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    Gavan, John C., and Rob Gramlich. John C. Gavan and Rob Gramlich - A New State-Federal Cooperation Agenda for Regional and Interregional Transmission, 2021. Publisher's VersionAbstract

    Excerpt from the Introduction:

    The experience of grid operators and planners in the United States and around the world has shown that both decarbonization and power system resilience will require large-scale regional and inter-regional trans- mission expansion. In the United States, transmission planning, cost recovery, and siting are all subject to both state and federal jurisdiction. To meet the challenge of expanding transmission to implement decarbonization, the Federal Energy Regulation Commission (FERC) and the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) recently announced the Joint Federal-State Task Force on Electric Transmission to focus on this issue.1 Resolving issues of siting and cost recovery for interstate electric transmission lines will encourage constructive state-federal cooperation. The task force and related regional and national coordination among the states, FERC, the Department of Energy (DOE), and federally regulated transmission providers will be critical to ensuring a resilient and clean power system.

    Hogan, William W. Transmission Investment Beneficiaries and Cost Allocation: New Zealand Electricity Authority Proposal, 2020.Abstract
    hogan_ea_report_020120.pdf

    Excerpt from the introduction:

     

    In a 2019 Issues Paper under its Transmission Pricing Review, the Electricity Authority of New Zealand set out a framework for efficient electricity system investment, cost allocation, and pricing. The basic design accords with beneficiary-pays principles. The challenges of transmission investment preclude pure market approaches and require consistency across both competitive and monopoly elements of the system. In comments on the Authority’s proposal, submissions of some parties include critiques or alternative recommendations that appeal to implicit assumptions inconsistent with the basic requirements of the technology and associated electricity market components. Although perfection is only possible under narrow conditions, the Authority’s framework provides a careful balance that adheres to first principles and can accommodate workable implementation.

    Hogan, William W., Michael Caramanis, Elli Ntakou, and Aranya Chakrabortty. “Co-Optimization of Power and Reserves in Dynamic T&D Power Markets With Nondispatchable Renewable Generation and Distributed Energy Resources .” In, 2016. Publisher's VersionAbstract
    Marginal-cost-based dynamic pricing of electric· ity services, including real power, reactive power, and reserves, may provide unprecedented efficiencies and system synergies that are pivotal to the sustainability of massive re· newable generation integrat ion. Extension of wholesale high-voltage power markets to allow distribution network connected prosumers to participate, albeit desirable, has stalled on high transaction costs and the lack of a tractable market clearing framework. This paper presents a distributed, massively parallel architecture that enables tractable transmission and distribution locational marginal price (T&DLMP) discovery along with optimal scheduling of centralized generation, decentralized conventional and flexible loads, and distributed energy resources (DERs). DERs include distributed generation; electric vehicle (EV) battery charging and storage; heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) and c:ombined heat & power (CHP) microgenerators; computing; volt/var control devices; grid-friendly applianc:es; smart transformers; and more. The proposed iterative distributed architecture can discover T&DLMPs while capturing the full c:omplexity of each participating DER's intertemporal preferences and physical system dynamics.
    Pfeifenberger, Johannes, and Judy Chang. “Well-Planned Electric Transmission Saves Customer Costs: Improved Transmission Planning Is Key to the Transition to a Carbon Constrained Future.” In, 2016.Abstract
    wires_brattle_report_transmissionplanning_june2016.pdf
    Excerpt for the Executive Summary
    The electric power industry is transforming rapidly due to low natural gas prices, technological changes, dramatic cost reductions in renewable generation, and increasingly ambitious environmental policy goals and consumer preferences. The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Clean Power Plan (CPP) is perhaps the most visible and heavily-debated regulatory mandate in this trend toward an environmentally-constrained electricity industry. Much of the industry’s discussion about CPP and related environmental objectives has focused on energy efficiency, reducing coal-fired generation, and adding more renewable generation. This whitepaper complements those discussions by showing how a well-planned transmission system can help meet environmental objectives at lower overall costs, saving customers tens of billions of dollars compared to a system that is primarily planned to focus on more immediate needs to meet reliability requirements. The current uncertainties over CPP implementation are not likely to change the ongoing trend toward a clean power future, given that both market forces and policy preferences for cleaner energy sources are pushing in the same direction: natural gas prices currently are projected to remain relatively low for the foreseeable future, the costs of various renewable energy technologies continue to decrease, and customer preferences are evolving toward having more control over the their energy usage, including the energy source. Furthermore, many states, towns, corporations, and consumers are pursuing their goal of reducing emissions from electricity generation, independently of federal and state regulations. Such trends will invariably shift the country’s generation mix from coal to natural gas and renewable resources, with necessary upgrades to the nation’s transmission grid.

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