In February of 2021, winter storm Uri wreaked havoc in Texas. Temperatures that would barely raise an eyebrow in the upper Midwest or Northeast caused two in three Texans to lose power, often for days. Water supply systems and other electricity-dependent essential services collapsed in Austin and elsewhere, some taking weeks to come back online. Hundreds died, and the storm’s disruptive impact on the local economy caused billions of dollars in damages. Texas Governor Greg Abbott and other politicians were quick to blame the state’s solar and wind generators for the widespread blackouts. Closer scrutiny, however, soon revealed that outages at fossil-fuel plants, not their renewable counterparts, were the primary cause of cascading blackouts. In fact, local solar and wind generators performed significantly better throughout Uri than the Lone Star State’s natural gas-fired power plants.
In their excellent new article, Grid Reliability Through Clean Energy, professors Alexandra Klass, Joshua Macey, Shelley Welton, and Hannah Wiseman draw on the Texas experience to debunk the common misconception that grid reliability and clean energy are at odds with one another. On the contrary, the authors argue, “the only way to secure a reliable grid under conditions of climate change is to rapidly engage in a clean-energy transition in the electricity sector.” (P. 978.) After all, global warming and other manifestations of our changing climate increase both the frequency and severity of extreme weather events like winter storm Uri. Sure, grid operators could weatherize coal and natural gas-fired power plants as well as their fuel supply to keep them running longer. But to do so would also increase the power sector’s greenhouse gas emissions, exacerbating reliability threats from climate change.
Why, then, does conventional wisdom still posit clean, low-carbon energy and grid reliability as dueling objectives rather than dual benefits of thoughtful climate and energy policy?
Professors Klass, Macey, Welton, and Wiseman convincingly argue that a series of disconnects, or “silos,” within the energy policy domain forestall a better understanding and alignment of reliability and decarbonization goals. Energy policy, they explain, is “siloed along three separate planes: (1) across environmental and reliability goals; (2) among jurisdictions (federal, regional, state, and sometimes local); and (3) along a public–private continuum of actors.” (P. 979.) For too long, the authors argue, policymakers and scholars have focused overwhelmingly on clean energy policy–with little regard for its interaction, and potential synergies, with reliability policy. Grid Reliability Through Clean Energy offers a suite of substantive and structural recommendations to facilitate better coordination and collaboration among previously siloed entities to craft and implement policies that simultaneously advance decarbonization and reliability objectives.
The authors offer four compelling case studies from across the electricity value chain to corroborate their silo theory and to anchor their policy recommendations. The first case study compares different approaches to valuing and integrating an ever-expanding range of energy resources into the nation’s various power markets. Parts of the country actively discriminate against weather-dependent solar and wind generators, while others afford privileged treatment to legacy coal plants, all in the name of grid reliability. Meanwhile, many regional electricity markets fail to accommodate state and federal clean energy policies. To remedy the resulting tensions, the authors call for rethinking the holy grail of “resource adequacy” to incorporate state policies and “prevent reliability goals from operating at cross purposes with clean energy goals.” (P. 1021.)
Next is the expansion of the nation’s electricity transmission infrastructure–a project of massive proportions that promises enormous reliability benefits while enabling greater development of low-carbon generation. Running the necessary wires, however, requires balancing private and public interests across federal, regional, state, and local levels of governance. The authors do an outstanding job of laying out the multitude of competing interests as well as the governance structures that tend to prevent direly-needed progress, from methodological differences in benefits valuation to jurisdictional conflicts to utility exits. The reader can sense the frustration that prompts the authors to concede that, unlike in the other case studies where silos can be maintained, albeit in a more connected line-up, “in this case, the state, regional, and federal silos must actually be broken down, not accommodated.” (P. 1035.)
The third case study hones in on the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), the private non-profit corporation tasked with regulating the U.S. grid’s reliability under the supervision of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Returning to winter storm Uri, the authors offer persuasive evidence that NERC’s failure to turn non-binding recommendations into mandatory regulations exacerbates reliability challenges in Texas and beyond. The authors’ triage suggests that this laissez-faire approach is, at least in part, the product of dominating private utility influence within NERC and its balkanized regional subsidiaries. Accordingly, they prescribe remedies including enhanced public-private coordination as well as a more holistic view of reliability that recognizes solar, wind, and other renewables as potential assets rather than liabilities in keeping the lights on.
Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs) that manage the grid for two-thirds of the country are at the heart of the final case study. While policymakers and scholars gravitate toward regional governance as the ideal scale for grid management, the authors caution that the mode of said management is at least as important as its scale. A range of examples illustrate the bias toward conventional, fossil resources that dominate among the utilities and transmission companies, who, in turn, dominate the membership and governance of RTOs. In the level-headed analysis that distinguishes the article throughout, the authors emphasize that suboptimal grid management by an RTO may still be better than the management practices observed in regions without RTOs. This is but one of many examples of the authors’ sense of realism that informs their ambitious, yet feasible policy recommendations. Would Congressional action be nice? Sure. In its absence, however, there are a number of existing legal authorities that FERC could use to help overcome RTO resource bias and facilitate broader recognition of clean energy’s reliability benefits.
Whether your scholarly interests lie in energy law, administrative law, climate policy, federalism, or anywhere in between, Grid Reliability Through Clean Energy is a must-read. Professors Klass, Macey, Welton, and Wiseman have each, individually, produced plenty of impactful scholarship on (clean) energy policy. With Grid Reliability Through Clean Energy, they have proven that, in the very best collaborations, the end product is, indeed, greater than the sum of its parts. In fact, I am now thinking of the four as The Beatles of Clean Energy. Like Harrison, Lennon, McCartney, and Starr, each of these professors is a rock star scholar in their own right. But bring the four of them together, and you get something truly special. Here’s hoping that Klass, Macey, Welton, and Wiseman are already working on their next album. We could all use a good soundtrack on the long and winding road to a cleaner, more reliable power grid.
