Accelerating Decarbonization in the United States Technology, Policy, and Societal Dimensions (2024) / Chapter Skim
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From page 325... ...
. 13 Another study that modeled the impacts of the IRA's clean electricity tax credits found that they "are projected to cut the average residential bill by 3.4 percent in 2030 and 4.6 percent in 2035, relative to business as usual (Figure 3)
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A recent nine-model intercomparison published in Science shows the IRA resulting in wind and solar growth rates ranging from 10 to 99 GW/year between 2021 to 2035, with particularly wide variation in predicted increases in energy storage, ranging from 1 to 18 GW/year. Despite this variation, generation and emissions outcomes for the power sector are more closely aligned across models by 2035, with key provisions from the law resulting in emissions reductions of 43 percent and 48 percent below 2005 levels by 2035 (Bistline et al.
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. Chapters 5 and 11 of the committee's report also discuss new, reformed, and innovative aspects of public engagement and activities of subnational governments as critical to addressing non-technical issues associated with transitions in the power sector.
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These recommendations are intended to complement and amplify the recommendations the committee makes in other chapters -- including with respect to equity, workforce, public engagement, subnational action, financial markets, and end-use electrification and efficiency improvements in the built environment and transportation sectors. Note that this chapter concludes with one recommendation that relates to ensuring the readiness of technology options for a decarbonized electric system for the period beyond 2030/2035.
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As recommended in the first report, Congress should adopt a cap on power-sector GHG emissions, or clean electricity standard for the power sector, which would be designed to reach roughly 75 percent clean electricity share by 2030 and a declining emissions intensity reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. Build-Out of the Electric Transmission Grid Given the essential role that the nation's electric transmission system will need to play in enabling decarbonization of the grid in a relatively affordable and timely way, it is im perative that the nation moves forward with planning, siting, building out, and paying for expansion of the high-voltage transmission system.
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. That outcome depends on more than doubling the historical pace of electricity transmission expansion over the last decade in order to interconnect new renewable resources at sufficient pace and meet growing demand from electric vehicles, heat pumps, and other electrification.
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The Essential Role of Clean Electricity FIGURE 6-12 (b) Transmission grid as of 2035 (estimates to support wind and solar generation in E+ scenario with base siting availability)
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presenting the potential to decrease inter-regional transmission build-out (Blanford and Bistline 2021) , and with some modeling suggesting that the power sector can attain 100 percent clean energy by 2035 under a constrained technology and infrastructure scenario limiting transmission build-out (Denholm et al.
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, FERC, the states, transmission companies, grid operators, and public stakeholders should expeditiously implement the new provisions of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)
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States, too, have begun examining in earnest the potential implications of new, enhanced, expanded wholesale power markets. In December 2021, the Colorado Public Utilities Commission, for example, found significant consumer, environmental, and eco nomic benefits of a Western RTO, which could reduce electricity costs for consumers by up to 5 percent annually while accelerating the state's clean energy goals (CO PUC 2021)
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should work with Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs) and regional energy imbalance markets to ensure that wholesale power markets in all parts of the country are designed to accommodate the shift to 100 percent clean power.
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inter connected to the distributed system have experienced cost reductions so that these technologies have become relatively attractive for meeting renewable energy goals and for providing customers and the utility itself with more options. (DOE has a goal of seeing another 20 GW of community solar deployed commercially by 2025 -- for example, DOE [2021]
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. In many cases, DERs like energy efficiency, rooftop solar, and on-site battery storage can serve needs locally and avoid some generating and delivery capacity additions (although such outcomes are quite location-specific and in some cases the addition of DERs can cause additional investment in local distribution system capacity and capa bilities above and beyond what might otherwise occur on the local grid; see further discussion below)
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to facilitate the integration of DERs. Just as importantly as these di rect benefits, accelerating adoption of DERs can also help invest households and com munities in the clean energy transition and recognize and reap some of the rewards of the transition, both of which are important elements in building the social contract for the transition (see Chapters 2 and 5)
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Recommendation 6-6: Support Planning, Public Participation, and Investment in Modernizing Local Grids. Decision makers on utility service provision (i.e., state utility regulators for jurisdictional investor-owned utilities and boards of cooperatives, municipal electric utilities and other publicly owned utilities)
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to advance net-zero energy transitions depend on critical minerals whose supply chains are subject to numerous domestic challenges and international risks (DOE 2022a; Kelly and Nelson 2023)
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Additionally, Congress should support the Department of Energy's work to secure resilient supply chains that will be critical in harnessing emissions outcomes and cap turing the economic opportunity inherent in the energy-sector transition. Table 6-1 summarizes all the recommendations in this chapter to support decarbon izing the electricity system.
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Policy Portfolio Limit Power-Sector reductions Greenhouse Gas • Health Emissions 6-2: Support the Federal Energy • Electricity • GHG reductions Siting and Expansion of the Regulatory • Non-federal • Health Permitting Transmission Grid Commission actors • Public Reforms for (FERC) , Department engagement Interstate of Energy (DOE)
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Objective(s) Categories Short-Form Implementing Addressed by Addressed by Addressed by Recommendation Recommendation Recommendation Recommendation Recommendation 6-5: Support States, localities, • Electricity • GHG reductions Ensuring Equity, Equitable and tribal • Non-federal • Equity Justice, Health, Deployment of governments actors • Health and Fairness of Distributed Energy • Public Impacts Resources engagement Siting and Permitting Reforms for Interstate Transmission 6-6: Support Decision makers • Electricity • GHG reductions Ensuring Planning, Public on utility service • Non-federal • Equity Procedural Equity Participation, and provision actors • Health in Planning Investment in (i.e., state utility • Public and Siting New Modernizing Local regulators for engagement Infrastructure and Grids jurisdictional Programs investor-owned Siting and utilities and Permitting boards of Reforms for cooperatives, Interstate municipal electric Transmission utilities, and other publicly owned utilities)
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2022a. "America's Strategy to Secure the Supply Chain for a Robust Clean Energy Transition." https://www.energy.
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2023. "EPA Proposes New Carbon Pollution Standards for Fossil Fuel-Fired Power Plants to Tackle the Climate Crisis and Protect Public Health." https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-proposes-new-carbon-pollution-standards fossil-fuel-fired-power-plants-tackle.
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2022. "Clean Electricity Tax Credits in the Inflation Reduction Act Will Reduce Emissions, Grow Jobs, and Lower Bills." Issue Brief 22-09-2.
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2022. "Distribution System Research Roadmap: Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy." Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, prepared for the Depart ment of Energy.
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2022. "Inflation Reduction Act: Overview of Energy-Related Tax Provisions -- An Energy Transition ‘Game Changer.'" August 18.
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Leadership on Clean Energy Technologies." https://www.whitehouse. gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/04/22/fact-sheet-president-biden-sets-2030-greenhouse-gas pollution-reduction-target-aimed-at-creating-good-paying-union-jobs-and-securing-u-s-leadership-on-clean energy-technologies.
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A broad range of public policies and private actors make decisions fundamental to the built environment that, in turn, define how, how much, and what kind of energy is consumed. The overall reduction of total energy demand in the built environment through energy-efficiency improvements and advanced energy management is as critical for U.S.
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Movement along that path has accelerated since the first report's publication owing to new public funding and supportive policy at all levels of government, not the least of which are the IIJA, the IRA, and their combined federal investment in the electrification and energy-efficient improvement of our residential and commercial building stocks, the largest component of the stationary built envi ronment's contribution to GHGs by far. Combined with the current administration's presumed targets for the built environment's decarbonization by 2050, simply put, the goal posts have moved.
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• Recommendation 7-5: Build Capacity for States and Municipalities to Adopt and Enforce Increased Regulatory Rigor for Buildings and Equipment. • Recommendation 7-6: Increase Research, Development, Demonstration, and Deployment for Built Environment Decarbonization Interventions.
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as well as detailed heat pump adoption targets (as the largest technological opportunity for both electrification and efficiency gains in the building sector)
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Last, the committee provided specific measurable targets for one strategy toward these decarbonization goals. The primary technological vehicle for reaching the report's targets is the electrification of space and water heating; the report set a target of increasing electric heat pumps' share of heating and hot water equipment to 25 percent in residential buildings and 15 percent in commercial buildings by 2030 (NASEM 2021a, p.
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However, the ambition for the built environment's decarbonization is more muted than for other sectors, and less ambitious than the committee's prior (and achievable) 30 percent reduction goal.
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. Through direct combustion alone, buildings consumed an aggregate 7.2 quadrillion BTUs in energy from natural gas, heating oils, and other carbon-based fuels according to recent consumption surveys, almost two-thirds of it coming from the housing stock and the remainder from commercial buildings (Table 7-1)
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SOURCE: Tabulations of 2015 Residential Energy Consumption Surveys and 2018 Commercial Buildings, courtesy of the U.S. Energy Information Administration, May 2018 and December 2022 (EIA 2018, 2022a)
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. SOURCE: Tabulations of 2018 Commercial Buildings and 2020 Residential Energy Consumption Surveys, courtesy of the U.S.
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For example, 75 percent of homes built before 1950 currently rely on natural gas compared to 55 percent of the homes built more recently. Although 60 percent of commercial buildings built before the mid-1900s rely on natural gas, that share is about 47 percent in the buildings built in the past decade (see Table 7-2)
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20000 15000 10000 5000 0 End-Use Energy Consumed by the Residential Sector Total Energy Consumed by the Residential Sector End-Use Energy Consumed by the Commercial Sector Total Energy Consumed by the Commercial Sector FIGURE 7-1 Primary end use and total energy consumption for residential and commercial buildings, 1949–2021 (trillion BTUs)
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