Brattle专家在新白皮书中概述了电力公司应对行业挑战的“清洁资本效率”方法

PREPARED BYPeter Fox-PennerRyan HledikShannon PaulsonXander Bartone MAY2025 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction......................................................................................................1Everything Everywhere All at Once ...................................................................6The Three C’s of 2030 Power ............................................................................9The Implications for Utilities ...........................................................................11Clean Capital Efficiency (CCE)..........................................................................13Energy Efficiency (EE)............................................................................................................. 14Demand Flexibility (DF) and Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) ..................................................... 15Optimizing Distributed Energy Resources (DERs), Including Distributed Storage ................ 17Advanced Transmission and Distribution Technologies........................................................ 18Leveraging Other Capital Pools.............................................................................................. 19Conclusion ......................................................................................................21 NOTICE This report reflects the perspectives and opinions of its authors and does not necessarily reflectthose of The Brattle Group’s clients or other consultants. Where permission has been grantedto publish excerpts of this report for any reason, the publication of any excerpts must include acitation to the complete report, including page references. Executive Summary Abundant, affordable, carbon-free electricity is a central driver of a sustainable economicfuture. For the past two decades, the utility industry has enjoyed relative stability, with lowdemand growth, low inflation and interest rates, declining generation costs, and a rarelyproblematic supply chain. Even through the financial crisis of 2008 and the COVID-19 pandemicof 2020, the industry sailed forward relatively smoothly, serving customers reliably whilereducing carbon emissions, keeping rates reasonable, and providing solid financial returns. This era appears to be over. Utility rates have begun to rise significantly due to high inflation,interest rates, materials costs, competition for a constrained supply chain, and aging or storm-damaged infrastructure. Carbon emission reductions have plateaued, and utility financialperformance has declined. Above all, there has been a massive revival of demand growth –fueled substantially (but not only) by headline-grabbing data centers, creating unusually longand large connection delays. These challenges are expected to escalate in the near term. Projected sales growth will demandunprecedented construction outlays, and supply chain constraints will further increase newelectric equipment costs, which have already surged over the past decade. The magnitude ofpredicted capital spending increases will likely lead to another large wave of rate increaserequests at a time when affordability concerns are already very high. Meanwhile, energytransition goals are slipping backward as many utilities turn to new gas power plants and/ordeferred coal retirements to meet the surge in growth. At a time when utilities can only push so much new investment into rates before triggeringbacklash, the most effective strategy for a distribution utility may be through an approach wecallclean capital efficiency(CCE) – doing as much as possible to minimize and justify thebuildout of expensive new infrastructure by using existing systems more intensively than in thepast. While significant capital growth is going to be essential under almost any scenario,maximizing service through the existing system should act to keep rates lower and reducecustomer dissatisfaction. Regulators may look more favorably on capital outlays that aredemonstrably needed after a utility has shown strong and effective measures to minimizecapital expenditures (capex) and cost and maximize throughput. The CCE approach can help utilities pursue financially stable growth, rate moderation, anddecarbonization simultaneously. Alongside system expansion, the strategies we recommend forimplementing CCE include revised energy efficiency programs, accelerated demand flexibilityprograms, optimizing and possibly owning distributed energy resources, low-capitaltransmission expansion and distribution technologies, and leveraging off-balance sheet capitalsources. None of these ideas is new, but they deserve a stronger emphasis in the coming era.However, they also present important process challenges, as the differences in types ofresource options are large, the underlying demand drivers are highly uncertain and changingquickly, and trade-offs between options are complex. This collection of recommendations should be part of a full-scale strategy, which should inc