final consumers and buyers will not benefit directly from the IRA’s subsidies. This indicates that the Biden administration’s industrial policy and competition priorities should be more integrated with one another." https://lnkd.in/ezFNtJd4 Lee Harris

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New Oxford Institute for Energy Studies paper looks at Reforming Capacity Markets and How to Incorporate the Flexibility of Residential Consumers 👉 Link to OIES Paper: https://lnkd.in/dQDGNjUD Key points: 💠 Instead of building new generation capacity to ensure resource adequacy, demand response resources can lower residential consumption for financial compensation at times of generation scarcity 💠 Residential demand response can greatly favour the system but its uptake is quite low since residential consumers tend to withdraw from demand response programs if the inconvenience of participating becomes too high 💠 Paper proposes a simple, nonintrusive and cost-efficient methods for residential demand participation in capacity markets through priority pricing contracts 💠  Priority pricing contracts could be integrated via an aggregator as explicit demand response in capacity markets, advocating for participation on the ‘demand’ side rather than the ‘supply’ side to prevent market distortion and better align with consumer reliability preferences 💠 Aggregators are responsible for the imbalances between the flexible consumer’s forecast and actual consumption instead of energy suppliers to avoid retail market distortions #aggregators #demandflexibility #electricitymarkets #

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Lazard recently released its latests analysis of LCOE for different power sources. As has been the case for the past several years, solar and wind power remain highly competitive. #renewables #power #energy #wind #offshore #onshore #solar #hydropower #floating #nuclear #geothermal #efficiency #transition #susteinability #circular #economy #esg #clean #decarbonization #electrification #climate #hydrogen #mobility #greensteel #ammonia #transportation #storage #fuelcell #smartgrid #der #powersystem #generation #transmission #distribution #electricity #machines #drives #sensors #iot #education #engineering #innovation #entrepreneurship #creativity #technology #digitalization #cybersecurtity #metering

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Massachusetts’ 2023/24 legislative session closed in the morning of Aug. 1 without any significant climate or clean energy legislation despite broad agreement on proposed clean energy permitting and siting reforms. The legislative failure after nearly two years of work was a significant disappointment for climate activists and clean energy organizations. Massachusetts has so far failed to pass any meaningful climate legislation in the first two years of the Healey administration, despite a Democratic trifecta in state government which nominally supports strong action on climate. The most significant sticking point in the negotiations appeared to be over gas reforms. The top Senate negotiators were pushing for changes to the state law that would allow the gas utilities to start decommissioning portions of the natural gas pipeline network, while the House negotiators appeared to oppose the gas reforms and indicated that they were willing to pass a bill strictly focused on the previously agreed upon permitting and siting reforms for clean energy infrastructure. You can read the full story below at RTO Insider LLC: https://lnkd.in/emD4S7em If you're interested in this type of thing, it's also worth flagging this recent story from the Boston Globe about the concentration of power in the Massachusetts legislature. The House speaker and the Senate president control an extensive system of "leadership stipends" which make up a large portion of many legislators' salaries. This appears to stifle dissent and prevent members of their party from stepping out of line, since their salaries depend on maintaining their relationship with party leadership. https://lnkd.in/ePh5mCSB This also may be part of the reason why so little has been accomplished this session, and why widely agreed-upon proposals failed to pass. We'll see where this goes from here — the legislature may return for a special session in the fall, but this is probably unlikely to solve the underlying issues in Massachusetts' deeply undemocratic Statehouse.

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New Oxford Institute for Energy Studies research paper discusses reforming capacity markets and how to incorporate the flexibility of residential consumers 👉 Link to paper: https://lnkd.in/dQDGNjUD Key points: 💠 This paper analyses capacity markets and proposes an approach to incorporate the flexibility of residential consumers in these markets considering reliability as a differentiated product 💠 Paper introduces and assesses the potential of non-linear pricing schemes, specifically priority pricing contracts, as mechanisms to enhance implicit residential demand response 💠 It suggests a model to integrate priority pricing contracts via an aggregator as explicit demand response in capacity markets, advocating for participation on the ‘demand’ side rather than the ‘supply’ side to prevent market distortion and better align with consumer reliability preferences 💠 To incorporate these contracts into the capacity demand curve, paper examines the correlation between capacity and reliability, establishing that under ideal conditions, the marginal cost of outages aligns with the marginal cost of capacity, thus linking capacity to the value of lost load and loss of load expectations. This connection informs the design of the capacity demand curve using data from priority pricing contracts. 💠 This approach is demonstrated using the 2027-28 UK capacity market, and also introduced a refined capacity product for trading in capacity markets, designed to encourage investment in demand response resources and incorporating specifics about location, flexibility, and adjustments to the calculation of firm capacity profile. 💠 A potential business model is proposed for the aggregator that leverages residential demand response that does not create distortions in the retail market. #aggregator #capacitydemandcurve #capacitymarket #capacityproduct #demandresponse #differentiatedreliability #marketdesign #prioritypricingcontracts #residentialconsumers

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Wind energy is highly significant in the current energy landscape. The US has a record-high 366 GW of wind capacity in transmission interconnection queues, with 120 GW offshore and 49 GW in hybrid plants pairing wind with storage or PV. This growth highlights wind energy's crucial role in the renewable energy sector. More coming Radia.com

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Excess capacity in China is an issue. It's a challenge for Chinese manufacturers of litihium-ion batteries, electric vehicles and solar panels, and its a problem for many OECD countries, where industries are struggling to remain competitive. But the common narrative attributing China's edge to subsidies alone is wrong. In this paper, my colleague Anders Hove discusses the importance of subsidies as well as a raft of other support measures. More importantly, though, he highlights the innovative and entrepreneurial forces in China and, critically, the importance of vertical integration and manufacturing clusters. It's well worth the read. You can also check out the podcast https://lnkd.in/eDthAypP

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🏛️ U.S. Energy Permitting Reform & Elections: What’s at Stake in 2024? 🔋 As we head into a pivotal election, the U.S. energy landscape stands at a crossroads. The bipartisan Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024 (EPRA) has been advanced, aiming to speed up permitting for all energy sources—fossil fuels and renewables. But politics could shape the outcome! Here’s a quick look: 📊 If Trump Wins: Permitting gets a green light, LNG exports accelerate, and EPA emissions standards could be rolled back. 🌍 If Harris Wins: Expect a stronger push for renewables, tighter methane emissions rules, and reinforced EPA standards. One thing is clear: Whoever wins, the industry is set for changes that will impact everything from LNG exports to downwind pollution rules. Both investors and industry players are watching closely. The future of U.S. energy policy may soon be rewritten—stay tuned! 📈🌱 #EnergyTransition #PermittingReform #USPolicy #EnergyFuture #USElections #Trump #Harris #ISG

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Building and running successful manufacturing is easier said than done. As reported here: “President Joe Biden’s signature climate law unleashed a $16 billion flood of promised investments in solar manufacturing, as companies unveiled plans for factories across the US and raised hopes of eroding China’s green tech dominance. But less than two years later, manufacturers have quietly shelved or slowed plans for at least four of those plants. High borrowing costs and record-low panel prices — the result of cheap imports pouring into the market — have made some projects uneconomical. The decisions underscore the limits of U.S. government subsidies when it comes to wresting control of established clean energy supply chains from China.” Story here: https://lnkd.in/gPKyQvf2 Image: New York Times. #solarpvs #us #manufacturing

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“What we see today in terms of their implementation and operationalizing of those [net-zero] commitments is far from sufficient,” the director of the Sierra Club’s Fossil-Free Finance Campaign said. #renewables #power #energy #wind #offshore #onshore #solar #hydropower #floating #nuclear #geothermal #efficiency #transition #susteinability #circular #economy #esg #clean #decarbonization #electrification #climate #hydrogen #mobility #greensteel #ammonia #transportation #storage #fuelcell #smartgrid #der #powersystem #generation #transmission #distribution #electricity #machines #motors #drives #sensors #iot #education #engineering #innovation #entrepreneurship #creativity #technology #digitalization #cybersecurtity

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The Future Energy Systems (FES) Accelerator Fund is accepting applications! This fund aims to propel current and past FES-funded research into implementation phases, including pilot and field applications, through collaboration with external stakeholders. 🔍 Eligibility: UofA faculty members (current/formerly funded by FES) can apply as PIs. Teams can include past FES researchers or new experts in energy systems from UofA or other institutions. 💡 Focus: Projects must build upon previous FES research, targeting practical applications with clear deliverables by June 30, 2026. External stakeholder cash support required; in-kind contributions are highly valued. 🎯 Priority: Innovations leading to commercialization, influencing best practices, or impacting policy and community processes. 🔗Visit the following link for more information about the funding opportunity: https://lnkd.in/gEpVWU_C #ResearchFunding #Lab2Market #EnergyInnovation #FutureEnergySystems

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Unintended Consequences of Well-Intended Regulations: In this recent article for Energy Marketing Conferences (EMC) Insider, I explain in very simple terms how carbon #capandtrade systems can undermine the #voluntarymarket for #cleanenergy if regulators do not set-aside allowances to account for #voluntaryprocurement. If you want your clean energy purchases to have greater impact , this is just another example of why you should look to Center for Resource Solutions and its Green-e© certified renewable energy.

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In his latest blog post The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) President and Vice Chancellor Larry Kramer probes what is next in the fight for sustainability and highlights three major efforts which focus on implementation: 1. Deploy new energy technologies 2. Finance this deployment 3. Make this a just transition “By what are probably conservative estimates, to accomplish the needed transformation in time, we must invest something like $1-1.5 trillion every year for the next twenty-five years. It’s a number we’re not yet close to reaching, one that will require shaking loose both public and private resources. We need creative thinking from people working in finance and economics and political science and law, coupled with work in social and behavioural disciplines to make sure new policies and approaches gain traction and stick.” The LSE’s Global School of Sustainability, launching in 2025, will act as a hub to address these issues, while the Marshall Institute’s 100x Impact Accelerator is currently taking applications from social unicorns working to address environmental challenges. Read the full blog here: https://lnkd.in/dxzmbTPV Global school of sustainability: https://lnkd.in/eWDc-UWq

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To make an effective and equitable transition to clean electricity systems we need tools to explore different options and their implications - and we need to be able to discuss them publicly. This collaboration is doing just that in the US and some of the same models are being applied by local teams in countries around the world so we can have informed global conversations about our shared opportunities and challenges. Rodrigo Bórquez N. Tarun Sharma Gang He Joyashree Roy Balachandra Patil

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One of the joys of the Energy Institute #StatsReview is seeing how people use our data (because we make it freely available to everyone!), so I was absolutely delighted to see this in today’s The Economist which mashes up our data with that of BloombergNEF and International Energy Agency (IEA) to create this killer chart! And read more here: https://lnkd.in/dQKpCc7C

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