POLICIES TO SUPPORT A COMPETITIVE WHOLESALE ELECTRICITY MARKET IN THE SOUTHEAST U.S.

The document advocates for the transition of the Southeast U.S. electricity sector from vertically integrated monopolies to a competitive wholesale market, potentially via a Regional Transmission Organization (RTO). It highlights that such a shift could save customers 29 percent on electricity costs and reduce emissions by 37 percent below 2018 levels by 2040. The authors suggest incremental steps, such as Energy Imbalance Markets (EIM) and all-source procurement, as pathways toward full restructuring. Additionally, the report emphasizes the need for integrated distribution planning for distributed energy resources and a 'just transition' framework to support communities affected by the phase-out of coal power.

• Implementing a regional transmission organization (RTO) in the Southeast U.S. could lead to a 29 percent reduction in electricity costs and a 37 percent decrease in emissions relative to 2018 levels by 2040, while adding nearly 130 GW of clean energy projects.
• Incremental steps toward full market restructuring, such as Energy Imbalance Markets (EIM), can provide economic and environmental benefits; for example, the Western EIM has generated over $1 billion in gross economic benefits and avoided more than 533,000 metric tons of CO2.
• Optimizing distributed energy resources (DER), specifically community-scale solar and storage below the substation, could reduce peak demand by 12 percent and account for approximately 10 percent of the RTO Scenario's cost savings by 2040.
• Adopting all-source procurement—a technology-neutral resource acquisition process—can capture about three-quarters of the cost benefits and one-third of the emissions benefits associated with competition by improving single-utility planning.
• To ensure a just transition for coal-impacted communities, the report suggests investing in local clean energy resources, noting that nearly all coal-fired plants have cheaper solar or wind resources available within 35 miles.

APA

GIMON, E., O’BOYLE, M., MCNAIR, T., CLACK, C. T. M., CHOUKULKAR, A., COTE, B., & MCKEE, S. (2020). POLICIES TO SUPPORT A COMPETITIVE WHOLESALE ELECTRICITY MARKET IN THE SOUTHEAST U.S. Energy Innovation. https://energyinnovation.org/wp-content/uploads/Policies-To-Support-A-Competitive-Wholesale-Electricity-Market-In-The-Southeast-US.pdf

Chicago

GIMON, ERIC, MIKE O’BOYLE, TAYLOR MCNAIR, CHRISTOPHER T M CLACK, ADITYA CHOUKULKAR, BRIANNA COTE, and SARAH MCKEE. POLICIES TO SUPPORT A COMPETITIVE WHOLESALE ELECTRICITY MARKET IN THE SOUTHEAST U.S. Energy Innovation, 2020. https://energyinnovation.org/wp-content/uploads/Policies-To-Support-A-Competitive-Wholesale-Electricity-Market-In-The-Southeast-US.pdf.

Wikipedia

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BibTeX

@techreport{gimon2020policies, author = {GIMON, ERIC and O’BOYLE, MIKE and MCNAIR, TAYLOR and CLACK, CHRISTOPHER T M and CHOUKULKAR, ADITYA and COTE, BRIANNA and MCKEE, SARAH}, title = {{POLICIES TO SUPPORT A COMPETITIVE WHOLESALE ELECTRICITY MARKET IN THE SOUTHEAST U.S.}}, institution = {Energy Innovation}, year = {2020}, month = aug, url = {https://energyinnovation.org/wp-content/uploads/Policies-To-Support-A-Competitive-Wholesale-Electricity-Market-In-The-Southeast-US.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }