Raab Associates assisted the Keystone Center in facilitating a stakeholder process for the Eastern Interconnection Planning Collaborative (EIPC), a coalition of 24 transmission planning authorities in the Eastern U.S. and Canada. This stakeholder process supported a multi-year study of the EI energy resources and transmission system. The EIPC was awarded a $16 million Department of Energy (DOE) grant to integrate existing sub-regional plans and evaluate longer-term resource and policy scenarios that will shape the transmission system of the future.
Stakeholders, including transmission and generation owners, consumer and environmental advocates, renewable energy generators, end users, public power and state regulators, and Canadian provinces in the EI, provided strategic guidance on the future scenarios. They helped identify federal and state policy drivers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and new technologies that may dramatically impact the grid and advised the EIPC on scenario assumptions such as the amount and location of new renewable resources and other low-carbon generation, the impact of new smart grid technologies, the penetration of demand-side resources, and the impact of new electricity load such as plug-in hybrid vehicles.
From 2010 through mid-2012, Raab Associates assisted the Keystone Center in facilitating all stakeholder activities, including the steering committee, stakeholder work groups, and public outreach efforts. In June 2012, the EIPC issued its report to DOE, including the stakeholder-specified future scenarios and related transmission analyses. This effort provided not only forward-looking information about the transmission needs of a carbon-constrained future, but also resulted in new EI planning processes and tools.
|
