Electricity rates have increased substantially in recent years.
But if you think your energy bill is expensive now, wait another decade and you’ll long for those good old days.
The United States, like other developed nations, will see historic increases in electricity demand due to the electrification of vehicles and heating.
The country is also phasing out conventional baseload power plants, which are slowly being replaced by less reliable green generation systems such as wind turbines and solar panels.
This trend will be much more pronounced in the northeastern United States, including my home state of Connecticut, where I am a state senator and ranking member of the legislature’s Energy Committee.
According to ISO New England, which regulates energy throughout the Northeast, Regional electricity demand will increase by around 70% by 2040.
The region’s largest utility company, Eversource, expects demand to increase by 150% by 2050.
But supply is not keeping pace.
The proposed wind farms are suffering significant cost overruns above 50%, in addition to the fact that the price of the original wind contracts was already more than double the wholesale cost of electricity.
As a result, many wind developers are suffering significant hits to their stock prices, while others are withdrawing from the US market entirely.
We all want affordable, reliable and clean energy.
But economic trends – along with an endless series of bad political decisions – are making this more difficult to achieve.
Although these problems are difficult to solve, federal, regional, and state policymakers must do the best they can.
An easy task is for states to reform their Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS), as we did in Connecticut this year, which will reduce costs and increase the reliability of the electric grid.
Some 36 states have an RPS which requires that a certain percentage of energy be generated from clean energy sources. And this subsidizes those generators at the expense of others.
The problem is that almost all states exclude nuclear power from RPS eligibility and also limit the amount of hydropower that is eligible. This makes no sense.
Hydroelectric and nuclear power emit less carbon than their solar counterparts and operate much more reliably, even when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing.
On top of that, existing nuclear and hydroelectric facilities (many of which are being recklessly closed) cost less to operate and keep online than politically popular alternatives.
For example, the Orsted wind project in Connecticut was contracted at approximately $100/MWh, Excluding hundreds of millions of dollars for infrastructure construction, roughly double the cost of a power purchase agreement with the Millstone nuclear plant.
It was in this context that the ranking member of the Connecticut Energy Committee and I presented a plan in January to make all nuclear and hydropower eligible for RPS certification.
We wanted to level the playing field so that all “clean” energy opportunities for our state are considered, not just those typically considered “green.”
In testimony last February, The state’s Public Utilities Regulatory Authority predicted that such reforms could generate significant savings for consumers.
Ultimately, we reached a compromise with our Democratic counterparts (who have a majority in the legislature) to allow more hydropower and any newly built nuclear power to be eligible to meet the state’s requirements.
The change to Connecticut’s RPS makes us the second state after Indiana to include nuclear energy in its Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard.
The reform is simple but can substantially reduce the cost of clean energy programs while strengthening our increasingly fragile grid.
If this reform were in place years ago, concerns about rolling blackouts over the next decade would be less serious.
Nuclear plants that were closed for economic reasons, such as Indian Point, Vermont Yankee, Oyster Creek, Pilgrim and others, could continue to operate and produce energy. The same is true for many hydroelectric facilities.
There are dozens of additional states that could easily make nuclear and hydropower eligible to meet their existing renewable energy portfolio standards.
This would not only keep legacy nuclear and hydroelectric facilities operating, but would also increase the likelihood that new ones will be built, especially as nuclear technology improves.
This is a simple way for state lawmakers to reduce electricity bills in the short term and reduce the likelihood of rolling blackouts in the long term. But we must act now, before it is too late, before the lights go out.
Ryan Fazio (R-36) is a state senator in Connecticut.
