When you think about who is going to be hit the hardest by pollution, whether it’s conventional air water and soil pollution or climate change, it is very often low-income communities and communities of color. The undercutting of these kinds of protections is going to have a disproportionate impact on these very same communities.
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Department of Energy and Related Commissions
ENERGY INFORMATION ADMINISTRATION (EIA)
Mission/Overview
The U.S. Energy Information Administration “collects, analyzes, and disseminates independent and impartial energy information to promote sound policymaking, efficient markets, and public understanding of energy and its interaction with the economy and the environment.””°
Needed Reforms
EIA is not an inherently problematic agency and historically has provided independent and impartial analysis. Requests for EIA analyses can be made by the Administration or from Members of Congress or congressional committees. EIA needs to be committed to providing unbiased forecasting and data so that policymakers, industry, and the public can have a clear understanding of our energy resources and energy economy. Strong leadership will be needed to ensure that data and reporting are not misused to promote a politicized “energy transition.”
New Policies
• 6Clarify levelized cost of electricity. “Levelized cost of electricity (ACOE) refers to the estimated revenue required to build and operate a generator over a specified cost recovery period.”” It is used in the National Energy Modeling System (NEMS) to compare the cost of technologies to determine which technologies are expected to be constructed in the future. Although it is useful in comparing the costs of resources over time, LCOE can also mask the massive amounts of capital needed to deploy new generation. Moreover, in the case of intermittent resources such as wind and solar, LCOE does not include the cost for backup or firming power from dispatchable resources. EIA should ensure that its reporting provides an accurate assessment of generation costs. The cost of backup power for when wind and solar resources are not available should be included when comparing the technologies and reported as a separate component in the modeling documents.
• Revise reserve margins. EIA, in conjunction with FERC, NERC, regional transmission organizations (RTOs), and the electric industry, should change how electric grid reserve margins are defined and calculated. In the past, reserve margins have looked at the amount of nameplate capacity on the grid to serve peak load plus a reserve. With the increasing number of intermittent, nondispatchable resources like wind and solar, peak load and reserve margins need to be reevaluated. Reserve margins need to be timed to load changes throughout the day and consider the availability of dispatchable on-demand resources to meet load when renewables may not be available.