Utilities

Target for ‘decarbonization’ isn’t soon enough for some

The timetable by which U.S. electric utilities are expected to achieve “zero-carbon” output is about to become much shorter, and some state governments have indicated that they aren’t going to go along with the plan without a fight.

As reported by numerous news organizations this past fall, the incoming Biden administration has promised to achieve a “zero-carbon” power sector by 2035, with the ultimate goal of “net-zero emissions” by 2050. (As so many others do in discussions about power generation, the Administration speaks of carbon and carbon dioxide as if the two are synonymous. They’re not.)

Meanwhile, many U.S. electric utilities and the primary organization that speaks for them are saying that the 2035 deadline is unrealistic and that an attempt to meet it would be accompanied by significant sacrifices in quality of service.

The Energy and Policy Institute of San Francisco, which calls itself a “watchdog organization working to expose attacks on renewable energy and counter misinformation by fossil fuel and utility interests,” is among the more strident voices demanding that utilities be pressed to act more quickly than the utilities say they’re prepared to do.

“Most of the country’s largest investor-owned utilities are on trajectories to phase out their use of coal and gas far too slowly to meet that 2035 target,” the Institute says, accusing utilities and their trade associations of conspiring to promote “denial and disinformation campaigns.”

Standing opposed to the Energy and Policy Institute on the issue is the Edison Electric Institute of Washington, which recognizes that radical goals rarely can be pursued without undesirable consequences.

“We are united in our commitment to get the energy we provide as clean as we can, as fast as we can, while keeping customer reliability front and center as always,” reads the Edison Electric Institute’s statement on the issue. “EEI’s member companies are on a path to reduce carbon emissions at least 80% by 2050, compared with peak levels in 2005.”

In the view of the Edison Electric Institute, the U.S. electric utility industry has been making a good-faith effort to clean up its act. Nearly 40% of all U.S. power generation comes today from carbon-free sources, and as of the end of 2019, the Institute’s member companies had reduced CO2 emissions 45% below 2005 levels. Electric companies are investing more than $110 billion per year to improve the grid, diversify the “energy mix,” and integrate new technologies “that benefit customers.”

But according to the Energy and Policy Institute, these efforts aren’t good enough. In spite of the industry’s long-term goals, “the actual trajectories at which the utilities are promising to decarbonize . . . vary considerably,” says the Institute, which also accuses the utility industry of “relying on carbon offsets and accounting tricks and loopholes” to misdirect the public.

A less combative tone was struck by Scientific American, which reproduced an article by Benjamin Storrow of E&E News that acknowledges that some sort of compromise will be necessary.

“Achieving a successful climate policy may depend on both sides coming to a resolution,” Storrow wrote, giving credit to utilities, which “have almost single-handedly driven down carbon dioxide emissions across the U.S. economy in recent years.”

According to Morning Consult, a data intelligence and analysis firm, only one major utility, Northern Indiana Public Service Co., is on track to meet the Biden administration’s goal of “carbon-free” power by 2035. Northern Indiana, according to Morning Consult, “is the country’s only large investor-owned utility that is decarbonizing at a rate that would be sufficient, having set its own target of a 90% emissions reduction by 2028 from a 2005 baseline.”

Several other utilities, including Xcel Energy, WEC Energy Group, and Consumers Energy, are “within the ballpark” of hitting the 2030 target, but others, among them Duke Energy and Southern Co., are lagging, having stuck with 2050 as their target.

At the state level, the controversy is breaking down along familiar political fault lines.

Mississippi, North Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, and Arkansas — all states governed by Republican majorities — have indicated that they will challenge efforts to impose the stricter deadline, Reuters reported last month. Utah and Missouri are taking a wait-and-see attitude.

Some are saying that the utility industry is moving in the right direction even without federal mandates.

“Our power companies have voluntarily embraced sources of alternative energy without heavy-handed regulation from government,” Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson said in a statement quoted by Reuters. “Which indicates to me that they are following the markets. We prefer a marketdriven response to government mandates.” — Kevin Jones EA

— Photo by Alexander Khodarev / picspress

Many U.S. electric utilities and the primary organization that speaks for them are saying that the 2035 deadline is unrealistic