Reinventing Fire in Southern California: Distributed Resources and the San Onofre Outage

The prolonged shut-down of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in Southern California could mark an important turning point for the region’s electricity system. Distributed and demand-side resources offer a portfolio of solutions to help fill the near-term supply gap, while also advancing California’s long-term goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and supporting local economic development and job creation. This discussion paper assesses the role the following distributed energy resources could play in the absence of SONGS: behavioral savings; demand response; energy efficiency; solar photovoltaics; combined heat and power and fuel cells; storage. That paper includes information on what the potentials for these resources are, how their economics affect adoption, how much time it takes to install them, and how long we expect them to persist. We also offer recommendations to unlock these resources and encourage their adoption by utilities and their customers.

 

Reinventing Fire Electricity Sector Methodology

This document provides RMI's methodology for the analysis of the electricity sector in Reinventing Fire.

 

Keeping the Lights on While Transforming Electric Utilities

This article discusses the new electricity paradigm required of electric utilities in the face of climate change, energy security concerns, and disruptive technologies. The new paradigm for utilities is based on energy efficiency, demand response, renewables, energy storage, and distributed generation.

 

Assessing the Electric Productivity Gap and the U.S. Efficiency Opportunity

This paper explores how effectively the United States has used electricity and compares energy efficiency implementation by state. This paper analyzes state-level electric productivity to determine which states are the most productive with their electricity.

 

Nuclear Power's Competitive Landscape

A hotly debated topic, the present and future state of nuclear power and its competitors are the subject of this presentation by Amory Lovins at RMI2009. This presentation was part of a plenary debate with Robert Rosner entitled, "Nuclear: Fix or Folly?". The accompanying video of the entire debate is available at RMI's Video page.

 

Towering Design Flaws

In August, 2003 the American electrical grid failed and caused blackouts throughout the country. Amory Lovins wrote this article in response to that energy catastrophe. He argues that the cause of the blackouts was an overcentralized power grid and inefficient pricing policies. Lovins claims that the fastest and cheapest way to save energy dollars and pollution is to use energy efficiently. In addition to efficiency measures, electric utilities and customers can make use of demand response technology to save energy and lower the burden on the grid. Distributed (or decentralized) generation is another option that Lovins argues can reduce the likelihood of grid failures so that blackouts do not occur again.

 

California Dreaming

This commentary in American Spectator was written in response to an article by William Tucker that attributed the California energy crisis to inaccurate causes. Amory Lovins refutes many of Tuckers claims.

A similar exchange, published in The Weekly Standard, is also available.

 

Comments to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

In 1995, Amory Lovins wrote a letter to the Secretary of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission commenting on the proposed rulemaking on open access transmission. His primary concern in the proposed rule was the treatment of demand-side options (end-use efficiency and load management) and the potential for new dispersed generators whose total cost undercuts the short-run marginal wholesale power cost. Lovins urges the Commission to seek symmetry between supply and demand side resources in valuing grid decongestion. He also argues that the wholesale market is not sufficiently compatible with the distributed utility.

 

Apples, Oranges, and Horned Toads

This article, published in The Electricity Journal, is Amory Lovins' response to Paul Joskow & Donald Marron's criticism of utility demand-side management programs. Joskow and Marron are critical of RMI's stated costs of potential electric end-use efficiency. In the article, Lovins explains the differences in RMI's technical-potential analyses and Joskow & Marron's assertions.