Twenty EV charging stations to be installed by end of 2012

DOE Office of Fossil Energy safeguards energy security via the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, domestic critical minerals from coal byproducts, and carbon capture to curb CO2, strengthening resiliency amid shocks and supporting U.S. manufacturing and defense.

Key Points

A DOE program advancing energy security through SPR stewardship, critical minerals R&D, and carbon capture.

✅ Manages the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for emergency crude supply

✅ Develops domestic critical minerals from coal and mining byproducts

✅ Deploys carbon capture, utilization, and storage to cut CO2

The global economy has just experienced a period of unique transformation because of COVID-19. The fact that remains constant in this new economic landscape is that our society relies on energy; it’s an integral part of our day-to-day lives, even as U.S. energy use has evolved over time. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, approximately 80 percent of energy consumption in the United States comes from fossil fuels, so having access to a secure and reliable supply of those energy resources is more important than ever for national energy security considerations today. Below are three examples that highlight how our work at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy (FE) helps ensure the Nation’s energy security and resiliency.

(1) Open crude oil reserves to respond to crises

FE has overall program responsibility for carrying out the mission of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), the world’s largest supply of emergency crude oil. These federally-owned stocks are stored in massive underground salt caverns along the coastline of the Gulf of Mexico. The SPR is a powerful tool U.S. leaders use to respond to a wide range of crises, including energy crisis impacts on electricity and fuels, involving crude oil disruption or demand loss.  When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the oil markets crashed and crude oil demand dropped drastically across the world. U.S. oil producers turned to the SPR to store their oil while broader energy dominance constraints were becoming evident in practice. This helped alleviate the pressure on producers to shut in oil production and proved to be a critical asset for American energy and national security.

(2) Use the Nation’s abundant coal reserves to produce valuable materials

Critical materials, including rare earth elements, are a group of chemical elements and materials with unique properties that support manufacturing of most modern technologies. They are essential components for critical defense and homeland security applications, green energy technologies, hybrid and electric vehicles, and high-value electronics. While these materials are not rare, they are hard to separate and expensive to extract. The United States relies heavily on imports from China. To reduce U.S. dependence on foreign sources, FE has a research and development program aimed at producing a domestic supply of critical materials from the Nation’s abundant coal resources and associated byproducts from legacy and current mining operations. Many of the technologies being developed can also be used to separate critical minerals from other mining materials and byproducts. Tapping into these resources has the potential to create new industries and revitalize coal communities and the workforce in coal-producing regions.

(3) Decrease carbon emissions for a cleaner energy future

FE is committed to balancing the Nation’s energy use with the need to protect the environment, and has a comprehensive portfolio of technological solutions that help keep carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions out of the atmosphere. For example, amid high natural gas prices that reinforce the case for clean electricity, the Department has been investing in carbon capture, utilization, and storage technologies for over a decade. These technologies capture CO2 emissions from various sources, including coal-fired power plants and manufacturing plants, before they enter the atmosphere. Several of these cutting-edge technologies have been deployed at major demonstration sites, supported by clean energy funding that aims to benefit millions. Three of these projects—Petra Nova, Archer Daniels Midland, and Air Products & Chemicals—have captured and injected over 10.8 million metric tons of CO2. The success of these projects is paving the way toward a cleaner and more sustainable American energy future.

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Ukraine Winter Energy Attacks strain the power grid as Russian missile strikes hit critical infrastructure, causing blackouts, civilian casualties, and damage in Kyiv, Kherson, and Kharkiv, underscoring air defense needs and looming cold-weather risks.

Key Points

Russian strikes on energy infrastructure cause outages, damage, and harm as Ukraine braces for freezing winter months.

✅ Russian missile barrage targets critical infrastructure nationwide.

✅ Power cuts reported in 400 localities; grid stability at risk.

✅ Kyiv seeks more air defenses as winter threats intensify.

Ukraine has warned that a difficult winter looms ahead after a massive Russian missile barrage targeted civilian infrastructure, killing three in the south and wounding many across the country.

Russia launched the strikes as Ukraine prepares for a third winter during Moscow's 19-month long invasion and as President Volodymyr Zelensky made his second wartime trip to Washington amid a U.S. end to grid support announcement.

"Most of the missiles were shot down. But only the majority. Not all," Zelensky said, calling for the West to provide Kyiv with more anti-missile systems to help keep the lights on this winter amid ongoing attacks.

The fresh attack came as Poland said it would honour pre-existing commitments of weapons supplies to Kyiv, a day after saying it would no longer arm its neighbour in a mounting row between the two allies.

Moscow hit cities from Rivne in western Ukraine to Kherson in the south, the capital Kyiv and cities in the centre and northeast of the country.

Kyiv also reported power cuts across the country -- in almost 400 cities, towns and villages -- as Russia targeted power plants across the grid, but said it was "too early" to tell if this was the start of a new Russian campaign against its energy sites.

Officials added that electricity reserves could limit scheduled outages if no new large-scale strikes occur.

Last winter many Ukrainians had to go without electricity and heating in freezing temperatures as Russia hit Kyiv's energy facilities.

"Difficult months are ahead: Russia will attack energy and critically important facilities," said Oleksiy Kuleba, the deputy head of Kyiv's presidential office.

Ukraine also said that it had struck a military airfield in Moscow-annexed Crimea, a claim denied by Russian-installed authorities.

'Ceilings fell down'
Russia's overnight strikes were deadliest in the southern Kherson, where three people were killed.

In Kyiv's eastern Darnitsky district, frightened residents of a dormitory woke up to their rooms with shattered windows and parked cars outside completely burnt out.

Communities have also adopted new energy solutions to cope with winter blackouts, from generators to shared warming points.

Debris from a downed missile in the capital wounded seven people, including a child.

"God, god, god," Maya Pelyukh, a cleaner who lives in the building, said as she looked at her living room covered in broken glass and debris on her bed.

Her windows and door were blown away, with the 50-year-old saying she crawled out from under a door frame.

Some residents outside were still in dressing gowns as they watched emergency workers put out a fire the authorities said had spread over 400 square meters (4,300 square feet).

In the northeastern city of Kharkiv seamstresses were clearing a damaged clothing factory, with a Russian missile hitting nearby.

"The ceilings fell down. Windows were blown out. There are chunks of the road inside," Yulia Barantsova said, as she cleared a sewing machine from dust and rubble.

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BC Hydro Customer Crisis Fund Surplus highlights unused grants, pilot program imbalance, and calls to reduce fees or expand eligibility. Ratepayers, regulators, and social agencies urge awareness, rebates, and aid for overdue electricity bills.

Key Points

A funding carryover from BC Hydro's crisis grants, sparking debate over fee reductions or more aid eligibility.

✅ $2.9M surplus from 25-cent monthly customer fee

✅ Only 2,250 grants issued; awareness and eligibility questioned

✅ Regulator may refund balance or adjust program design

BC Hydro is sitting on a surplus of about $2.9 million in its customer crisis fund, even as BC Hydro rates rise 3% across the province, leading to calls for the utility to reduce its take from the average customer or provide more money to those in need.

B.C. Liberal Energy Critic Greg Kyllo said if the imbalance continues in the year-old pilot program, amid a provincial rate freeze announced by the province, it’s time to cut the monthly 25 cent fee in half.

"If the grant requirement or the need in the province is going to remain where it is, they should look at rolling back the contribution level in the fund," he told CTV News Vancouver from Salmon Arm.

But social agencies who were part of the consultation around the fund in the beginning said it’s more likely that people in need don’t know about the fund and more time is necessary to get the word out.

"If they collect the money, then the program’s got to change to make sure more people are able to be helped," said Gudrun Langolf of the Council of Senior Citizens Organizations of BC.

The customer crisis fund was started in spring 2018 to give people short-term relief when they can’t pay their electricity bills, especially as a $2 monthly hike pressures household budgets. Customers can apply to get a grant of up to $500 to keep the lights on, and up to $600 if electricity heats their homes.

The public utility took in about 25 cents per customer per month which added up to a revenue of $4.5 million in the year since the program started, BC Hydro confirmed to CTV News.

But the agency only gave out 2,250 grants totalling $850,000.

Administration costs added up around $750,000 – leaving the $2.9 million remaining.

The news will come as a welcome relief to those who suddenly struggle to pay their hydro bills, particularly as Alberta ratepayers are on the hook under a utility deferral program elsewhere in Canada.

Some people who come into Disability Alliance B.C. are often anxious and emotional when they’re suddenly unable to pay their bills, said Shar Saremi, an advocate there.

"I’ve had people crying. I’ve had people who have experienced a loss in the family," she said. "A lot of the time people are stressed out, anxious, really upset. They are looking for assistance, and they aren’t sure what is available for them."

She said people are only eligible if their bills are under $1,000, which could be cutting out the people who are most in need. And because the program is in its first year, it could be undersubscribed, she said.

"A lot of people don’t know about the program, don’t know how to apply, or what kind of assistance is out there," Saremi said.

The fund was established thanks to an order from the B.C. Utilities Commission, the utilities regulator in the province.

The pilot program is going to be examined by the regulator at the end of its first year.

"Any remaining balance in the account at the end of the pilot would be returned to residential ratepayers," says a BCUC fact sheet, as BC Hydro rates are set to rise 3.75% over two years. The decision on exactly what to do with the money hasn’t yet been made.

In Manitoba, a similar program is by donation, and in Newfoundland and Labrador a lump-sum credit was offered to bill payers in a separate initiative. That program raised about $200,000 from customers and $60,000 in other income. It spent $199,000 on grants to applicants, but lost about $20,000 a year.

In Ontario, private utilities are expected to raise 0.12 per cent of their revenue, and Hydro One reconnections have highlighted the stakes for nonpayment there. Across the province, those utilities gave out about $7.3 million in grants. Any unused funds in one year are rolled over to the following year.

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Smart Meter Texas real-time pricing faces rollback as utilities limit on-demand reads, impacting demand response, home area networks, ERCOT wholesale tracking, and thermostat automation, reducing efficiency gains promised through deregulation and smart meter investments.

Key Points

A plan linking smart meters to ERCOT prices, enabling near real-time usage alignment and automated demand response.

✅ Twice-hourly reads miss 15-minute ERCOT price spikes.

✅ Less than 1% of 7.3M meters use HAN real-time features.

✅ Limits hinder automation for HVAC, EV charging, and pool pumps.

Utilities made a promise several years ago when they built Smart Meter Texas that they’d come up with a way for consumers to monitor their electricity use in real time. But now they’re backing out of the deal with the approval of state regulators, leaving in the lurch retail power companies that are building their business model on the promise of real time pricing and denying consumers another option for managing their electricity costs.

Texas utilities collected higher rates to finance the building of a statewide smart meter network that would allow customers to track their electricity use and the quickly changing prices on wholesale power markets almost as they happened. Some retailers are building electricity plans around this promise, providing customers with in-home devices that would eventually track pricing minute-by-minute and allow them to automatically turn down or shut off air conditioners, pool pumps and energy sucking appliances when prices spiked on hot summer afternoons and turn them back on when they prices fell again.

The idea is to help save consumers money by allowing them to shift their electricity consumption to periods when power is cheaper, typically nights and weekends, even as utility revenue in a free-power era remains a debated topic.

“We’re throwing away a large part of (what) ratepayers paid for,” said John Werner, CEO of GridPlus Texas, one of the companies offering consumers a real-time pricing plan that is scheduled to begin testing next month. “They made the smart meters dumb meters.”

When Smart Meter Texas was launched a decade ago by a consortium of the state’s biggest utilities, it was considered an important part of deregulation. The competitive market for electricity held the promise that consumers would eventually have the technology to control their electricity use through a home area network and cut their power bills.

Regulators and legislators also were enticed by the possibility of making the electric system more efficient and relieving pressure on the power grid as consumers responded to high prices and cut consumption when temperatures soared, with ongoing discussions about Texas grid reliability informing policy choices.

One study found that smart meters coupled with smart real time consumption monitors could reduce electricity use between 3 percent and 5 percent, according to Call Me Power, a website sponsored by the European electricity price shopping service Selectra.

But utilities complained that the home area network devices were expensive to install and not used very often, and, with flat electricity demand weighing on growth, they questioned further investment. CenterPoint manager Esther Floyd Kent filed an affidavit with the commission in May that it costs the utility about $30,000 annually to support the network devices, plus maintenance.

Over a six-year period, CenterPoint paid $124,500, or about $20,000 a year, to maintain the system. As of April, there were only 4,067 network devices in CenterPoint’s service area, meaning the utility pays about $30.70 each year to maintain each device.

Centerpoint last year generated $9.6 billion in revenues and earned a $1.8 billion profit, according to its financial filings. CenterPoint officials did not respond to requests for comment.

Other utilities that are part of the Smart Meter consortium also complained to the Public Utility Commission that, up to now, the system hasn’t developed. All told, Texas has 7.3 million meters connected to Smart Meter Texas, but less than 1 percent are using the networking functions to track real-time prices and consumption, according to the testimony of Donny R. Helm, director of technology strategy and architecture for the state’s largest utility Oncor Electric Delivery Co. in Dallas.

The isssue was resolved recently through a settlement agreement that limits on-demand readings to twice an hour that Smart Meter Texas must provide customers. The price of power changes every 15 minutes, so a twice an hour reading may miss some price spikes.

The Public Utility Commission signed off on the deal, and so did several other groups including several retail electricity providers and the Office of Public Utility Counsel which represents residential customers and small businesses.

Michele Gregg, spokeswoman for the Public Utility Counsel, testified in December that the consumer advocate supported the change because widespread use of the networks never materialized. Catherine Webking, an Austin lawyer who represents the Texas Energy Association for Marketers, a group of retail electric providers, said she believes the deal was a reasonable resolution of providing the benefits of Smart Meter Texas while not incurring too much cost.

But Griddy, an electricity provider that offers customers the opportunity to pay wholesale power prices, which also issued a plea to customers during a price surge, said the state hasn’t given the smart-meter networks a chance and could miss out on its potential. Griddy was counting on the continued adoption of real time pricing as the next step for customers wanting to control their electricity costs.

Right now, Griddy sends out price alerts from the grid operator Electric Reliability Council of Texas so businesses like hotels can run washers and dryers when electricity prices are cheapest. But the company was counting on a smart-meter program that would allow customers to track wholesale prices and manage consumption themselves, making Griddy’s offerings attractive to more people.

Wholesale prices are generally cheaper than retail prices, but they can fluctuate widely, especially when the Texas power grid faces another crisis during extreme weather. Last year, wholesale prices averaged less than 3 cents per kilowatt hour, much lower than than retail rates that now are running above 11 cents, but they can spike at times of high demand to as much as $9 a kilowatt hour.

What customers want is to be able to use energy when it’s cheapest, said Greg Craig, Griddy’s CEO, and they want to do it automatically. They want to be able to program their thermostat so that if the price rises they can shut off their air conditioning and if the price falls, they can charge their electric-powered vehicle.

Griddy customers may still save money even without real time data, he said. But they won’t be able to see their usage in real time or see how much they’re spending.

“The big utilities have big investments in the existing way and going to real time and more transparency isn’t really in their best interest,” said Craig.

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Bitcoin Energy Consumption drives debate on blockchain mining, proof-of-work, carbon footprint, and emissions, with CCAF estimates in terawatt hours highlighting electricity demand, fossil fuel reliance, and sustainability concerns for data centers and cryptocurrency networks.

Key Points

Electricity used by Bitcoin proof-of-work mining, often fossil-fueled, estimated by CCAF in terawatt hours.

✅ CCAF: 40-445 TWh, central estimate ~130 TWh

✅ ~66% of mining electricity sourced from fossil fuels

✅ Proof-of-work increases hash rate, energy, and emissions

The University of Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) studies the burgeoning business of cryptocurrencies.

It calculates that Bitcoin's total energy consumption is somewhere between 40 and 445 annualised terawatt hours (TWh), with a central estimate of about 130 terawatt hours.

The UK's electricity consumption is a little over 300 TWh a year, while Argentina uses around the same amount of power as the CCAF's best guess for Bitcoin, as countries like New Zealand's electricity future are debated to balance demand.

And the electricity the Bitcoin miners use overwhelmingly comes from polluting sources, with the U.S. grid not 100% renewable underscoring broader energy mix challenges worldwide.

The CCAF team surveys the people who manage the Bitcoin network around the world on their energy use and found that about two-thirds of it is from fossil fuels, and some regions are weighing curbs like Russia's proposed mining ban amid electricity deficits.

Huge computing power - and therefore energy use - is built into the way the blockchain technology that underpins the cryptocurrency has been designed.

It relies on a vast decentralised network of computers.

These are the so-called Bitcoin "miners" who enable new Bitcoins to be created, but also independently verify and record every transaction made in the currency.

In fact, the Bitcoins are the reward miners get for maintaining this record accurately.

It works like a lottery that runs every 10 minutes, explains Gina Pieters, an economics professor at the University of Chicago and a research fellow with the CCAF team.

Data processing centres around the world, including hotspots such as Iceland's mining strain, race to compile and submit this record of transactions in a way that is acceptable to the system.

They also have to guess a random number.

The first to submit the record and the correct number wins the prize - this becomes the next block in the blockchain.

Estimates for bitcoin's electricity consumption
At the moment, they are rewarded with six-and-a-quarter Bitcoins, valued at about $50,000 each.

As soon as one lottery is over, a new number is generated, and the whole process starts again.

The higher the price, says Prof Pieters, the more miners want to get into the game, and utilities like BC Hydro suspending new crypto connections highlight grid pressures.

"They want to get that revenue," she tells me, "and that's what's going to encourage them to introduce more and more powerful machines in order to guess this random number, and therefore you will see an increase in energy consumption," she says.

And there is another factor that drives Bitcoin's increasing energy consumption.

The software ensures it always takes 10 minutes for the puzzle to be solved, so if the number of miners is increasing, the puzzle gets harder and the more computing power needs to be thrown at it.

Bitcoin is therefore actually designed to encourage increased computing effort.

The idea is that the more computers that compete to maintain the blockchain, the safer it becomes, because anyone who might want to try and undermine the currency must control and operate at least as much computing power as the rest of the miners put together.

What this means is that, as Bitcoin gets more valuable, the computing effort expended on creating and maintaining it - and therefore the energy consumed - inevitably increases.

We can track how much effort miners are making to create the currency.

They are currently reckoned to be making 160 quintillion calculations every second - that's 160,000,000,000,000,000,000, in case you were wondering.

And this vast computational effort is the cryptocurrency's Achilles heel, says Alex de Vries, the founder of the Digiconomist website and an expert on Bitcoin.

All the millions of trillions of calculations it takes to keep the system running aren't really doing any useful work.

"They're computations that serve no other purpose," says de Vries, "they're just immediately discarded again. Right now we're using a whole lot of energy to produce those calculations, but also the majority of that is sourced from fossil energy, and clean energy's 'dirty secret' complicates substitution."

The vast effort it requires also makes Bitcoin inherently difficult to scale, he argues.

"If Bitcoin were to be adopted as a global reserve currency," he speculates, "the Bitcoin price will probably be in the millions, and those miners will have more money than the entire [US] Federal budget to spend on electricity."

"We'd have to double our global energy production," he says with a laugh, even as some argue cheap abundant electricity is getting closer to reality today. "For Bitcoin."

He says it also limits the number of transactions the system can process to about five per second.

This doesn't make for a useful currency, he argues.

Rising price of bitcoin graphic
And that view is echoed by many eminent figures in finance and economics.

The two essential features of a successful currency are that it is an effective form of exchange and a stable store of value, says Ken Rogoff, a professor of economics at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

He says Bitcoin is neither.

"The fact is, it's not really used much in the legal economy now. Yes, one rich person sells it to another, but that's not a final use. And without that it really doesn't have a long-term future."

What he is saying is that Bitcoin exists almost exclusively as a vehicle for speculation.

So, I want to know: is the bubble about to burst?

"That's my guess," says Prof Rogoff and pauses.

"But I really couldn't tell you when."

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Energy equity in utility regulation prioritizes fair rates, clean energy access, and DERs, addressing fixed charges and energy burdens on low-income households through stakeholder engagement and public utility commission reforms.

Key Points

Fairly allocates clean energy benefits and rate burdens, ensuring access and protections for low-income households.

✅ Reduces fixed charges that burden low-income households

✅ Funds community participation in utility proceedings

✅ Prioritizes DERs, energy efficiency, and solar in impacted areas

By Kiran Julin

Pouring over the line items on your monthly electricity bill may not sound like an enticing way to spend an afternoon, but the way electricity bills are structured has a significant impact on equitable energy access and distribution. For example, fixed fees can have a disproportionate impact on low-income households. And combined with other factors, low-income households and households of color are far more likely to report losing home heating service, with evidence from pandemic power shut-offs highlighting these disparities, according to recent federal data.

Advancing Equity in Utility Regulation, a new report published by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), makes a unifying case that utilities, regulators, and stakeholders need to prioritize energy equity in the deployment of clean energy technologies and resources, aligning with a people-and-planet electricity future envisioned by advocacy groups. Equity in this context is the fair distribution of the benefits and burdens of energy production and consumption. The report outlines systemic changes needed to advance equity in electric utility regulation by providing perspectives from four organizations — Portland General Electric, a utility company; the National Consumer Law Center, a consumer advocacy organization; and the Partnership for Southern Equity and the Center for Biological Diversity, social justice and environmental organizations.
 
“While government and ratepayer-funded energy efficiency programs have made strides towards equity by enabling low-income households to access energy-efficiency measures, that has not yet extended in a major way to other clean-energy technologies,” said Lisa Schwartz, a manager and strategic advisor at Berkeley Lab and technical editor of the report. “States and utilities can take the lead to make sure the clean-energy transition does not leave behind low-income households and communities of color. Decarbonization and energy equity goals are not mutually exclusive, and in fact, they need to go hand-in-hand.”

Energy bills and electricity rates are governed by state laws and utility regulators, whose mission is to ensure that utility services are reliable, safe, and fairly priced. Public utility commissions also are increasingly recognizing equity as an important goal, tool, and metric, and some customers face major changes to electric bills as reforms advance. While states can use existing authorities to advance equity in their decision-making, several, including Illinois, Maine, Oregon, and Washington, have enacted legislation over the last couple of years to more explicitly require utility regulators to consider equity.

“The infrastructure investments that utility companies make today, and regulator decisions about what goes into electricity bills, including new rate design steps that shape customer costs, will have significant impacts for decades to come,” Schwartz said.

Solutions recommended in the report include considering energy justice goals when determining the “public interest” in regulatory decisions, allocating funding for energy justice organizations to participate in utility proceedings, supporting utility programs that increase deployment of energy efficiency and solar for low-income households, and accounting for energy inequities and access in designing electricity rates, while examining future utility revenue models as technologies evolve.

The report is part of the Future of Electric Utility Regulation series that started in 2015, led by Berkeley Lab and funded by DOE, to encourage informed discussion and debate on utility trends and tackling the toughest issues related to state electric utility regulation. An advisory group of utilities, public utility commissioners, consumer advocates, environmental and social justice organizations, and other experts provides guidance.

Taking stock of past and current energy inequities

One focus of the report is electricity bills. In addition to charges based on usage, electricity bills usually also have a fixed basic customer charge, which is the minimum amount a household has to pay every month to access electricity. The fixed charge varies widely, from $5 to more than $20. In recent years, utility companies have sought sizable increases in this charge to cover more costs, amid rising electricity prices in some markets.

This fixed charge means that no matter what a household does to use energy more efficiently or to conserve energy, there is always a minimum cost. Moreover, low-income households often live in older, poorly insulated housing. Current levels of public and utility funding for energy-efficiency programs fall far short of the need. The combined result is that the energy burden – or percent of income needed to keep the lights on and their homes at a healthy temperature – is far greater for lower-income households.

“While all households require basic lighting, heating, cooling, and refrigeration, low-income households must devote a greater proportion of income to maintain basic service,” explained John Howat and Jenifer Bosco from the National Consumer Law Center and co-authors of Berkeley Lab’s report. Their analysis of data from the most recent U.S. Energy Information Administration’s Residential Energy Consumption Survey shows households with income less than $20,000 reported losing home heating service at a pace more than five times higher than households with income over $80,000. Households of color were far more likely than those with a white householder to report loss of heating service. In addition, low-income households and households of color are more likely to have to choose between paying their energy bill or paying for other necessities, such as healthcare or food.

Based on the most recent data (2015) from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), households with income less than $20,000 reported losing home heating service at a rate more than five times higher than households with income over $80,000. Households of color were far more likely than those with a white householder to report loss of heating service. Click on chart for larger view. (Credit: John Howat/National Consumer Law Center, using EIA data)

Moreover, while many of the infrastructure investment decisions that utilities make, such as whether and where to build a new power plant, often have long-term environmental and health consequences, impacted communities often are not at the table. “Despite bearing an inequitable proportion of the negative impacts of environmental injustices related to fossil fuel-based energy production and climate change, marginalized communities remain virtually unrepresented in the energy planning and decision-making processes that drive energy production, distribution, and regulation,” wrote Chandra Farley, CEO of ReSolve and a co-author of the report.

Engaging impacted communities
Each of the perspectives in the report identify a need for meaningful engagement of underrepresented and disadvantaged communities in energy planning and utility decision-making. “Connecting the dots between energy, racial injustice, economic disinvestment, health disparities, and other associated equity challenges becomes a clarion call for communities that are being completely left out of the clean energy economy,” wrote Farley, who previously served as the Just Energy Director at Partnership for Southern Equity. “We must prioritize the voices and lived experiences of residents if we are to have more equity in utility regulation and equitably transform the energy sector.”

In another essay in the report, Nidhi Thaker and Jake Wise from Portland General Electric identify the importance of collaborating directly with the communities they serve. In 2021, the Oregon Legislature passed Oregon HB 2475, which allows the Oregon Public Utility Commission to allocate ratepayer funding for organizations representing people most affected by a high energy burden, enabling them to participate in utility regulatory processes.

The report explains why energy equity requires correcting inequities resulting from past and present failures as well as rethinking how we achieve future energy and decarbonization goals. “Equity in energy requires adopting an expansive definition of the ‘public interest’ that encompasses energy, climate, and environmental justice. Energy equity also means prioritizing the deployment of distributed energy resources and clean energy technologies in areas that have been hit first and worst by the existing fossil fuel economy,” wrote Jean Su, energy justice director and senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity.

This report was supported by DOE’s Grid Modernization Laboratory Consortium, with funding from the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and the Office of Electricity.

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