Posted: 03/07/2005
Energy Bill Needs Power Boost
NCPA Adjunct Scholar Says the Time for Action Is Now
DALLAS (March 9, 2005) – As the nearly four-year stall in enacting a national energy bill continues, scholars with the NCPA’s E-Team project said the time is well-passed for Congress to act to improve not only electric power reliability, but also to increase competition.
“The single most important cause of blackouts and power shortages (brownouts) is the increasing inadequacy of the nation’s electric power transmission system,” said Robert Michaels, professor at California State University-Fullerton and an adjunct scholar with the E-Team.
Citing the steady increase in peak electrical load in the U.S., Michaels pointed out that expansion of the power grid has fallen steadily behind:
- The demand for power grew 2.8 percent per year over the period from 1979 to 1999.
- Transmission capacity growth fell from 3.1 percent per year between 1979 and 1989 to 0.7 percent between 1989 and 1999.
- Annual investment in transmission (constant dollars) has steadily declined since 1975; investment in 2000 was less than half as much as in 1980.
- Capacity has fallen 25 percent relative to peak demand since 1982 due to growing demand and lack of expansion.
The mismatch between demand and capacity contributed significantly to the 2003 blackout and the 2001 northern California blackout. And U.S. and West Coast environmental officials are worried that runoff this year will not provide enough water to generate power sufficient to meet energy demand.
Congress needs to pass an energy bill that includes provisions regarding siting authority for transmission lines, private non-utility investment in new lines and repeal of the Public Utility Holding Company Act, Michaels recently wrote (Energy Bill: Who Will Keep the Lights On?). He also said that the bill should give authority to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to resolve delays in transmission projects by allowing non-utilities – such as independent power producers or consumers – to construct their own lines to access larger markets.