RMI Outlet
Plug Into New Ideas
Cutting Carbon While Keeping the Lights On
The United States could replace 100% of its coal generation with renewables, storage, and demand-side management while maintaining reserve margins.
Transition Opportunities for Prairie State Energy Campus
Replacing Prairie State Energy Campus with renewable energy and energy efficiency will save money for both customers and plant owners.
The Carbon Emissions Impact of Demand Flexibility
This report provides context for the potential impact of using time-of-use emission factors to reduce emissions associated with electricity use in buildings.
RMI’s US Federal Climate Policy Imperatives
This policy memo series focuses on federal government action that can move the United States closer to limiting warming to 1.5° Celsius, build a sustainable economy, and create lasting, quality jobs.
Zero-Carbon Targeted Integrated Energy Planning
A Rocky Mountain Institute report on an innovative district-level pathway to support carbon neutrality in China by 2060.
It is now well documented that economic pressures are forcing many US coal plants to retire. However, utilities and regulators often raise concerns that retiring uneconomic plants risks reliability and resource adequacy. In Cutting Carbon While Keeping the Lights On, we examine the state of resource adequacy nationwide. While some regions are short on capacity—including Texas and California, where recent blackouts occurred—most of the United states still has excess dispatchable capacity well in excess of reserve margins.
Crucially, the analysis shows that we can retire 27 percent of the existing US coal fleet without any replacement, while still allowing regions to meet their reliability reserve margins. The region with the most excess capacity, by far, is PJM. Further, our analysis shows that another 29 percent of current coal generation can retire and be replaced with lower-cost wind and solar, without the need for additional resources. The remaining US coal fleet can retire with cost-effective clean energy portfolios.
Cutting Carbon While Keeping the Lights On is intended as a resource for policymakers at the state and federal level, as well as advocates, wind and solar developers, and other energy market stakeholders. Through a better understanding of the opportunities available to retire costly legacy coal plants, we can cut carbon, save consumers money, and still keep the lights on.