A Bizarre Trump Administration Proposal
Energy Secretary Perry has announced an effort by the U.S. Department of Energy (USDOE) to win support from the Federal Energy Regulatory Agency (FERC) to establish a mandate that utilities must adopt fossil fuel generation to, in the words of the press release, "...requiring [FERC's] organized markets to develop and implement reforms that would fully price generation resources necessary to maintain the reliability and resiliency of our nation’s grid" [emphasis added]. See the press release here . While ample evidence exists that as the fraction of intermittent renewables (i.e., solar and wind, but mostly wind) increases on a utility’s system, that does negatively impact a utility's reliability that is a state-level issue. As such, it is within the purview of the utility and its state regulatory apparatus to address such problems. Additionally, such problems are well-known to both utilities and their state-level commissions. It's also true that corrective ac...