Electricity sector of the United States
Within these physical grids, there are Independent System Operators and Regional transmission organizations, which are not-for-profit organizations that operate an area of the grid and are obliged to provide indiscriminate access to various suppliers (e.g. power plant owners, transmission line providers) to promote competition.
Electricity generation has been approximately flat in the last ten years,[4] but with significant changes in composition over that time.
Electricity generation was primarily from the following sources: The share of coal and nuclear in energy generation is much higher than their share in installed capacity, because coal and nuclear plants provide base load and thus are running longer hours than natural gas and petroleum plants which typically provide peak load, while wind turbines and solar plants produce electricity when they can and natural gas fills in as required to compensate.
The following tables summarize the electrical energy generated by fuel source for the United States.
Coal production has fallen significantly since 2007 with most of the losses being replaced by natural gas, but also a growing fraction of non-hydroelectric renewables.
[14] As of 2007 in the United States, there are 104 commercial nuclear reactors in the US, generating approximately 20% of the nation's total electric energy consumption.
[16][17] As of March 9, 2009, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission had received applications for permission to construct 26 new nuclear power reactors[18] However, as of 2013 most of the new applications had been abandoned due to the low cost of electricity generated with natural gas which had become available at cheap prices due to the boom in hydraulic fracturing; electricity produced using natural gas being 4 cents per kilowatt-hour versus 10 cents, or more, for nuclear.
[23] In a joint address to the Congress on February 24, 2009, President Obama called for doubling renewable energy within the next three years.
Over this same time period solar( including small scale) has increased by 13.1X and now provides 3.37% of US electric energy needs.
According to a report by the Interior Department, U.S. wind power – including off-shore turbines – could more than meet U.S. electricity needs.
Key federal legislation related to the electricity sector includes: Many state governments have been active in promoting renewable energy.
The deregulation of the electricity sector in the U.S. began with the Energy Policy Act of 1992 which removed obstacles for wholesale competition.
It began in earnest only from 1996 onwards when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued orders that required utilities to provide transmission services "on a reasonable and non-discriminatory basis".
[39] As of April 2014, 16 U.S. states – Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Texas – and the District of Columbia have deregulated their electricity markets in some capacity.
The electricity transmission network is not owned by individual utilities, but by companies and organizations that are obliged to provide indiscriminate access to various suppliers to promote competition.
TSOs can be of two types: Independent System Operators (ISOs) and Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs).
The members of the Regional Reliability Councils include private, public and cooperative utilities, power marketers and final customers.
An important factor that influences tariff levels is the mix of energy sources used in power generation.
For example, access to cheap federal power from hydropower plants contributes to low electricity tariffs in some states.
There is a large array of subsidies in the U.S. electricity sector ranging from various forms of tax incentives to subsidies for research and development, feed-in tariffs for renewable energy and support to low-income households to pay their electric bills.
The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) received federal funding of $5.1 billion in Fiscal Year 2009.
[48] It is funded mainly by the federal government through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, and is administered by states and territories.
In April 2009, 11 U.S. state legislatures were considering adopting feed-in tariffs as a complement to their renewable electricity mandates.
