3.21.09 Washington Post: Climate Change ‘Big Priority’ For Energy Commission Chief

The Washington Post discusses the priorities of the new chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Jon Wellinghoff.

Wellinghoff, a lawyer and former consumer advocate for Nevada,  has long been involved with renewable energy and holds a belief that someday  electric-car owners could get paid to provide backup battery power to the electric grid.  He joined FERC in 2006 and has been acting chairman since Janauary.

The Washington Post reports:

In an interview Thursday, he said climate change would remain “a big priority for me. From everything I’ve read, we’re in big trouble and we need to do everything we can to reduce our carbon footprint.”

To do that, Wellinghoff envisions a more sophisticated electricity system with more big transmission lines and a “smart grid” with greater ability to coordinate fluctuations in wind and solar power with the demand from households, buildings and factories.

On Thursday, he supported a proposal that sets rules for smart-grid devices so they can communicate with each other more easily. He is also seeking greater authority over the siting of transmission lines that could carry renewable resources from sparsely populated places where they are plentiful to the cities and suburbs where those resources are most needed.

“How do we do that without steamrolling the states” is a key issue, Wellinghoff said. And while he said that the less FERC intrudes on the power of states the better, he also said that “at the end of the day you need the power to overrule them” in order to make sure that “we get the upgrades done that are essential to the national interest, national security and our environmental interest with respect to carbon and greenhouse gas emissions.”

A recent court ruling, which asserted states’ rights to block transmission lines, could complicate that task. But  Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) favors an increase in FERC’s authority; Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman  Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) plans to push the idea as part of an energy bill.

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In Wellinghoff’s view, the U.S. electricity system will ultimately become more decentralized, with local solar projects generating power and automobiles serving as storage devices for utility companies. He said that in five to 10 years, if the cost of including the price of household solar installation in a mortgage is less than the money saved on utility bills, “everybody will put solar on their houses.”

Ultimately, Wellington hopes to find ways to better manage electricity demand so renewable power sources can be integrated into the system. For instance, he is a proponent of using electric cars to send electricity back to the electrical grid as well as draw from it. Electric-car owners could sign up with a company that would amalgamate hundreds or thousands of car owners and, based on their average behavior, promise to either draw down or send back electricity to the grid. Car owners would be paid, which would help offset the cost of electric vehicles, currently priced at least $8,000 or as much as $12,000 more than non-electric versions.

“It makes the grid more efficient, but it could also benefit vehicle owners because they would be getting money back,” he said.