Department of Energy

Coal No More: What If?

An analysis of what risks would have to be taken to significantly reduce carbon emissions by using natural gas in the short run.

An analysis of what risks must be taken, in the short run, to significantly reduce carbon emissions with use of natural gas.

Life Along the Potomac

What federal regulators should do to ensure security, reliability, and cleaner air in our nation’s capital.

The District of Columbia Public Service Commission successfully has used two little known provisions in the Federal Power Act (FPA) to prevent an aging generating plant crucial to the national capital region’s reliability from being abruptly shut down by Virginia’s environmental regulators. In the end, the immediate threat to the region’s reliability was obviated while the environmental concerns associated with the plant were not ignored. The action resulted in a model for how federal energy regulators and environmental regulators can address similar problems in the future.

Squeezing BTUs From Light Bulbs

Incandescent light bulbs create a cogeneration benefit by warming the indoor spaces they illuminate.

Genuine price signals about the underlying cost of consumer energy usage are an important part of energy efficiency. With those signals, consumers can adapt to save high-cost energy, while making better use of available low-cost sources and supplies.

The Top 10 Utility Tech Challenges

Innovation must play a key role in each company.

An EPRI vice president cites areas of concern in each part of the electricity value chain. How can IOUs overcome the formidable difficulties ahead of them?

Facing the Climate Challenge

Climate risks are entering the calculus for utility investment strategies.

Utilities are eager to invest in new power capacity—in part to build rate base and in part because they recognize the danger of relying too much on a single fuel source. Environmental issues, however, are adding greater complexity to company strategies for achieving fuel diversity.

Waiting on NERC: What's Next for Cyber-Security?

As NERC’s CIP standards advance, utilities move ahead, haltingly, with implementation.

Utilities are preparing for the eventual enforcement of new reliability rules from the North American Electric Reliability Council. As the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission continues its review of the proposed standards, we take a closer look at the effect of these rules on cyber-security, and offer a broad overview of all of the proposed reliability standards.

Defining the New Policy Conflicts

Failing to address and adapt to the new ratemaking realities could result in increased costs for the economy.

The approaching 100th anniversary of regulation by public utility commissions in the United States calls for some reflection. How much have things changed, and how much have they stayed the same?

Calling EPACT's Bluff

How Congress opened another can of worms with its call for regional joint boards to study power-plant dispatch.

Did Congress really invite the industry to re-examine the concept of economic dispatch, as practiced by the regional grid operators and RTOs, through market bids, day-ahead markets, a centralized auction, and a uniform market-clearing price? Perhaps not, but skeptics of RTO practice have called the bluff, if that’s what it was.

Wind and the Environment: The EPA's Tech Divide

Does the Clean Air Act require the agency to consider the most low-emission coal plant technologies in permitting new plants?

Why doesn’t its interpretation of the Clean Air Act consider the most low-emission coal plant technologies?

East Vs. West: Growing the Grid

The models and motives behind tomorrow’s transmission expansion.

Major transmission projects based on two distinct models are showing signs of life. What can these projects teach us about future transmission investment?