The Debate on the Grid Resiliency Pricing Rule

Original title: Die Debatte zur Grid Resiliency Pricing Rule - Strommarktpolitik unter Präsident Trump

The lively debate about the Grid Resiliency Pricing Rule proposed by US Secretary of Energy Rick Perry in September 2017 provides valuable insights about the state of US power market policies and politics one year after President Trump’s inauguration.

With Perry’s proposal, the Trump administration intended to introduce a multi-billion support program for power plants that can store 90 days of fuel on-site. In practice, the beneficiaries would have been only coal and nuclear plant operators. The Trump administration argued that the Grid Resiliency Pricing Rule was necessary to strengthen the resiliency of US power systems.

In January 2018, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) rejected the proposal. Of the five FERC Commissioners making the decision, four had been nominated by President Trump.

This study (available in German language only) analyses the main steps of the process, beginning with the energy policy focus points of Trump’s campaign and following with an examination of the Department of Energy’s preliminary study, the reactions of stakeholders and finally FERC’s decision.

The second part of the study looks at three key aspects of the debate in greater depth: the resiliency of US power systems, the broader implications for the power market regulatory regime, and the independence of FERC under President Trump.

Further publications in the series

• Netzgekoppelte Speicher in Kalifornien – Analyse der Rahmenbedingungen für netzgekoppelte Speicher in Kalifornien (September 2019)
• Wasserstoffpolitik in Kalifornien (September 2019)
• Energiepolitik in der Region New England (Mai 2019)
• Offshore Wind Deployment in Germany, Facts and Policy Lessons (April 2019)
• Der größte US-Stromsystembetreiber PJM – Einführung und aktuelle Debatten (Oktober 2018)
• Power systems in the 2020s: What can Germany and the PJM region learn from each other? (Oktober 2018)
• Community Choice Aggregation – Kommunen in Kalifornien und anderen US-Bundesstaaten werden als CCA zum Stromversorger (August 2018)
• Übersicht über die Energiepolitik und -wirtschaft in Texas (Juni 2018)
• Übersicht über die Energiepolitik und -wirtschaft in Kalifornien (September 2017)
• Kalifornien und Deutschland: Energiepolitische Zusammenarbeit mit den Nachbarstaaten im Stromsektor (Dezember 2016)
• Überblick über die Energieeffizienzpolitik in den USA (Dezember 2016)
• Überblick über die US-Strommärkte (November 2016)