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Full-Text Articles in Law
Free Trade In Electric Power, Joel B. Eisen, Felix Mormann
Free Trade In Electric Power, Joel B. Eisen, Felix Mormann
Felix Mormann
This Article develops the core legal framework of a new electricity-trading ecosystem in which anyone, anytime, anywhere, can trade electricity in any amount with anyone else. The proliferation of solar and other distributed energy resources, business model innovation in the sharing economy, and climate change present enormous challenges — and opportunities — for America’s energy economy. But the electricity industry is ill equipped to adapt to and benefit from these transformative forces, with much of its physical infrastructure, regulatory institutions, and business models a relic of the early days of electrification. We suggest a systematic rethinking to usher in a …
Net Neutrality Powers Energy And Forestalls Climate Change, Catherine J.K. Sandoval
Net Neutrality Powers Energy And Forestalls Climate Change, Catherine J.K. Sandoval
San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law
Drawing on my experience as a Commissioner of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) from January 2011 to January 2017, this Article explores the interdependence of the electricity sector and the open and neutral internet. Section II of this Article discusses the evolution of critical infrastructure laws and policies. Section III examines California’s energy loading order adopted in 2003 to increase energy reliability and protect the environment. Section IV analyzes the evolution of federal and state Smart Grid policies to infuse communications and information technologies including the internet into the energy ecosystem. Section V discusses FERC’s authorization of demand response−the …
Free Trade In Electric Power, Joel B. Eisen, Felix Mormann
Free Trade In Electric Power, Joel B. Eisen, Felix Mormann
Faculty Scholarship
This Article develops the core legal framework of a new electricity-trading ecosystem in which anyone, anytime, anywhere, can trade electricity in any amount with anyone else. The proliferation of solar and other distributed energy resources, business model innovation in the sharing economy, and climate change present enormous challenges — and opportunities — for America’s energy economy. But the electricity industry is ill equipped to adapt to and benefit from these transformative forces, with much of its physical infrastructure, regulatory institutions, and business models a relic of the early days of electrification. We suggest a systematic rethinking to usher in a …
The New(Clear?) Electricity Federalism: Federal Preemption Of States’ “Zero Emissions Credit” Programs, Joel Eisen
The New(Clear?) Electricity Federalism: Federal Preemption Of States’ “Zero Emissions Credit” Programs, Joel Eisen
Law Faculty Publications
This Article proposes and applies a “conscious disregard” test for resolving the upcoming appellate litigation that involves the conflict between federal authority over the electric grid and state laws providing subsidies to nuclear power plants in the form of “zero emissions credits” (ZECs). This test draws upon principles of conflict preemption, as elaborated in three recent Supreme Court decisions on the intersection of state and federal jurisdiction over the electric grid under the Federal Power Act. It provides that if a state law explicitly aims to directly affect wholesale electricity market prices, terms or conditions, its subsidy program is impermissible …
Free Trade In Electric Power, Joel Eisen
Free Trade In Electric Power, Joel Eisen
Law Faculty Publications
This Article develops the core legal framework of a new electricity-trading ecosystem in which anyone, anytime, anywhere, can trade electricity in any amount with anyone else. The proliferation of solar and other distributed energy resources, business model innovation in the sharing economy, and climate change present enormous challenges — and opportunities — for America’s energy economy. But the electricity industry is ill equipped to adapt to and benefit from these transformative forces, with much of its physical infrastructure, regulatory institutions, and business models a relic of the early days of electrification. We suggest a systematic rethinking to usher in a …
The Quiet Undoing: How Regional Electricity Market Reforms Threaten State Clean Energygoals, Danny Cullenward, Shelley Welton
The Quiet Undoing: How Regional Electricity Market Reforms Threaten State Clean Energygoals, Danny Cullenward, Shelley Welton
All Faculty Scholarship
In a series of largely unnoticed but extremely consequential moves, two regional electricity market operators are pursuing reforms to make it more difficult for states to achieve their clean energy goals. The federal energy regulator, FERC, has already approved one such reform and ordered a second market operator to go farther in punishing state-supported clean energy resources than it had initially proposed. This disturbing trend highlights a shift in energy governance that threatens to destabilize the field’s delicate cooperative federalist model. Over the past several decades, states have increasingly ceded control over energy dispatch and grid planning to private market …