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Roadmap to a Low Carbon Electricity System in the U.S. and Europe
The report argues that the 19th-century utility model, designed for centralized fossil-fuel generation, is ill-suited for the 21st-century transition to low-carbon energy. It identifies critical challenges across five business segments: generation, transmission, market operation, distribution, and customer management. A central thesis is that current investor-owned utility (IOU) and independent power producer (IPP) financial structures inflate the cost of renewables by imposing risk-return requirements tailored to fossil fuels. The author proposes shifting toward 'YieldCos', municipal financing, and crowdsourced investment to match the bond-like, long-term cash flow profiles of renewable projects, which could potentially reduce the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) by approximately 20%.
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Document type: Report