The Debate on the Grid Resiliency Pricing Rule – Electricity Market Policy under President Trump (in German only)

Die Debatte zur Grid Resiliency Pricing Rule - Strommarktpolitik unter Präsident Trump
Piria, Raffaele; Magdalena Magosch und Andreas Jahn 2018: The Debate on the Grid Resiliency Pricing Rule. Electricity Market Policy under President Trump (in German only). Berlin: adelphi.

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