The Trump administration announced today a new plan that would require tech companies to pay for their own power.
Travis Fisher, director of energy and environmental policy studies at Cato, and Glen Lyons, founder of Advocates for Consumer Regulated Electricity, issued the following statement:
PJM is broken, and we need to think out of the box. If the goal is to accommodate new large customers like data centers without impacting residents’ bills, CRE offers a simple, straightforward, and complementary solution.
Fisher and Lyons have previously written on this topic and have an upcoming policy brief on Consumer Regulated Electricity. A release date has not been finalized, but please let me know if you’d like an embargoed copy.
What is Consumer Regulated Electricity? Consumer Regulated Electricity or CRE is a policy reform that allows privately financed, off-grid electric utilities to serve new customers under voluntary contracts. CRE utilities would be physically islanded from the regulated grid and would not be subject to economic regulation at the state or federal level. Because they would not interconnect with incumbent systems, CRE utilities would impose no costs, reliability risks, or stranded-asset exposure on existing customers.
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