Power Planning Over Next 20 Years Marked by Load Growth, Uncertainty
California Energy Markets
The next 20 years will be marked with increasing challenges and uncertainty regarding resource procurement and energy planning, including in the West, according to a prominent expert.
“It’s going to be more complicated to figure out what to buy and how to buy it,” Arne Olson, a senior partner at Energy and Environmental Economics, said at a recent gathering of California community choice aggregators in Irvine. He said that in the face of significant load growth, there are many uncertainties around policy in a somewhat chaotic environment regarding the federal government. “We are starting to get to the end of the road for four-hour batteries,” Olson said during a presentation at the annual conference of the California Community Choice Association.
Olson noted that compared with investor-owned utilities, CCAs are “more embedded in their communities,” with local officials serving on individual CCA boards. “I think these are the right people to be making these decisions on behalf of CCA customers,” he said.
“I think that the CCAs are well positioned to rise through this storm and rise to the challenge,” Olson added.
Read more here: Power Planning Over Next 20 Years Marked by Load Growth, Uncertainty | Regional Roundup | newsdata.com
