USA: Berkeley Lab Introduces Series of Reports on Challenges Facing the U.S. Electric Industry

Innovative Report Series to Help Inform Decisions by Utility Regulators, Policymakers and Electric Industry (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)

First two reports by Berkeley Lab look at future challenges facing the electric industry and its regulators

The electric industry in the U.S. is undergoing significant changes for a number of reasons, including new and improved technologies, changing customer desires, low load growth in many regions, and changes in federal and state policies and regulations.

A new series of reports commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability through Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s (Berkeley Lab) Electricity Markets and Policy Group will advance the discussion by examining issues related to electric industry regulation and utility business models. The unique point-counterpoint approach sharpens the debate on trade-offs in achieving multiple objectives for the electric system, including reliability, affordability, cleaner resources and more flexibility.

The reports in the Future Electric Utility Regulation series will each be written by different thought-leaders in the electric industry, while Berkeley Lab—which serves as technical editor and contributes to the report writing—manages the series.

The first two reports were recently released:

1. Distributed Energy Resources (DERs), Industry Structure and Regulatory Responses
Steve Corneli (NRG) and Steve Kihm (Seventhwave) - (Report PDF) (Presentation PDF) (Webinar Recording)

2. Distribution Systems in a High DER Future: Planning, Market Design, Operation and Oversight
Paul De Martini (Newport Consulting Group) and Lorenzo Kristov (CAISO) - (Report PDF) (Presentation PDF) (Webinar Recording)

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