State energy offices have a delicate balancing act in leading policy, tracking market signals, and encouraging economic development. All that is harder now that load growth is accelerating. David Terry, the president of National Association of State Energy Officials (NASEO), came on the Grid Forward Forum podcast to discuss trends within state energy offices to help get energy onto the grid quickly to grow the economy while meeting community concerns.
David and Bryce Yonker, executive director of Grid Forward, covered many topics on how the state energy offices are learning more, planning better and adjusting to new federal energy priorities. Below are just two of the questions they got to. Listen to the entire episode on our website or your favorite podcast app.
This following segment was edited for conciseness.
States are focused on increasing generation, now and future
Bryce Yonker: David, you’ve been working in and around energy and state work for some time. What’s at the top of the list for the states now? Is that dramatically different than it was a few years ago or many years ago? How are things evolving around what’s at the top of the list for states around energy?
David Terry: Getting power on the grid to meet demand is definitely at the top of the list. We just finished our six regional meetings… and the theme that came out is they’re responding to their governor and industry requests to find ways to get clean, affordable power on the grid. Reliable and affordable are key terms, not surprising.
But the change there is a recognition that we have sort of a near, medium, long-term needs that all have to happen at the same time. What we heard were states trying to address near-term advance conducting activities that will provide power at greater volumes in places where that’s possible in order to even out grid demands, especially related to data centers, manufacturing, electrification, a whole host of reasons.
Coupled with medium-term items which might be faster permitting, supply-chain issues, a variety of generation sources. And then longer-term items such as advanced nuclear, geothermal power, etc.
State-level priorities for meeting load growth
Bryce Yonker: Let’s talk about load growth. Demand forecasts have ticked up quite a bit in the last, say, 18 months. You mentioned all the states working to find ways to interconnect new resources. What are states prioritizing around how they meet the need with regards to potentially more serious demand that we’re seeing on the grid?
David Terry: Several big threads, and I’ll save the last one, which is a little bit more forward looking. In the near-term side, they really are looking for what levers they can pull that will get new generation online, whether it’s utility scale or behind the meter or whatever it is. How can they get it on faster so they don’t lose either the economic development opportunity or negatively impact prices? Some of that is literally trying to permit more quickly, whether that’s solar and storage or new gas generation, et cetera.
Another great example that’s maybe that medium term: we just left our regional meeting in the West, which was held in Alaska, and there’s a great hydroelectric project there that’s been operating for quite a number of years. There’s nearby river that captures melt from glacier that’s being moved into this hydroelectric facility to add more power. Because even in Alaska, you know, you don’t think about that being a big power demand change, but they have economic growth too and power certainly affordability issues.
The second area is just a recognition that there are obviously federal, state and local permitting that can happen more slowly or quickly, depending on things we try to streamline. But one of the really tricky ones is getting local communities ready to accept new power projects, whatever that is. It could be something controversial. It could be something simple. But if the local population isn’t informed in a really honest, straightforward way, “here’s the impact, pros, cons, what you can expect, what you should expect of the developer of the utility or whoever it is,” we see a lot of energy offices trying to get out in front of that, being a really good convener and educator of what a power project of a particular type would mean for a community. Trying to meet them where they are and answer their questions, that piece of speeding power development projects is really critical. And we hear that from every sector: nuclear, solar, wind, transmission, you name it. That’s an important step.
Getting load forecasting right for the long term
David Terry: The third one is, as I said, forward looking, but important. In general, load forecasting is not great. Utilities do their load forecasting. Some of the RTOs are engaged in that. A lot of people engaged in it. But there’s been a belief that sometimes policy is distinct from regulation. But the policies that a state pursues around economic development or things that impact energy aren’t always well reflected in load forecasts that are being done by others, whether that’s the utility or another government entity.
So the energy offices are looking at this. How can we get better at load forecasting so that we’re not overbuilding or under building? You don’t want to overbuild either, obviously. One of the interesting things that one of the states is doing (and they’ve asked to keep it quiet for the moment because they’re still working through the details of it) is they’re taking the load forecasts they have from the utilities, which have not been as accurate as they would like… and they’re overlaying everything they know about the geospatial data associated with economic development sites in their state. The major sites like big brownfields, big green fields, things that will be developed over time. And they’re looking at different models that that put those two together so that they have a better sense of what’s possible and likely, and they can plan better.
Listen to the entire discussion with Bryce and David on our favorite podcast app or here on this website.
