ICF
Justin Mackovyak is Vice President, Utility Program Implementation at ICF.
ICF recently released an important report, “Rising current: America’s growing electricity demand.” It discusses how demand for electricity will grow over the next twenty-five years, where it will grow, and the potential impacts on the reliability and affordability of electricity in the United States.
The increase in electricity demand is expected to lead to higher electricity bills. The extent of the increase is expected to vary from utility to utility based on underlying market dynamics. For a sample of utilities’ residential retail rates, ICF’s modeling forecasts an increase between fifteen and forty percent by 2030 compared to 2025, depending on the market. By 2050, electricity rates could double for some utilities.
But there is good news, for example, ICF finds that to offset cost pressures, electric system stakeholders will leverage demand-side management programs that promote demand response, energy efficiency, and behind-the-meter capacity such as rooftop solar and battery storage. To dig deeper, Public Utilities Fortnightly’s Executive Editor Steve Mitnick discussed the report with one of the authors, ICF’s Justin Mackovyak. The other authors are ICF’s Lalit Batra, Deb Harris, George Katsigiannakis, Himali Parmar, and Maria Scheller.
PUF’s Steve Mitnick: Give a sense of this analysis and its rigor and granularity.