In April, Energy Secretary Rick Perry requested an analysis on whether renewable energy poses a threat to baseload power plants and the broader health of the grid.
Last week, an early draft of that highly anticipated report was leaked. It concluded that renewables are not destabilizing the power sector.
The leaked version pointed to a natural-gas glut, aging power plant fleets and flattening demand as the cause of baseload retirement -- not wind and solar.
Now the question becomes: How will the final version change? And does it now put the department in an awkward position? We debate the ethics and consequences of the leak.
In the second half of the show, we talk with Hervé Touati, managing director of the Rocky Mountain Institute, about the latest trends in corporate renewable energy purchasing. The federal government may have walked away from its climate commitments, but corporations are doing more than ever -- and we’ll look at how deals are getting more complex.
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Additional reading:
- The full text of the leaked DOE study
- GTM: Leaked draft of DOE study says renewables are not a threat
- Back episode of The Interchange podcast on corporate renewables trends