The following is a contributed artcle by Fredrich Kahrl, managing partner at 3rdRail and Jim Williams, associate professor at the University of San Francisco
Achieving the Biden administration’s ambitious plans for decarbonizing the U.S. electricity sector will require a historic political compromise among states. The logic of this grand bargain has grown increasingly clear over the past decade. It requires a stronger federal role in the electricity sector and a greater regionalization of electricity markets that will chafe state lawmakers, but the opportunities outweigh the risks.
From an external perspective, it appears that the Biden administration has devoted much time and effort to defining the endpoints of ambitious climate goals, but less time navigating the politics of incremental steps. This is out of step with experience of the past decade: long-term federal goals and signature policies will change with the vagaries of political cycles, but incremental changes in technologies, transmission topologies, and power system operations will have real staying power.