EPSA offers policy recommendations to Congress, Biden administration

Leaders of the Electric Power Supply Association (EPSA) outlined policy recommendations for the Biden administration and Congress to advance clean energy, reduce emissions and incentivize innovation while keeping costs in check and maintaining reliability.

“As competitive power suppliers, we believe in innovation and finding better ways to do business,” Curt Morgan, board chair of EPSA Directors and CEO of Vistra Corp., said. “We’re making investments in cleaner technologies and reducing emissions. Importantly, we’re also committed to reliably keeping the lights on and making sure all customers can afford the essential product our members produce – electricity. President Biden and Congress will have to work together to make sure we strike the right balance as we transition our electric supply, and these competitive market pillars will get us there.”

EPSA — the national trade association representing America’s competitive power suppliers — laid out three pillars to further leverage competition in wholesale power markets.

Future-Focused Market Design for Reliable, Affordable, Innovative Power: Competitive market design should encourage innovation and allow all resources to compete. Providing certainty will unlock investment at the least cost to consumers. Targeted bailouts or subsidies to legacy power generation assets, including struggling nuclear plants, undermine market efficiency while impeding innovation and increasing customer costs, they said.

Competitive, Affordable Decarbonization: Regional, market-based tools like carbon pricing, a well-designed Clean Energy Standard (CES), or other mechanisms can efficiently reduce power generation emissions. A technology-neutral carbon price or well-designed CES could reduce emissions in the PJM Interconnection footprint by an additional 28 percent by 2030, at an annual cost savings of $2.8 billion, officials said.

Sustainable Economy-Wide Electrification: Increased economy-wide electrification will encourage low-cost emissions reductions from all sectors, including buildings and transportation, while accounting for additional system demand and reliability needs. America’s largest power market, operated by PJM Interconnection, has helped save $3.2 – 4 billion in electricity costs annually while also enabling carbon reductions of 34 percent since 2005.

“Regional competitive electricity markets have delivered record low power prices along with significant carbon reductions and hundreds of millions in new investment,” EPSA President and CEO Todd Snitchler said. “The tools to meet the Biden Administration’s goal of building cleaner energy sources and further reducing emissions are right in front of us. The President and Congress should build on the benefits of competition to achieve the most affordable and reliable solutions. We want to be active partners in that effort.”