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Stranded Costs And Grid Decarbonization, Emily Hammond, Jim Rossi

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Over the past half century, energy law has endured many stranded cost experiments, each helping firms and customers adjust to a new normal. However, these past experiments have contributed to a myopic regulatory approach to past stranded cost recovery by: (1) endorsing a preference for addressing all stranded costs only after energy resource investment decisions have been made; and (2) fixating on the firm’s financial costs and protection of investors, rather than on the broader impacts of each on the energy system.

The current transition to decarbonization is already giving rise to stranded cost claims related to existing energy assets …