Experts: Implement these policies to prepare for future energy demand

By EPN Staff

A new report that emerged from a Stanford University gathering of energy experts suggests new federal funding to connect power grids across the United States, along with a number of other ideas to prepare the country for a major increase in energy usage.

“Artificial intelligence processing, the renewal of domestic manufacturing and electrification of transportation are among the drivers of electricity demand,” Stanford Report said in summarizing the full report. “While this growth is good news, the U.S. power system lacks the capacity to handle it.”

The report emphasizes a need for the federal government, state and local regulators, utilities, financial institutions and large IT companies to work together. The six basic recommendations made weren’t a consensus from the February gathering of energy experts, Stanford Report said, but they emerged from those conversations.

Much of the report focuses on the country’s power grid, which needs “a transformative upgrade to meet the nation’s growing appetite for energy,” the report states.

Why it matters

American electricity demand is expected to grow anywhere between 15% and 25% over the next decade, according to the report and accompanying materials.

This follows years of relatively flat demand and nearly a decade of falling investment in major transmission projects, the report states.

Since 1990, “the average duration of power outages has nearly doubled,” the report states, “a trend likely exacerbated by upticks in extreme weather events. More frequent and severe extreme weather events are the primary threat to grid reliability.”

“Moreover, the piecemeal nature of our grid means that energy, once generated, cannot be transported to the areas where it is needed most,” the report states.

The bigger picture

The report lays out six main recommendations, along with suggested policy changes to implement those ideas. They include:

• Strengthening U.S. security with targeted trade agreements to bolster supply chains for critical minerals and needed equipment like gas turbines and transformers, both of which are in a shortage. The report also suggests improving international partnerships on key technology, like nuclear reactors.
• A “true all-of-the-above” energy strategy, likely with a short-term focus on natural gas, carbon capture, renewables and batteries and longer-term plans to bring nuclear projects online a decade or more down the road. Because nuclear development is so expensive, building new-generation Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) may require federal funding.
• Creating a federal grid investment fund to improve connections between the six main U.S. regional grids and replacing key existing transmission lines with higher-capacity cables. The funding could be modeled after the federal Highway Trust Fund.
•  Streamlining permitting processes for new energy infrastructure to cut costs and speed up the process. That may include “shot clocks” limiting the time decision-makers have to approve projects once permits are filed.

Additional details

The February gathering at Stanford brought more than 80 experts together from across the political spectrum, private sector, academia and nonprofits.

The meeting included former Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.