How Utility Regulators Can Unlock $12.7 Billion in Annual Savings for Customers

The policy brief advocates for 'clean repowering'—the strategy of siting new renewable energy projects at existing or retiring fossil fuel plant interconnection points—to reduce interconnection times from nearly five years to less than one year. RMI's analysis indicates this approach could enable 250 GW of new renewable energy without transmission upgrades, resulting in average national savings of $12.7 billion annually from 2025 to 2035. The brief highlights the role of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Energy Infrastructure Reinvestment (EIR) program in making these projects financially viable and provides specific recommendations for regulators to ensure these savings reach customers through integrated resource planning and oversight.

• Clean repowering allows new renewable energy projects to bypass the standard interconnection process, which can take nearly five years, reducing the time to connect to the grid to less than one year by using existing fossil asset interconnection rights.
• The clean repowering strategy, supported by Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) incentives, has the potential to add 250 GW of new renewable energy projects without requiring transmission upgrades, leading to average national savings of $12.7 billion per year for 10 years starting in 2025.
• Vertically integrated utilities are projected to achieve $46 billion in net present value (NPV) savings between now and 2054. Specifically, 18 utilities could see NPV savings in the billions, with the highest opportunities located in the Southeast region, PJM, and MISO.
• In Louisiana, Entergy could achieve $2.8 billion in NPV savings by reducing the operation of its coal and gas fleet and investing in renewables. Specifically, the Nine Mile Points gas plant (2 GW) could support 1,713 MW of solar, and the R S Nelson coal plant (600 MW) could avoid 383,555 tons of CO2 annually by adding 101 MW of solar and 224 MW of wind.
• The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Department of Energy's Energy Infrastructure Reinvestment (EIR) program provide the tax credits and low-cost financing necessary to offset the up-front costs of clean energy and the costs associated with more frequent ramping and start-ups.

APA

RMI (2024). How Utility Regulators Can Unlock $12.7 Billion in Annual Savings for Customers. https://rmi.org/resources/how-utility-regulators-can-unlock-12-7-billion-in-annual-savings-for-customers/

Chicago

RMI. How Utility Regulators Can Unlock $12.7 Billion in Annual Savings for Customers. 2024. https://rmi.org/resources/how-utility-regulators-can-unlock-12-7-billion-in-annual-savings-for-customers/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=RMI |title=How Utility Regulators Can Unlock $12.7 Billion in Annual Savings for Customers |date=14 February 2024 |url=https://rmi.org/resources/how-utility-regulators-can-unlock-12-7-billion-in-annual-savings-for-customers/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{rmi2024how, author = {{RMI}}, title = {{How Utility Regulators Can Unlock \$12.7 Billion in Annual Savings for Customers}}, institution = {RMI}, year = {2024}, month = feb, url = {https://rmi.org/resources/how-utility-regulators-can-unlock-12-7-billion-in-annual-savings-for-customers/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }