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S&P Global: New England Energy Transition Could Require 71 GW of New Clean Energy Capacity

Posted by Jared Anderson on Jul 1, 2020

S&P Global reported on New England's collaborative "Future Grid Study" to transition energy resources,quoting AEE's Caitlin Marquis. Read excerpts below and the entire S&P Global piece here (sub. req.).  

With the energy transition underway in New England, power market participants are considering transition pathways that could include installing 58 GW-71 GW of generation capacity and 3 GW-10 GW of storage capacity by 2040, along with critical market changes.

The New England power industry is developing a "Future Grid Study" which is a collaborative effort among regional industry stakeholders, the New England states and ISO New England to further "assess and explore potential reliability and operational issues in light of evolving state energy and environmental policies," according to a New England Power Pool memo describing the effort that was addressed at a July 1 joint meeting of the NEPOOL Markets and Reliability Committees...

Other market participants said the Future Grid Study must include focus on power market design changes that will be needed to ensure new technologies are allowed to fairly compete.

As the region becomes more dependent on distributed energy resources, variable renewable energy generation, load reduction and dynamic load shifting, it will be important to "ensure that these and other advanced energy resources are able to fully participate" in the ISO-NE markets, trade group Advanced Energy Economy, said in a July 1 presentation given at the NEPOOL meeting.

Studies have shown that inverter-based resources like wind, solar and batteries can supply a range of grid services, "if incentivized and integrated accordingly," AEE said.

Study inputs should acknowledge technology change rates, which tend to outpace projections, AEE recommended. For example, in 2000 the US Energy Information Administration projected 12 billion kWh of wind power generation and 1.3 billion kWh of solar output in 2020, while actual 2019 data showed 300 billion kWh of wind and 104 billion kWh of solar power production, AEE said.

Other market participants also focused on power market design changes that might be needed to achieve public policy climate goals...

Read the entire S&P Global piece here (sub. req.).  

Topics: United In The News