DTE Energy’s Anderson urges Congress to push ahead with support for clean energy technology
Convincing Congress to fund strategic investments in clean energy technology will help get the electric industry and the entire country over the hump in its campaign to halt climate change in its tracks, Gerry Anderson, the executive chairman of Michigan’s DTE Energy, told participants at the National Clean Energy Week Policy Makers Symposium.
Anderson, who is also chairman of the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) board of directors, said Tuesday the electric power industry was in a position to take the next major step in transitioning to the clean energy future, and Washington would get that critical next phase off to a faster start with strategic investments and encouragement for fledgling technologies, such as hydrogen power, advanced nuclear, and energy storage as well as electric vehicles (EV).
“Not surprisingly, the clean energy transition continues to be first and foremost on virtually every (power) company’s agenda,” Anderson told the online audience.
EEI viewed the high-profile and contentious infrastructure bill and other smaller and more-focused proposals currently before Congress as being able to clear the pathway to a low-carbon energy future. “It is also an extraordinary opportunity for our member companies,” he added.
EEI was among the many industry sponsors of the annual National Clean Energy Week, which this year also served as a tune-up to the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in November. The annual UN summit is where the landmark Kyoto Protocols were negotiated in 1997 and where the next formal – and binding – step in the worldwide campaign to address climate change will be held.
This year’s event in Scotland, which was postponed last year due to COVID-19, comes with some particularly high stakes in the form of the “ratchet mechanism,” which every five years requires participating nations to lay their cards on the table and publicly unveil their official binding goals for the reduction of greenhouse gases. A major share of those reductions in the United States falls on the shoulders of electric utilities, which are in the midst of a massive transition of their bedrock power generation from fossil fuels to renewable power with a hefty dash of energy efficiency thrown in.
Anderson said the transition not only had to work as designed, but also maintain reliability and affordability at the same time. While plenty of promising technologies toward that end were being developed, there was still more time and money required to get them into the game at scale.
“Achieving really deep carbon reductions will require advanced new technologies to achieve commercial maturity,” he said, adding there remains the need for more time for testing, refining and commercially deploying.
According to the EEI, its member investor-owned electric companies have slashed their collective carbon emissions to their lowest level in more than 40 years with further meaningful declines expected in the coming years. Currently, nearly 40 percent of U.S. electricity comes from carbon-free sources, including nuclear and hydropower.
The power sector is also investing nearly $3 billion in customer programs and projects to expand the use of electric vehicles (EVs), which would go a long way toward meeting any new goals the United States commits to at the COP26.
Anderson said that is where the infrastructure bill comes in. “Investing in charging infrastructure is an absolute key to reducing emissions from the transportation sector,” he said.
“The infrastructure bill will provide the down payment on the EV charging infrastructure we will need to electrify the transportation sector,” Anderson said. “Investing in charging infrastructure is absolutely key to a faster transition to electric vehicles as our auto industry ramps-up production.”
