Proposed model bill would improve reliability of America’s electrical grid

The venerable American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) recently held its 51st annual convention in Denver, Colorado.

ALEC is a nonprofit founded to promote Jeffersonian limited-government policies. It works with state legislators and the private sector to produce solutions for myriad issues facing state governments and their residents.

I have worked with ALEC’s Energy, Environment, and Agriculture Taskforce (EEA) for nearly 30 years. Among other things, it develops model legislation that states can adapt to their own needs.

This year’s EEA meetings saw the introduction of a number of impressive model bills. Two written by my organization, the Heartland Institute, would shore up the electric power grid in states trying to attract Big Tech/AI hubs. The bills aim to ensure that the electricity these power-hungry facilities require is paid for by the companies demanding it and is supplied on a reliable basis by traditional sources.

Ensuring that the power grid is not compromised by the added demand coming from Big Tech and AI will prevent socializing the cost of new demand onto ratepayers. And it will secure the power grid for residents and small businesses.

One model bill adopted by ALEC is long overdue: legislation requiring that state utility regulators set aside a position on their boards for a ratepayer advocate. That person would be dedicated solely to ensuring that utility plans brought before the commission minimize the cost of monopoly utilities’ new construction and rate plans, while firming up reliability.

Another model bill that ALEC adopted requires that sources of electric power be labeled to account for the full range of environmental and economic impacts. This allows for an apples-to-apples comparison of proposed and existing energy sources.

Yet another model bill adopted by ALEC that should prove particularly valuable to state residents is the Affordable, Reliable and Clean Energy Security Act. The bill is based on an unassailable premise: that “energy security is paramount to economic growth,” and, accordingly, that affordable, reliable electric power from clean sources is fundamental to our families’ and communities’ future prosperity.

The “security” portion of the bill is twofold:

• To establish the security of the electric power grid and supply, it requires that fuel sources “must be primarily produced domestically within the United States” and that “the infrastructure necessary to deliver energy to the customer should minimize reliance on foreign nations for critical materials or manufacturing.”
• To establish security for people dependent on electricity for their daily lives, it defines acceptable energy sources as those “readily available 24/7.” So, power sources dependent upon the vagaries of the weather (wind) or the time of day (solar) need not apply.

Affordability is secured by provisions in the bill that examine the stability of prices over time, and the cost-effectiveness of providing heating, cooking, and generating electricity.

The legislation enshrines the need for reliability by requiring a minimum capacity factor of 50%, with the power supplied being dispatchable on demand.

The only quibble I have with the model bill comes in its definition of “clean” energy. The proposal says that a clean energy source “releases reduced air pollutants,” and then goes on to specify that nuclear and natural gas meet the definition. They do—but so do modern, state-of-the-art, coal-fueled power plants, which produce much lower emissions than older plants.

Coal also meets all the requirements of reliability, security, and affordability defined in the legislation. We have more coal than any fuel source, and the price of coal is less volatile than that of competing fuels. For America’s long-term well-being, coal needs to stay in our energy mix.

Having said this, I’m pleased that the bill was adopted. The perfect should not be the enemy of the good—or, in this case, the very good.

ALEC advanced some good model legislation this year, and there’s more in the hopper. All the bills advance the interests of states and their residents. Now it’s time for legislators to do right by their constituents and their economies by adopting versions of bills that fit their respective states’ unique requirements.

These pieces of model legislation are good for U.S. energy security, for electric power grid reliability, and for residents’ pocketbooks and businesses’ bottom lines.

What patriotic American would object to that?

H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D. (hsburnett@heartland.org) is the director of the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy at The Heartland Institute, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research organization based in Arlington Heights, Illinois.

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