Decarbonization
Sheri Givens is CEO of the Smart Electric Power Alliance.
Now that I have been leading the Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA) for over a year, it is clear to me that one of the things that makes our organization so unique is the collective power of the numerous energy industry stakeholders — utilities, corporations, technology companies, regulators, policymakers, advocates, community-based organizations, academia, and others — that we bring together to focus on the key levers needed to achieve a carbon-free energy system.
We take great pride in our ability to amplify not only the expertise of our one thousand one hundred members but also the greater energy community.
This is why we are announcing our 5x25 initiative, which will be rolled out in early 2024, focusing on five areas where our industry will need to find practicable solutions for over the next two years to ensure we meet our carbon reduction goals. Why the next two years? We believe these upcoming investments and initiatives, which will be around for decades to come, will be critical to achieving our ambitious climate change mitigation targets.
The 5x25 initiative is spurred by the sense of urgency we feel as the impacts of the climate crisis grow more severe. There is no need to remind you of the severe weather events our nation, and world, experienced in 2023. In the wake of these events, it is impossible to ignore the gravity of the situation and the imperative to take bold, expedient action.
As each of us plan for the clean and equitable energy transition, the first step is to find consensus around the exciting opportunities we face as an industry. Our members and the broader energy community are best positioned to accelerate a clean energy transition when our goals are aligned. SEPA's 5x25 initiative identifies five crucial focus areas — resilience, transportation, storage, emerging technologies, and policy — to provide our entire energy ecosystem, including affected communities, with a clear path forward.
Resilience
As extreme weather events become more common and more severe, ensuring the reliability and stability of the electric power system is crucial. Clean energy technologies, such as grid- and customer-scale distributed generation and storage provide new options for improving resilience.
As you, your company, community, region, and state work to incorporate resilience into your clean energy journey, SEPA is here to help. Through one-on-one project support, multi-client studies, distributed energy resources for resilience feasibility studies, programmatic and regulatory support, stakeholder facilitation, consumer engagement, benchmarking, and thought leadership, SEPA is supporting industry-wide resilience efforts. We have also published reports and articles addressing resilience planning, microgrid standards and controls, and resilience and microgrid policy.
Transportation
Reducing the negative climate impacts of transportation will be crucial as we work toward our collective, carbon-reduction goals. In the United States, the transportation sector is responsible for nearly thirty percent of greenhouse gas emissions, making it the largest contributor of all sectors in our nation.
The transportation transition to low- and no-carbon vehicles is paramount to reducing the nation's total emissions. Electric vehicles also offer benefits, including lower transportation costs and improved air quality. SEPA supports the industry with resources including load modeling forecasts, technical analysis, strategic guidance, general best practices, and stakeholder-specific recommendations.
Storage
Energy storage will be paramount to providing consistent, clean, and reliable power as we harness the full potential of non-emitting generation such as wind, solar, and other renewables.
The energy industry will need to bring increasingly more intermittent, clean energy online and prepare the grid to handle the increased load of new electrification efforts to meet our climate goals and customer demand.
Energy storage helps address these issues. SEPA's energy storage work spans a broad array of technologies, end uses, audiences, and durations, including long-duration energy storage, which presents its own unique opportunities and challenges.
Emerging Technologies
Most of our nation's carbon reduction will come from technologies that are already available in the market today; however, achieving our national decarbonization goals will require new technologies across a wide range of applications. The carbon-free transformation requires integrating clean energy resources while balancing grid security, flexibility, reliability, and resilience.
SEPA members are leaders in green hydrogen, carbon capture, long-duration energy storage, and other key technologies, including advanced distribution management systems, distributed energy resources management systems, and virtual power plants. Additionally, SEPA convenes a cohort of its members annually for an international fact-finding mission to discover technologies other countries are advancing on their clean energy journeys.
Policy
The U.S. federal and state policy and regulatory landscape is a patchwork quilt of decarbonization aspirations, goals, and mandates. Innovative policies, regulations, and business models could be the key to accelerating clean energy solutions nationwide.
With expertise and insights in understanding the uniqueness of our communities, states, and regions, SEPA assists our members and other energy stakeholders in navigating the myriad of potential policy solutions through engagement, education, research, and facilitation.
We look to 2024 as an important year to showcase best practices, build new partnerships, and recognize new allies on our path to a carbon-free energy system. Decisions and investments in our energy future made over the next two years will determine the speed and success of our carbon-free transition over the next two decades-plus.
SEPA is committed to sharing and expanding our members' work, and your work, on these critical topics as we plan for 2025 and beyond. By bringing experts together, facilitating needed conversations, and increasing overall industry awareness on these five areas, we can scale new climate solutions more quickly and efficiently.
Collaboration allows us to capitalize on the expertise of the strong and growing clean energy sector. Please join us and go to our website, sepapower.org, to learn more and sign up for updates on SEPA's 5x25 initiative.
