The West’s Power Grid Could Be Stitched Together – If Red and Blue States Buy In
Source: Stateline | By Alex Brown
For years, Western leaders have debated the creation of a regional energy market: a coordinated grid to pool solar power in Arizona, wind in Wyoming, hydro in Washington and battery storage in California. The shared resources would meet the demands of 11 different states, bolstering utilities’ local power plants with surplus energy from across the region.
“When you have a mixed market with a lot of coal plants, it creates opportunities for the Trump administration to rejigger the rules to favor coal,” said Matthew Freedman, renewables attorney with The Utility Reform Network, a California-based consumer advocacy group. “In another reality, this would have sounded like a hysterical concern, but it’s pretty obvious where [Trump’s appointees to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission] want to go.” Freedman’s group pushed California lawmakers for protections that would have given states more flexibility to withdraw from the market, while also prohibiting “resource adequacy” mandates that could be used by the feds to prop up coal. While those elements were included in a Senate version of the bill, they were stripped from the Assembly bill that ultimately was passed.
