Solutions Spotlight: A Q&A with Deputy Assistant Secretary for Renewable Power Alejandro Moreno | Article

Alejandro Moreno, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Renewable Power, joined EESI for the 2021 Congressional Clean Energy EXPO and Policy Form to share insights and updates from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.

EESI: The Department of Energy plays a big role in ensuring the resilience and reliability of our energy system. At the Office of Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), how do you work with colleagues across the department to integrate energy efficiency and renewable energy resources in a way that maximizes grid resilience and reliability?

Moreno: At EERE, a lot of our focus is on emerging renewable technologies, and the Biden-Harris Administration has a clear goal of decarbonizing the power sector by 2035. This transition will involve substantially more renewables in our energy portfolio, but at the same time, the primary goal of the electricity system is to ensure that affordable and reliable power is available when and where it is needed.

Portfolio diversification could include integrating renewables with storage, increasing the flexibility of clean energy generation, or increasing flexibility and control overload. There is a real opportunity to not just maintain the status quo and current levels of reliability and resilience, but leverage some of the emerging technologies to increase resilience and reliability in the face of new threats. Greater distributed generation and storage can limit the spread of power outages and help get parts of the grid back online more quickly. Greater observation and control of power flow can predict and avoid power outages altogether. Better modeling of sub-hourly flexibility of the grid can help make sure we are citing and operating power infrastructure in a way that reduces vulnerabilities.

Regarding how we work with others across the department, reliability and resilience are system-level properties and characteristics that require deep coordination across EERE and across the technologies that supply the grid. You do not get reliability from one system working in isolation, but from multiple systems being operated and maintained together. That process requires increasing coordination across the 11 different technology offices in EERE, including our electricity, fossil energy, and nuclear offices whose generation technologies continue to be critical elements of the grid.

EESI: At the community level, particularly in communities on the frontlines of climate change, resilience and reliability are major concerns. What is the potential at the community level for decentralized and distributed energy resources to help communities keep the lights on and recover from severe weather?

Moreno: We are developing new methods and tools to simultaneously integrate multiple technologies so that we have the opportunity to evolve from a purely or primarily centralized control structure to a more decentralized system. This is increasingly feasible and affordable. People are increasingly looking for ways to have greater control over their power supply, whether it is a municipal utility looking for more independence from regional providers, or individuals who are looking for more independence for their supply. Rooftop and community solar are technologies that can help, especially as solar costs come down. Some approaches are less obvious, such as a project with Idaho Falls Power that combined multiple smaller, run-of-river hydropower projects with battery systems to increase the capacity value of Idaho Falls Power.

Some solutions involve rethinking certain elements of power system design and configuration, such as storage. We think a lot about how to integrate storage into the existing infrastructure of the grid, but it is also interesting to consider how you would integrate storage as a critical buffer into a new system designed from scratch. Within these new systems, storage should be thought of as integral to the power system as transmission or distribution infrastructure to allow you to plan for safer average loads rather than peak loads.

EESI: Many families spend a significant amount of their income on utility bills, sometimes 10 percent or more. What are some of the things EERE is doing to increase energy affordability for these families?

Moreno: While EERE has clear decarbonization goals, our goals related to equity during the clean energy transition are just as important. We know that energy burdens fall hardest on low-income communities, and we have extensive database evidence showing how rural communities and communities of color are disproportionately affected. It is a critical part of our mission at the DOE and EERE to reduce these disparities as well as reduce the overall energy burden.

The DOE’s new Office of Economic Impact and Diversity helps to lead this effort, and President Biden’s new Justice40 initiative promises to deliver 40 percent of the overall benefits of climate change investments to disadvantaged communities. We are taking this very seriously, and it is a key part of determining where we spend our money and how we request funding from Congress for the work that we will do in the upcoming fiscal years. These investments are targeted at ensuring that the communities that have suffered the most from climate change will be first to benefit. The DOE’s Weatherization Assistance Program is the nation’s largest whole-house energy efficiency retrofit program, and it assists about 35,000 low-income households annually. EERE’s Weatherization and Intergovernmental Programs Office houses the State Energy Program, which strategically engages state leadership in deploying clean energy technologies, and can be leveraged to create programs that focus specifically on disadvantaged communities.

EESI: What are EERE’s priorities to strengthen clean energy workforce development?

Moreno: As we transition to a clean energy economy, we have an opportunity to create thousands and thousands of new, good-paying jobs and clean energy careers. This will be essential to the success of the energy transition and is a huge opportunity for the American economy overall. EERE has a critical role to play here, as we are the technology experts. Traditionally, we have done a fair amount of workforce training, but we need to take a more holistic approach to ensure that skilled workers are available. To ensure we are drawing from all of the talent America has to offer, we need to start from education to ensure robust STEM-related programming that incorporates diversity and inclusion within those programs. There is potential for the DOE and federal government to play a role in this, in partnership with both private sector institutions and universities, to ensure that we are developing a robust network of connections between universities and companies. Additionally, it would be beneficial to create certifications that allow for levels of technical and labor standards within jobs themselves, so that elements of quality assurance, stability, and predictability may permeate the workforce. We also need to ensure that we are creating these jobs within the United States. You can have all the workers in the world, but if you lack domestic jobs, you will not see the benefits going towards American communities.

EESI: How should renewable energy and energy efficiency work better together? Specifically, how does EERE regard energy efficiency and renewable energy in the building sector?

Moreno: My focus has been on decarbonizing the grid, and, as important as renewable technologies are, I recognize that we are not going to get to our goal without considering the load side. Basic energy efficiency measures are part of the solution, particularly for reducing peak demand. Advancements in smart appliances and building technology offer the opportunity to provide flexibility back to the grid. There is an opportunity space there for adjusting aggregate demand on the fly in response to changes in generation output. Instead of following the traditional paradigm of constantly adjusting generation to meet standard load patterns, being able to adjust both sides of the equation dynamically would allow greater control in ensuring greater reliability and affordability at lower overall costs.

A major focus of EERE’s Building Technologies Office is on the Grid-Interactive Efficient Buildings Initiative, but it works very closely with renewable energy technologies as well. These technologies include behind-the-meter rooftop solar and storage, which are integral to load side flexibility. At a certain point, the distinction between building envelopes, smart appliances, and the grid becomes very gray, and it is necessary to work across a suite of technologies to understand how they intersect at different points in the grid chain.

The biggest element of integration is likely the projected electrification of loads that are currently served by fuel or thermal energy. The electrification of the transportation sector will cause significant changes in power demands. Understanding the nuances of the implications of different sequencing and scale patterns of electrifying subsectors is something we are just starting to wrestle with. This includes consumer behavior, which will be an important factor in understanding the full integration of the power system, and moving towards holistic and integrated approaches to energy planning.

EESI: What is EERE doing to help industrial producers and manufacturers reduce their carbon footprint?

Moreno: Within EERE, our Advanced Manufacturing Office leads much of our work on industrial decarbonization, which includes developing less energy or carbon-intensive materials and manufacturing processes and reducing the life-cycle emissions of clean energy technologies. Our Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office supports the use of hydrogen for industrial applications, and our bioenergy program is looking at new combustion turbines that are optimized for renewable fuels. Many of DOE’s critical industrial decarbonization efforts are outside of EERE as well, and we work closely with the Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management and Office of Nuclear Energy to support hybrid and integrated energy systems that have significant potential value for industrial decarbonization.

Answers have been edited for clarity and length.

To watch the full conversation, visit EESI’s EXPO webpage.

Author: Jaxon Tolbert