Webinar: End-Use Electrification as a Source of System Flexibility

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Featured Speaker: Caitlin Murphy, Senior Energy Analyst, National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)

Caitlin Murphy is a Senior Energy Analyst within the Economics and Forecasting Group at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Her primary research involves evaluating how technology innovation, end-use electrification, and energy policies could impact the evolution and operation of the U.S. energy system through quantitative analysis methods.

Caitlin Murphy

In addition, a growing portion of her portfolio is dedicated to resilience analysis, which is focused on measuring the impact and value of resilience investments from the perspective of utilities and grid operators, end-users, and government entities. Prior to joining NREL, Caitlin served as AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow within the Federal government, where she developed legislation to accelerate the deployment of advanced energy storage, renewable energy, and energy efficiency technologies, and contributed to multiple Federal strategy documents, including the DOE’s second installment of the Quadrennial Energy Review and the U.S. Mid-Century Strategy for Deep Decarbonization. Caitlin received her B.S. in Earth Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2007, and her Ph.D. in Geophysics from the California Institute of Technology in 2012.

Moderator: Charlie Smith, ESIG Executive Director

Registration Cost: FREE

Q&A Session: We will be using the slido platform for Q&A. Please submit your questions and follow-along during the event at this link.

Webinar Abstract: The National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL’s) Electrification Futures Study (EFS) was designed to explore scenarios and impacts of widespread electrification in the United States. Previously published analyses under the EFS explored the potential transformation that could occur within the buildings, transportation, and industrial sectors if mass adoption of end-use electric technologies occurs for some of the highest energy-consuming services. The resulting projected changes in the magnitude, timing, and flexibility of electricity demand serves as the foundation for the analysis that will be presented in this seminar, which explores (a) how the U.S. electricity system might transform in response to changes in demand from an electrified economy, and (b) what role demand-side flexibility might play to support reliable grid operations under highly electrified scenarios. Preliminary answers to these questions will be presented based on scenario analysis using NREL’s Regional Energy Deployment System (ReEDS) capacity expansion model, which was used to quantify the range of electricity generation, storage, and transmission capacity deployment that could be required to meet changing electricity demand from highly electrified end-use sectors. We also explore the system cost impacts of electrification across the energy system, with a detailed treatment of the potential operational value of demand-side flexibility within the context of widespread electrification. Finally, our preliminary estimates for the emissions and energy consumption implications of electrification will also be presented.