Recapping GEI’s Re-Energizing the West Conference

By Lev Blumenstein, Energy Fellow

On October 7, 2017, GEI hosted Re-Energizing the West: the Western Clean Energy Future, a conference on clean energy development in the western United States. It was a full day of interesting panels with great participants. The conference began with welcoming remarks from Wim Wiewel, President of Lewis & Clark College, and Melissa Powers, Professor of Law at Lewis & Clark Law School and Director of GEI. Professor Powers set the stage for the conference by describing her post-college attempt to bicycle from Berkeley, California, to Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, which she ultimately failed to complete due to poor planning.

After the welcoming remarks, the first panel discussed the opportunities and challenges associated with shifting to a zero-carbon grid. After United States Senator Jeff Merkley provided opening remarks, Tarika Powell of the Sightline Institute led a discussion featuring Senator Jeff Merkley; Mike Garland, CEO of Pattern Energy, and Arthur Haubenstock, General Counsel and Vice President of Government and Regulatory for 8minutenergy. The panel’s discussion focused on shifting residential energy demands away from fossil fuels and upgrading transmission systems to increase efficiency, reduce bottlenecks, and geographically diversify renewable resources. The panel also noted that the shift towards cleaner energy has been enabled by consistent, large decreases in the price of solar panels and that the price of solar panels is expected to continue declining.

The second panel discussed the conservative case for low-carbon energy. Sarah Hunt, Director of the Center for Innovation & Technology at the American Legislative Executive Council, led a discussion between California Assemblymember Rocky Chávez and Scott Bolton, Senior Vice President of External Affairs and Customer Solutions at Pacific Power. The panelists lamented the politicization of climate change and green energy, noting that climate change is occurring and poses serious long-term threats. The discussion highlighted that there is a strong conservative case for low-carbon energy these days, both economically and philosophically. However, much work must be done to cut through the political noise.

The third panel turned to transportation. Eileen Wenger Tutt, Executive Director of the California Electric Transportation Coalition, led a discussion featuring United States Representative Earl Blumenauer, a staunch advocate for bicycling and sustainable transportation, and Steven Douglas, Senior Director of Energy and Environment for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. The panel engaged in a lively discussion of the mechanics of decarbonizing the transportation sector. One highlighted issue was the complex role time-of-use pricing plays in a consumer’s decision to purchase an electric vehicle (EV). The complexity makes it hard for salespeople and consumers to provide an accurate operational-cost comparison between electric and internal-combustion engines.

After lunch, the fourth panel discussed the role California has played in leading the transition to greener energy. Michelle Romero, Deputy Director of Green for All, led a discussion featuring United States Representative Jerry McNerney and Tom Starrs, Senior Vice President of SunPower. The panel’s discussion focused on the factors that enabled California to become a leader in low-carbon energy and how its model might be exported to other states in the west.

The fifth panel was led by Kelly Hall, the Washington Policy Manager for Climate Solutions and featured Commissioner Megan Decker of the Oregon Public Utility Commission; Barbara Hins-Turner, Director of the Pacific Northwest Center of Excellence for Clean Energy; and Ruchi Sadhir, Energy Policy Advisor to Oregon Governor Kate Brown. This panel focused on the role of states in implementing a low-carbon energy future. One subject discussed was the role that states can play through public education to ensure that there is an available workforce capable of executing the shift to a low-carbon future. Another subject was the role that public utility commissions can play in facilitating the shift to cleaner energy.

The sixth panel focused on opportunities and challenges associated with developing regional energy markets. Don Furman, Director of Fix the Grid, led a discussion between California State Senator Bob Wieckowski; Elliot Mainzer, Administrator of Bonneville Power Administration; and Matt Baker, Environmental Program Officer for the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. This panel focused on the regulatory challenges standing in the way of greater regional integration of the electricity markets. At its heart, the problem seems to be a lack of trust between various governments and regulators. The panel discussed how governments and regulators have been slowly building trust through cooperative projects, such as the western Energy Imbalance Market. The panelists were optimistic that the western energy market can become more fully integrated over time, resulting in a more efficient and lower-carbon energy market.

The conference concluded with a call by Professor Melissa Powers and Don Furman for a more strategic approach to decarbonizing the electricity and transportation sectors, and transitioning to a renewable energy system in the West. This closing discussion emphasized that while western states have succeeded in adopting a variety of policies to reduce carbon emissions and promote renewable energy and EV deployment, western states (with the exception of California) have failed to commit to mandatory carbon reduction targets, and the vast majority of states have yet to complete a comprehensive pathways analysis to identify the most promising emissions reduction strategies for various economic sectors or develop strategic plans outlining  comprehensive strategies to reduce emissions and transition to clean energy sources over the coming decades. The panelists emphasized the moral and ethical imperatives to reduce the region’s climate change impacts and noted that while many interim tactical policies have the potential to reduce emissions from certain sources, without state-wide strategic approaches incorporating a comprehensive plan to achieve carbon targets, we will likely to fail to achieve our long-term climate and energy goals.