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Source: NCDEQ, 2/24/21
As
part of the North Carolina Clean Energy Plan, a stakeholder workgroup led by
the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is presenting a package of
electricity regulatory reform recommendations included in the December North Carolina Energy Regulatory Process report. The package includes issue briefs, policy proposals, and proposed legislation that are supported by the majority of the stakeholders. The reforms were presented to the Climate Change Interagency Council today and have been submitted to the Governor’s Office. The stakeholders are also delivering the reform package to members of the North Carolina General Assembly and North Carolina Utilities Commission. The
workgroup was formed to address Recommendation B-1 of the North Carolina Clean Energy Plan (CEP). The goal was to
develop electricity reform policies that align regulatory incentives and processes
with modern public policy goals, customer expectations, utility needs, and
technology innovation. Stakeholders examined four electricity regulatory
reforms recommended in the CEP including;
- Adopting a
performance-based regulatory framework (B-2),
- Enabling securitization
for the retirement of fossil fuel assets (B-3),
- Studying options to
increase competition in the electricity system (B-4), and
- Implementing competitive
procurement of resources by investor-owned utilities (C-3).
One
of the key priorities of the reform measures is to create mechanisms and/or
incentives for electricity sector greenhouse gas emissions reductions of 50% to
70% below 2005 levels by 2030, and to attain carbon neutrality by 2050 in
support of both the CEP Recommendation A-1 and the larger goals of Governor Roy Cooper’s Executive Order 80. Electricity
policy experts from the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP) and the Rocky
Mountain Institute (RMI) assisted DEQ and the stakeholders. However, the
participating stakeholders were responsible for identifying, researching,
discussing, and developing the broadly-supported reform options. These
stakeholders come from 30 different organizations and include representatives from
the following sectors:
- state and local government,
- electricity utilities,
- clean energy owners and
advocates,
- environmental
organizations,
- ratepayer representatives,
and
- university researchers.
The full NERP report and
information on the stakeholder process is available online at https://deq.nc.gov/cep-nerp.
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