The Start of My Annotated Bibliography

 

Week 5 Post

2.22.2019

At this point in my project I am gathering key resources to build a better understanding of what the industry and broader academic conversation is surrounding regionalized energy markets. Here is the first part of my annotated bibliography which will be completed next week.

---

“Bill Text – AB-813 Multistate Regional Transmission System Organization: Membership.” 2018. Accessed February 22, 2019. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180AB813.

This bill is one of the two California bills that I will be analyzing to explain why a regionalized wholesale energy market has not been developed in the west. Specifically, this bill died in the California Senate without any further action. The amendments to this bill would have made it possible to have a regionalized market operated from the existing California Independent System Operator by turning it into the ‘Western’ Independent System Operators. However, this would require a governance change.

—

“Bill Text – SB-350 Clean Energy and Pollution Reduction Act of 2015.” 2016. Accessed February 15, 2019. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520160SB350.

This bill is one of the two California bills that I will be analyzing to explain why a regionalized wholesale energy market has not been developed in the west. Specifically, this bill became a law and ordered the California Independent System Operator to conduct a series of studies to determine the benefits of a regional market.

—

Brint, J. Constanti, J. Hochstrasser, F. Kessler, L. 2017. “A legal and Policy Analysis of the Effect on California’s Clean Energy Laws.” Yale Environmental Protection Clinic. Yale Law School and Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. Accessed February 15, 2019. https://law.yale.edu/system/files/area/clinic/document/yaleepc_enhanced_western_grid_integration_may_2017.pdf

This article does a fantastic job of laying out one main roadblock, governance, preventing the west from becoming a regionalized market. Additionally, this work provides an in depth analysis of what a regionalized independent system operator (ISO) will do to California’s Renewable Portfolio Standard, Greenhouse Gas Emissions Performance Standard, and Carbon Cap-and-Trade Program. It also emphasis potential benefits from a regionalized ISO which included cost saving, the ability to assist the integration of renewables. This work is fundamental to my research and touches on many of the points that I need to better understand. The following quote from this article will be used in my paper: “Grid integration would allow balancing authorities to reduce their energy reserve requirements. Currently, individual BAs have to plan for resources to meet their own peak loads. With grid integration, participating entities can instead plan to meet the region’s peak load, resulting in a lower required peak generation capacity and lower costs for customers. Additional cost savings could occur from the elimination of redundant transmission access charges that are currently used with a balkanized system. Renewable energy is often transmitted over long distances through multiple transmission systems to load centers, and in the current non-ISO West this electricity incurs a wheeling charge or toll for “each segment of the contract-path.” Therefore, removing these multiple charges will reduce the cost of renewable energy resources.” (Brint 2017, 7).

—

Chernyakhovskiy, Ilya, Tian Tian, Joyce McLaren, Mackay Miller, and Nina Geller. 2016. “U.S. Laws and Regulations for Renewable Energy Grid Interconnections.” NREL/TP–6A20-66724, 1326721. https://doi.org/10.2172/1326721.

NREL is the national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy, specifically the Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy. This paper provides a basic overview of interconnection policies and distinguishing important stakeholders and the respective policies they have implemented. This work is completed in the context of the relationship of these policies and stakeholders between renewable energy resources. This paper provides very clear descriptions of which entities are responsible for specific regulation and policies which is crucial to understand when attempting to regionalize an energy market over several states.

—

Eisen, Joel B. 2005. “THE ENVIRONMENTAL RESPONSIBILITY OF THE REGIONALIZING ELECTRIC UTILITY INDUSTRY” 15: 21.

This article focus on the impacts of wholesale markets and their impact on the environment. The author addresses “environmental issues in the context of our rapidly evolving understanding of ‘restructuring.’ The market for electricity is fast becoming a series of regional marketplaces for wholesale transactions, operating on bid-based systems that move power at the lowest cost… the trend is toward regionalization, where independent entities control the transmission grid and play a major role in determining how power is delivered” (296). This type of paper is especially useful because it emphasises how regionalized markets, from carbon pricing to lowering power costs, can benefit the environment by capturing the full cost imposed onto society.

—

Fischlein, Miriam, Elizabeth J. Wilson, Tarla R. Peterson, and Jennie C. Stephens. 2013. “States of Transmission: Moving towards Large-Scale Wind Power.” Energy Policy 56 (May): 101–13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2012.11.028.

This article emphasises the role regionalized markets have played with planning and developing transmission across the United States. The paper states,“the current infrastructure supporting wind power transmission has arisen out of a regionalized grid structure…provides an overview of the distribution of wind power projects across the United States, and how they relate to existing and planned transmission lines and regional transmission organization areas. It highlights the challenges between wind and transmission in a graphical form, showing the distance between load and resource and depicting the regionalized nature of the US grid. Wind projects are very unevenly distributed across the United States and across regional transmission organizations, which operate local grids” (102). This emphasis the importance of regionalized markets in relation to large scale wind power and will play a role in my argument for why regionalized markets are beneficial.