New Orleans CAN afford a renewable energy future. We CAN'T afford the status quo.

​In response to Entergy New Orlean's claims that a Resilient + Renewable Portfolio Standard would be unaffordable for New Orleans, the Alliance for Affordable Energy worked with the Applied Economics Clinic to set the record straight. 
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Liz Stanton, PhD, Researcher Bryndis Woods, and Assistant Researchers Eliandro Tavares and Sagal Alisalad prepared a report that addresses Entergy New Orleans’ (ENO) critiques of the Energy Future New Orleans Coalition's July 2019 Resilient Renewable Portfolio Standard (R-RPS) proposal to achieve a 100 percent renewable electric generation by 2040.

ENO incorrectly claims that the R-RPS would: be prohibitively costly; harm grid resiliency, and harm grid reliability. AEC’s analysis of the R-RPS found the plan to be affordable, would provide substantial resiliency benefits, and would reliably provide New Orleans’ energy needs. Keep reading for some of the top takeaways from AEC's report.

​The R-RPS would be more affordable than reliance on traditional and fossil fueled resources
Renewable energy and load flexibility resources like demand response, energy efficiency, and battery storage are currently available and cost competitive. At 0.2 to 1.3 cents per kilowatt-hour, demand response is cheaper than any other resource on a levelized basis. Wind, solar and energy efficiency prices are 17 to 70% lower than ENO’s Grand Gulf nuclear plant (a key component of ENO’s Clean Energy Standard proposal, which the utility falsely claims is necessary to keep customer rates low) and existing coal elsewhere in ENO’s grid connected region—the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO).
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The R-RPS would reduce the cost of balancing the grid
​Today’s energy resource planning revolves around how to meet peak load, and a very high share of customer costs comes from resources that may only run a few hours a year.

​Tomorrow’s energy system will avoid these costs through investment in load flexibility resources that enable more renewables on the grid, maintain reliability, enhance resiliency, and are already cost-competitive with firm resources (with prices that are predicted to drop further).

 
The R-RPS would enhance the resilience of New Orleans’ grid
States, cities, and utilities are increasingly acknowledging the important and valuable resiliency benefits of storage and other load flexibility technologies. Resilience ensures that critical loads like hospitals, military bases, and telecommunications (essential for meeting basic human needs and ensuring safety) will always be provided, even during severe weather events.

The R-RPS would reliably provide New Orleans’ energy needs
New Orleans is not an electrical island; ENO has the benefit of interconnection with the larger MISO region, which helps to balance supply and demand. ENO’s interconnection in the MISO energy system means the utility can sell energy and capacity when it generates more than it needs to serve demand, and purchase these services when it faces a shortfall. MISO also has an abundance of cheap wind energy available, and thousands of MW of solar in development.

ENO Claim	Reality
Unaffordable: ENO claims that the R-RPS proposal would greatly increase customer costs	Affordable: Renewable energy does not require firm capacity in order to be cost-effective, in fact, the most reliable, resilient and affordable option would be to pair renewable energy with load flexibility resources
Not Resilient: ENO claims that the enhanced resilience that EFNO asserts is a benefit of battery storage and microgrids is "unsubstantiated"	Resilient: Renewable energy and load flexibility resources allow the grid to better withstand extreme weather events and - if needed - to isolate themselves and continue to operate in "island" mode when the larger grid is unable to provide electricity
Unreliable: ENO claims that without large amounts of battery storage, the R-RPS would negatively impact grid reliability	Reliable: Paired with load flexibility resources, 100% renewable electricity can successfully provide grid reliability to New Orleans families and businesses

Read the Full Report