The Department of Energy released its grid study on Wednesday evening. NPR reports, “The report doesn’t say there’s a grid reliability problem now—only that one could develop if more coal and nuclear power plants shut down.”

Though the number one cited cause of coal and nuclear plant retirements in the report is natural gas growth, “variable renewable energy” is also blamed. The report says “dispatch of VRE has negatively impacted the economics of baseload plants.”

Other highlights include:

• On the reasons for power plant retirements: “The biggest contributor to coal and nuclear plant retirements has been the advantaged economics of natural gas-fired generation.”
• On job opportunities in solar and wind: “Job growth has been strong in the VRE sector, and the solar and wind workforce increased by 25 and 32%, respectively, in 2016.”
• On solar and grid reliability: “Maintaining short-term reliability has grown more complex in light of higher levels of VRE, evolving customer electricity usage patterns, and the wider use of 15-minute load metering and customer time-of-use rates. However, grid operators have kept up with these factors by developing new information technology and analysis capabilities, such as more sophisticated wind and solar forecasting tools.”
• On power system flexibility: “The level of demand changes throughout the day and from season to season. This, and the addition of variable generation such as wind and solar, places a premium on having flexible generation capacity that can change its level of output to account for changes in demand and the amount of generation from variable resources (such as when the wind stops blowing or the sun goes down).”

In Secretary Rick Perry’s cover letter accompanying the report, he writes, “This review is something that was long overdue. The industry has experienced massive change in recent years, and government has failed to keep pace. This report examines the evolution of markets that has occurred over the last fifteen years. Policy makers and regulators should be making decisions based on what the markets look like today, not what they looked like years ago.”

However, one critic says the report is still stuck in the past where fossil fuel power plants are king, and that it doesn’t take renewables into account.

John Moore, director of the Sustainable FERC Project housed within the Natural Resources Defense Council, issued the following statement:

“DOE’s grid study reads like a schizophrenic attempt to support outdated, uncompetitive and highly polluting power plants. DOE Secretary Perry appears determined to mold America’s transmission grid around support for fossil fuels, but the facts in his own report don’t back up that approach.

“The recommendations ignore renewable energy’s contributions to a reliable electricity system. They also include misguided proposals to gut environmental rules for coal and nuclear plants, and to pay fossil resources for reliability services that DOE hasn’t demonstrated are necessary. DOE and Secretary Perry should be focusing instead on accelerating the growth of clean energy rather than creating barriers.”

SEIA sent the following statement from president and CEO Abigail Ross Hopper regarding the report:

“While we are still reviewing the specifics of this study, it’s been proven time and again that a diversified electricity mix is good for the overall system and poses no threat to the reliability of our nation’s grid. On the contrary, solar and other renewables provide significant cost savings, relieve pressure on our nation’s infrastructure and improve the grid’s overall performance.

“We think it’s essential that policymakers account for the many benefits solar energy offers and that they recognize that innovation is driving an accelerated move toward greater use of solar energy, which has the approval of 90% of all Americans. As an industry, we remain intently focused on providing affordable and reliable electricity to American families and look forward to working with Secretary Perry and his staff to ensure that our increasingly diverse grid continues to flourish.

“The U.S. solar industry employs 260,000 Americans and last year was the number one source of new electric generating capacity, now supplying enough electricity to power the equivalent of 8.7 million homes.”

Exelon issued a statement calling for urgent energy market reforms to preserve renewables and nuclear plants:

“Exelon is pleased that the Department of Energy has called for urgently needed energy market reforms as its first priority for the new FERC to address quickly. These reforms will help preserve clean energy sources and ensure critical American assets remain part of the mix, including baseload nuclear plants that provide more than 60% of our nation’s emissions-free energy. We applaud the Department of Energy for their work, and urge FERC and the RTOs to swiftly enact common-sense reforms that will help safeguard the reliability, resilience, diversity and affordability of our supply of electricity.”