Webinar: Environmental Benefits of Competition in Electricity Markets
As leaders return from the COP26 summit and Congress grapples with the challenges of trying to pass giant and costly government programs to address climate change, several recent reports show that increasing competition in electricity markets can deliver higher reductions in carbon emissions and increased deployment of clean energy compared to traditional monopoly markets.
On November 23, ConservAmerica hosted an online discussion on the role of competition in electricity markets and the environmental benefits of removing barriers to market entry for independent power producers.
Panelists:
Joshua Rhodes of IdeaSmiths and the University of Texas Austin
Landon Stevens of the Conservative Energy Network
Devin Hartman of the R Street Institute
Travis Fisher of the Electricity Consumers Resource Council
Robert Dillon of the Energy Choice Coalition and ConservAmerica
From left to right: Devin Hartman, Joshua Rhodes, Landon Stevens, and Travis Fisher.
Speakers
Joshua D. Rhodes, Ph.D. is a Research Associate at The University of Texas at Austin, and a Founding partner of IdeaSmiths LLC. His current work is in the area of smart grid and the bulk electricity system, including spatial system-level applications and impacts of energy efficiency, resource planning, distributed generation, and storage. He is also interested in policy and the impacts that good policy can have on the efficiency of the micro and macro economy. He is also a regular contributor to Forbes and is an AXIOS Expert Voice. He sits on the boards of the Texas Solar Energy Society and Pecan Street Inc. (Data Advisory Board).
Landon Stevens sets the policy agenda as CEN engages in 21 states across the country to identify and promote conservative solutions for moving to a clean energy future. Prior to his time at CEN, Landon worked at the Arizona Corporation Commission serving as the Policy Advisor for two different Commissioners. At the ACC Landon was the principal author of the proposed Arizona Energy Modernization Plan which called for Arizona to produce 80 percent of its energy from clean sources by 2050 while also setting the nation’s largest energy storage target, adopting a ‘Clean Peak Standard’ for regulated utilities, and promoting adoption of electric vehicles. He also initiated the country’s first public utility commission docket dedicated to understanding the role of emerging blockchain and distributed ledger technology in the energy sector.
Devin Hartman leads a team that brings a pragmatic and analytically sound pro-market perspective to energy and environmental policy. He rejoined R Street in 2020 after serving as the president and CEO of the Electricity Consumers Resource Council (ELCON), the national association of large industrial users of electricity. He represented large consumers on the Members Representatives Committee of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation from 2019-2020. Before ELCON, Devin established R Street’s electricity policy program in 2016 based on principles of market competition, consumer choice and good governance. He has previously worked for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and various energy and environmental policy nonprofit organizations.
Travis Fisher advocates for electricity consumers before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), the Department of Energy (DOE), and Congress. Fisher was first published in the journal of the US Association for Energy Economics in 2012 and has remained active in academic discussions of electricity policy. He serves on the Advisory Committee of the Future Power Markets Forum, a project of Columbia University and Johns Hopkins University. In January 2017, after serving on the Presidential Transition Teams at FERC and the DOE, Fisher joined DOE as a Senior Advisor in the Loan Programs Office and the Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability. Prior to joining DOE, Fisher was an economist at the Institute for Energy Research.