Americans Want Affordable, Reliable, Clean Energy: Ray Long’s Address at the 2024 ACORE Grid Forum

The following is a transcript of the opening remarks by ACORE’s President and CEO, Ray Long, at the 2024 ACORE Grid Forum.

Introduction

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the ACORE Grid Forum. It’s great to see so many friendly faces, and I’d like to also welcome those of you with us on livestream today. I will turn to my remarks in a moment, but first, I want to extend my deepest condolences to the loved ones and families of Shash Adhikari and Kate Neely who tragically lost their lives a week and a half ago in a plane crash in North Carolina.  Shash and Kate were the COO and CEO of Soli Renew, an ACORE Accelerate member company, and their dedication to equitably advancing clean energy and contributions to our community will never be forgotten.  

I also want to extend my sympathies to everyone impacted by the devastation from both Hurricane Milton this week and Hurricane Helene. These storms are getting bigger, stronger, and continue to serve as a motivating force for many of us here working in decarbonization fields today. 

Now to the many I’m grateful for… all of the fantastic people and groups who make this event possible. I want to start by extending our heartfelt appreciation to the outstanding group of Executive Sponsors whose support lays the foundation for all of ACORE’s programs and events. They are shown on this slide. In addition, I want to thank our Presenting Sponsors Wilson Sonsini and Deloitte. And our Networking Sponsors, Conservative Energy Network and Dominion Energy. We are grateful for their support. I’d also like to thank our program sponsors and funders including Breakthrough Energy, the Clean Grid Initiative, Resources for the Future, the Energy Foundation, among others who enable ACORE programs including the Macro Grid Initiative and ACORE Accelerate.   

Finally, I’d like to call out all of our peer organizations, with whom we collaborate and execute to collectively achieve our vision of a world powered by clean energy.  American Clean Power Association, Solar Energy Industries Association, Advanced Energy United, Clean Energy Buyers Association, National Hydropower Association, Geothermal Rising, the Nuclear Innovation Alliance, among others.   

The support and collaboration of this entire group of people, investors, companies, and associations enables all that we do. Thank you all and let’s have a collective round of applause…I’d like to chat with you for a few minutes about what ACORE is doing and what you can expect over our time together today.  But before that, please indulge me as I provide some reflections about clean energy and where we’re at today.  

Clean Energy: It’s Here; It’s There; It’s Everywhere!

Are there any “Ted Lasso” fans here? Do you remember what the crowd at Nelson Road Stadium cheered to Roy Kent when he walked back on the field to start his coaching career? To paraphrase the crowd…“Clean Energy…It’s here; it’s there; it’s everywhere!”  

That’s the theme of what we’re going to chat about for a few minutes…I recently had the opportunity to write a column for Forbes on the status of clean energy deployment and all the related issues, and used the following story to set the table for the discussion:   

There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” The two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and asks, “What the hell is water?”  

There are many things in our lives that are all around us that are taken for granted or just go unnoticed. The anecdote of the two fish from “This is Water” helps make the point that the most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see, essentially hidden in plain sight.  

Based on the media coverage, political discourse, and just people’s lives being busy – most people are unaware of how fast clean energy – which is energy produced without greenhouse gas emissions – has been growing in the U.S. over the past decade. We no longer need to use the future tense when discussing the energy transition – clean energy is here, now.   

Consider that in the last two years alone:  

  • 81% of all large-scale electric capacity development was solar, wind, and battery storage. EIA data shows that, in 2024, the percentage skyrocketed to 90% – meaning solar, wind, and storage have made up all but 10% of the utility-scale sized energy projects built in the U.S. this year.  
  • Meanwhile, hydro and geothermal power have grown to the point where they are generating enough electricity combined to power over 27 million American homes.  
  • And, nuclear is having a resurgence for both existing technologies and new tech, including small modular reactors (SMRs), with the first U.S. projects under development.  

But why is this happening now and so quickly? Put simply, clean energy is delivering on the three things that ALL consumers (industry, business, government, homeowners) look for when they purchase electricity: affordable, reliable, and clean. People want to pay a reasonable amount for electricity that keeps the lights on and the factory working while ensuring that the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the environment we live in are healthy for us and our children.    

On pricing, solar and wind are now the cheapest sources of new electricity, beating out the most efficient natural gas technologies. Since 2009, the levelized cost of electricity – the metric all of us electricity geeks use to monitor costs – has declined 83% for solar and 65% for wind.  

So, what does this mean for consumers? Clean energy growth is expected to save the average American household between $235 and $282 a year. The combination of wind, solar, energy storage, hydro, geothermal, nuclear power, and other clean technologies is an incredibly reliable system of electricity generation that works together efficiently to replace older, dirtier, and more expensive technologies. And this is a good thing.  

Why would you invest in an 8-track tape player (the music technology that was popular when much of the legacy, fossil fuel generation operating today was first built) when you can purchase a smartphone to play the same songs more efficiently?  Do you remember what an 8-track looks like? The tape-itself – without the actual player – is bigger than an iPhone! Innovation makes our lives better, and the transition from conventional fossil to clean energy is evidence of that.  

Americans Want Affordable, Reliable, Clean Energy

Because this group of clean energy technologies is delivering on the consumers’ “affordable, reliable, clean” trifecta, investors, developers, and operators have all poured their resources into building these projects. There was $105 billion invested in U.S. clean energy projects in 2023, the most in history. And that capital has led to booming business and job growth across America. The recently released 2024 U.S. Energy and Employment Jobs Report found that clean energy now employs 3.5 million Americans, with jobs in clean energy growing twice as fast as the overall economy. This number will only increase as our domestic manufacturing capabilities continue to expand.  

Real industrial manufacturing policies, like the Advanced Manufacturing Tax Credit (AMTC), are providing the long-term incentive needed for companies to make significant investments in U.S. manufacturing. Since the AMTC became effective two years ago, 42 factories have been built or expanded, representing $75 billion in investment, and there are an additional 119 factories currently under development. This clean energy manufacturing renaissance will ultimately support more than 100,000 new manufacturing jobs nationwide.  

This is an economic boom and transition similar to what happened in the 1980s when overseas auto manufacturers all set up factories in the U.S. But the transition from conventional fossil electric generation to clean energy is happening at a historic pace. We live in a different time, when the right incentives, technological innovations, and investments can align for faster deployment. Today, clean energy exists in all areas of our country – rural, suburban, and urban; red, blue, and purple. And it should since it’s speaking our collective language in delivering on what consumers deserve – affordable, reliable, and clean.     

We also know that there is a huge expanding opportunity with increasing electric demand for more clean energy stemming from electrification, EV growth, and AI evolution and expansion, and the resulting need for more data center capacity. Here are the stats:  

  • New data centers alone may require more than an additional 50 GW of power by the end of the decade. 
  • Or put another way, data centers may move from a 3.7% share of total U.S. power demand to over 11%. 

So, what needs to be done?

Put simply…connecting all that new clean energy supply, with rapidly increasing demand. Building out our transmission grid to connect supply and demand more efficiently will have profound impacts.

First, equitable power supply to disadvantaged communities. An additional 1 GW of transmission could have kept the lights on in 200,000 homes during Winter Storm Uri.  And areas in Texas with large minority populations were four times more likely to experience outages than predominantly white neighborhoods. 

Second, lowering energy costs for consumers. A 1,000-megawatt (MW) transmission line can save up to $670 million dollars annually by relieving congestion. An optimized transmission buildout in the Eastern Interconnect could cut rates by more than one-third by 2050. 

Third, reducing the amount of capacity additions needed. Grid operators have confirmed that transmission connecting large geographic areas saves billions annually by reducing the need for power plant capacity because of reduced variability in electricity supply and demand. For example, increased interregional transmission ties between PJM and MISO can save consumers more than $15 billion by reducing the need for power plant capacity. 

Fourth, lowering emissions. The U.S. could reduce emissions by 1 billion tons per year by 2030 if transmission expansion were more than doubled. This is equal to the emissions from the consumption of over 100 billion gallons of gasoline. 

And finally, fifth, creating jobs. Just moving forward on shovel-ready transmission projects would create 1.3 million American jobs.

This is the vision of ACORE’s Macro Grid Initiative ,and, right now, utilities and transmission developers are working to modernize the transmission and distribution systems throughout the U.S. But there are several steps that need to be taken in order for these projects to move forward in an efficient way.  Consider:

  • The average time it takes to permit a transmission project is 6.5 years, but it can often take over 10 years.  
  • It took Pattern Energy’s SunZia project 17 years to be fully permitted.  
  • Last year, ACEG estimated that there are 36 shovel-ready high-voltage transmission projects, but estimated that fewer than half would actually proceed to construction in the coming years without permitting reform. 
  • The stakes for reform are high – if all of these projects came online, we could interconnect around 187 GW of new renewable energy capacity. 

There are several policy initiatives that could significantly speed up transmission deployment including:  

  • Pending federal permitting legislation  
  • Tax incentives targeting transmission  
  • Increasing deployment of grid-enhancing technologies and HVDC technology  

We’re going to unpack and discuss much of these things today with an incredible line up of speakers. FERC Commissioner David Rosner will keynote later this morning. We have a great panel of executives from PJM, MISO, and SPP who will discuss Interregional  transmission planning. Retired Army General Richard Cody will moderate a discussion on how transmission can bolster national security. DOE Undersecretary for Infrastructure David Crane will swing by for an interview for our new ACORE Power Perspectives video series, and much more.

I’d like to thank you all for coming today, and I hope to meet you over the course of the program. And now, I’m excited to introduce our first “fireside chat” with Senior Policy Advisor in the White House Office of Clean Energy Innovation and Implementation, Whitney Muse and ACORE’s own Lesley Hunter. 

Author

Ray Long

Ray Long

ACORE Team Member

President and CEO