Technical Report: Economic & Clean Energy Benefits of Establishing a Competitive Wholesale Electricity Market in the Southeast United States

The report uses the WIS:dom-P optimization model to compare four capacity expansion scenarios for the Southeast US: the current SE IRP, an economic IRP without an RTO, an SE RTO, and an SE RTO that retains uneconomic nuclear plants. The findings indicate that the SE RTO scenario is the most economic, offering cumulative savings of $383.7 billion by 2040 and the highest job creation. Retaining nuclear plants further reduces emissions, saving an additional 156.76 million metric tonnes of CO2 by 2040 at a minimal additional cost. The study also highlights the role of variable renewable energy (VRE) and storage in meeting seasonal demand peaks and the importance of transmission expansion in a coordinated regional market.

• Establishing a Regional Transmission Organization (RTO) in the Southeast is the most cost-effective strategy, with cumulative electric sector savings of $383.7 billion by 2040 compared to the current IRP scenario.
• The 'SE IRP' scenario is the least economic option, resulting in the highest total resource costs and retail rates for consumers, partly due to an excessively high unforced capacity planning reserve margin (PRM) of 49%.
• Implementing optimal capacity expansion without an RTO (the 'SE Economic IRP' scenario) still provides cumulative savings of $298.14 billion by 2040 compared to the SE IRP.
• Retaining uneconomic nuclear generation in an RTO framework ('SE RTO with Nuclear') results in the lowest emissions across all pollutants, saving an additional 156.76 million metric tonnes of CO2 by 2040 compared to the 'SE RTO' scenario, at an additional cost of approximately $9 billion.
• The 'SE RTO' scenario generates the most employment, adding 407,631 jobs by 2040, driven by increased variable renewable energy (VRE) installations and transmission expansion.
• Co-optimizing distribution energy resources (DER) with utility-scale generation leads to significant distribution cost savings: $38.49 billion in the 'SE RTO' scenario and $37.8 billion in the 'SE RTO with Nuclear' scenario by 2040.
• The 'SE RTO' scenario achieves a 46% decrease in CO2 emissions (2,320 million metric tonnes) compared to the 'SE IRP' scenario, where emissions actually increased by 16% over 2018 levels due to over-building fossil fuel generation.
• Wind generation paired with storage is well-positioned to meet winter peak loads in the Southeast, whereas solar is best suited for summer afternoon peaks around 2:00 PM EST.
• The 'SE RTO' and 'SE RTO with Nuclear' scenarios required the installation of approximately 10,000 MW of transmission capacity to ensure a reliable and low-cost energy system.
• DER generation in the 'SE RTO' scenario reduces peak load by 27,347 MW (an 11.8% reduction) and increases minimum load by 18,158 MW, effectively flattening the demand profile seen by utility-scale generation.
• The capacity value of solar PV in the Southeast drops sharply to just above 30% by 2025 because its generation peak is not perfectly aligned with the daily load peak.

APA

Clack, C. T. M., Choukulkar, A., Coté, B., & McKee, S. A. (2020). Technical Report: Economic & Clean Energy Benefits of Establishing a Competitive Wholesale Electricity Market in the Southeast United States. Energy Innovation. https://energyinnovation.org/wp-content/uploads/SERTO_WISdomP_VCE-EI.pdf

Chicago

Clack, Christopher T M, Aditya Choukulkar, Brianna Coté, and Sarah A McKee. Technical Report: Economic & Clean Energy Benefits of Establishing a Competitive Wholesale Electricity Market in the Southeast United States. Energy Innovation, 2020. https://energyinnovation.org/wp-content/uploads/SERTO_WISdomP_VCE-EI.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Clack |first1=Christopher T M |last2=Choukulkar |first2=Aditya |last3=Coté |first3=Brianna |last4=McKee |first4=Sarah A |title=Technical Report: Economic & Clean Energy Benefits of Establishing a Competitive Wholesale Electricity Market in the Southeast United States |publisher=Energy Innovation |date=August 2020 |url=https://energyinnovation.org/wp-content/uploads/SERTO_WISdomP_VCE-EI.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{clack2020technical, author = {Clack, Christopher T M and Choukulkar, Aditya and Coté, Brianna and McKee, Sarah A}, title = {{Technical Report: Economic \& Clean Energy Benefits of Establishing a Competitive Wholesale Electricity Market in the Southeast United States}}, institution = {Energy Innovation}, year = {2020}, month = aug, url = {https://energyinnovation.org/wp-content/uploads/SERTO_WISdomP_VCE-EI.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }