How will the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s new rule on carbon emissions from power plants impact the broader public? Synapse takes on this issue in a webinar designed for health, environmental justice, and other consumer advocates who now find themselves with a critical role in the stakeholder process as states make choices about Clean Power Plan compliance. 

Based on Synapse’s in-depth analysis of emissions, costs to consumers, and energy options, this webinar provides an overview of the compliance planning process, particularly as it relates to stakeholder engagement and threats to community health. Panelists Elizabeth A. Stanton, PhD, and Pat Knight  also delve into issues that have caused confusion since the rule’s release. These include the role of energy efficiency, allowance trading and pollution hotspots, who gets the value from trading, and dispelling myths related to rate vs. mass.

How is this webinar different from previous Clean Power Plan webinars Synapse has hosted? We focus on what health, environmental justice, and other consumer advocates can do to get the best outcomes for the communities they represent. Please share this link with anyone within your network that you think would be interested in learning more about how to participate in the decision-making process.

Fairness, Health, and the Clean Power Plan - February 2, 2016

Synapse provided analysis and expert testimony on behalf of Sierra Club in Oklahoma Gas & Electric’s application before the Oklahoma Corporation Commission seeking approval to install dry scrubbers at the Sooner generating facility. Synapse’s Tyler Comings evaluated the economic case for the retrofits with a focus on the assumptions used for natural gas price risk and fuel diversity. Mr. Coming’s testimony found that installing dry scrubbers at Sooner is not the least cost option. Mr. Comings recommended that the Commission deny the proposal. Should the Committee accept the proposal, Mr. Comings recommended it do so with conditions that would protect ratepayers.

Earlier testimonies from the Oklahoma Gas & Electric CPCN Proceedings can be found here.

Riverkeeper retained Synapse to assess the potential impacts to energy reliability and electric power sector air emissions associated with the construction and operation of a closed-cycle cooling system as the "best technology available" (BTA) for the Indian Point nuclear power plant, in order to inform the analysis being conducted by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) under the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA). Synapse found that the retirement of the Indian Point nuclear facility would result in essentially no reliability impacts and minimal air emission impacts.

One of the key benefits most attributed to energy efficiency and renewable energy (clean energy resources) is that they reduce the use of fossil fuel resources consumed for generating electricity, and in doing so reduce fossil fuel-related carbon dioxide emissions. Synapse reviewed a range of sources and compiled evidence that clean energy resources have indeed displaced generation by fossil resources connected to the grid, and that they are projected to continue doing so in the future. The report includes:

• utility-level case studies of electric system integrated resource planning (IRP) model results;
• a review of national-level analyses;
• an overview of marginal resources in different regional transmission organization (RTO) areas;
• modeling case studies using EPA’s AVERT; and
• a review of historical data demonstrating the impact that energy efficiency and renewable energy have already had on fossil fuel use.

In addition, the report highlights original Synapse analysis using the ReEDS model on the impacts of expanding clean energy resources on emissions related to fossil-fuel generation.

Since 2005, Synapse has provided analysis of New Jersey's Basic Generation Service (BGS) procurement options for the New Jersey Division of Rate Counsel. The BGS procurement process includes annual auctions held by the State of New Jersey for the procurement of fixed-price, basic electric generation service (BGS-FP). BGS-FP service is the name of the rate plan for those residential and small commercial customers who choose not to use a competitive supplier for their electricity needs. Synapse's BGS procurement analysis takes into consideration the BGS auction process and other factors relevant to procurement options for NJ BGS customers. Synapse's analyses include assessment of procurement options in other states; futures markets for electricity, natural gas, and coal; recent auction/RFP results for BGS-FP-equivalent services from other states; PJM technical issues affecting BGS procurement considerations; and other relevant issues. Project work for the 2012 proceeding completed in April 2013.

Synapse provided expert technical consulting services to the New Jersey Division of Rate Counsel related to Exelon Corporation’s proposed acquisition of Pepco Holdings. Specifically, Synapse reviewed the Joint Applicants' economic impact analysis; merger-related reliability issues; and concerns regarding concentration of ownership, market power, and market manipulation. Synapse submitted testimony in the legal proceeding on behalf of the NJ DRC. Synapse performed similar analysis related to the merger on behalf of clients in Delaware, Maryland, and the District of Columbia.

Synapse is actively working with a group of stakeholders to engage in the development of the Energy Information Administration's 2016 Annual Energy Outlook (AEO), to be released in mid-2016. The AEO is a critical source of publicly available information for public interest stakeholders working to improve planning and decision-making in the energy sector. Synapse is participating in working groups associated with three key areas of the 2016 AEO: the renewable energy sector, the electricity sector, and the residential/commercial buildings sector. Modeling of EPA’s Clean Power Plan will be a major change in the 2016 AEO from previous forecasts. Synapse is working with other stakeholders to participate actively in this process and advocate for reasonable policy and technology assumptions.

Synapse prepared two expert reports to be presented in annual property tax assessment cases relating to the valuation of the Byron Nuclear Power Station. The first gives a history of electricity restructuring, its effect on nuclear generation, and its impact on Illinois and the Byron station in particular. The second report rebuts the argument made by Concentric Energy Advisors that nuclear plants that are members of fleets enjoy superior historical performance due to this membership, and that the value of Byron station should thus be adjusted downward when assessing its worth to a non-fleet buyer. 

Synapse assisted the Ohio Office of Consumer Counsel with issues related to EPA’s Clean Power Plan. This work included providing consultation and analysis on the plan’s costs to Ohio consumers, allowance trading, energy efficiency as a compliance option, and the impacts of compliance pathways on bills and emissions. 

Synapse prepared a series of briefs on the electric sector costs to consumers of low-emissions futures. The briefs are informed by modeling studies that investigate the costs of EPA’s Clean Power Plan, as well as a scenario in which we achieve low-cost emissions reductions even greater than those called for by the EPA.

Synapse used NREL's Regional Energy Deployment System (ReEDS) model to compare the costs of the U.S. electric sector transitioning to a Clean Energy Future with business‐as‐usual costs. In the Clean Energy Future, renewables grow rapidly to reach 70 percent of all generation by 2040, including nearly 200 GW of rooftop solar panels. Electricity sales are 25 percent lower than business-as-usual in 2040 as a result of savings from energy efficiency measures and standards, as well as demand response programs that pay participating consumers to curtail their energy use at times of peak demand. All coal-fired units built before 2005 are retired by 2040. This results in carbon dioxide emissions 84 percent lower than business-as-usual levels in 2040. Synapse found that consumers can save $41 billion in the year 2040 as compared to business as usual if states pursue these clean energy options.

The briefs and the associated background reports can be found below, along with recordings of webinars presenting the results.

Please note: Earlier versions of the publications found below reported 80-year lifetimes for nuclear units in both the reference and Clean Energy Future scenarios. In this analysis, nuclear power plants are actually assumed to retire after 60 years, after receiving one license extension from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

July 28 Webinar

September 3 Webinar

Telepresser

A key benefit of renewable energy is that electricity generated from new renewable resources displaces electricity generated from other types of power plants. In doing so, renewables reduce the consumption of fossil fuel and production of fossil fuel-related carbon dioxide emissions. In the Clean Power Plan originally proposed by EPA in June 2014, this effect was ignored when setting emissions targets for states: EPA’s formula omitted this effect. In the final version of the rule, released August 3, states’ targets do account for emissions displaced by renewable generation.

As part of our ongoing series of webinars on EPA’s Clean Power Plan, Synapse hosted a webinar on how displacement occurs within the electric power system, and what this means for final targets set by EPA as well as states’ compliance with the rule. Panelists included authors of the Synapse report Air Emissions Displacement by Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, a survey of evidence that renewable resources and energy efficiency have indeed displaced fossil fuel resources connected to the grid. 

Synapse helped the Maryland Office of Peoples Counsel evaluate five categories of metrics for smart grid initiatives proposed by BG&E and PEPCO: reductions in energy prices, avoided capacity costs and reductions in capacity prices as a result of reductions in energy use enabled by smart grid initiatives such as peak time rebates (PTR), and reports to customers on their energy usage, and Conservation Voltage Reduction.

The widely cited FUND model of climate economics estimates that climate change will have less serious impacts, and that the optimal policy is to do less, than implied by many other analyses. Synapse's Frank Ackerman together with subcontractor Charles Munitz explored the FUND model, testing combinations of inputs that may illuminate the sources of FUND's distinct forecasts.

On behalf of the Mountain Association for Community Economic Development (MACED), Synapse performed an analysis of the long-standing problem of disappearing coal jobs in eastern Kentucky. We then examined options for alternative employment based on six possible growth industries identified by MACED: energy efficiency, local food production, health care, sustainable forestry and wood products, tourism, and environmental remediation. Synapse developed scenarios for growth, based on the regional potential for expansion and the estimated costs and potential of each industry. We completed the technical analysis using IMPLAN, a well-known economic impact model. Specifically, we modeled a scenario that creates enough new jobs in these growth areas by 2030 to replace half of the remaining coal jobs and also bring the region’s unemployment levels down to the national average. The project received generous support from the Environment, Economics, and Society Institute (EESI).