Portions of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) will likely be rolled back and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) chair will probably be changed and federal funding for clean energy may be lowered under the Trump administration—possibly undermining distributed energy resource (DER) and microgrid development. However, states, consumers and corporations are expected to drive progress.
That was the message from members of an expert panel that spoke during a Dec. 18 teleconference, Continuing Clean Energy Progress Under the Trump Administration, from the World Resources Institute.
The panelists said that the U.S. will need electrons from all possible energy sources—along with expanded transmission to move the electrons— to meet growing demand from data centers and electrification. For the short term, that will include natural gas plants and other fossil fuels.
Load growth had been growing at less than 1%, but it’s increasing by up to 5% in some areas, said Richard Glick, Principal, GQSenergy and former Chairman at the FERC.
“We’re not adding enough generation quickly because of the interconnection process,” he said.
In August, the Southwest Power Pool, overwhelmed by the rising wave of decentralized energy projects such as solar plus storage microgrids, requested relief from FERC. The power pool asked for FERC’s permission to delay its 2024 interconnection queue cluster study progression and to stop accepting new distributed energy project requests until the power pool can get its process under control.
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