How Cheap Clean Energy Can Spark a Fairer Energy Sector

By Tatyana Woodall, Ohio State News

Policies aimed at expanding energy infrastructure are more effective, and can remain cost-neutral, when they take community and environmental impacts into account, suggests a new analysis by Ohio State researchers in the College of Engineering and John Glenn College of Public Affairs.

A scenario-based framework researchers developed to model how counties across the Midwest might respond to several grid expansion strategies revealed that even the most expensive policies that take community health concerns and employment needs into account are only 0.7% more costly than typical, cost-minimizing approaches. 

Researchers determined this by examining five different policies that could guide the evolution of the energy grid, comparing factors like resulting costs, job creation and fossil fuel emissions. 

While each policy had important trade-offs, the analysis widely showed that supporting the development of renewable energy technologies, like wind and solar, can make it easier to address future socioeconomic impacts for little to no cost.

“We can create a power sector that addresses the goals that we have as a society, while keeping the cost to us as ratepayers negligible,” said Gingerich. 

The study, “Trade-offs in justice-oriented grid expansions,” was recently published in the journal Energy Policy. 

As the U.S. experiences record-breaking electricity demand, which is projected to rise substantially over the next few decades, many scientists have urged policymakers to modernize and decarbonize our current energy systems by shifting away from fossil fuel infrastructure. The issue is, according to the study, doing so could make some regions more vulnerable to economic shocks because even minimizing costs doesn’t always incentivize new infrastructure to move into those communities.   

Ohio, specifically its Appalachian regions, would benefit from minimizing power sources that release carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, said Gingerich. 

“We need a transitional electricity grid to better meet not just the amount of power that we will require in the future, but also the needs of the people that rely on energy as the lifeblood of their community,” he said. Without those considerations, many communities may be left behind or become much more resistant to next-generation grid changes, especially if people can’t envision how those advances will help create a better future for themselves and their families. 

“There’s a persistent assumption that economic benefits are at odds with environmental and human health benefits. But the United States has a long history of addressing both through policy and other means,” Bielicki said. “We have many approaches, programs and incentives in place that seek to address these issues, and the economy of the United States has continued to barrel along as one of the greatest creators of aggregate wealth in history. Our analysis suggests that policy can be implemented to cost effectively address the struggles that many communities face and do so with benefits to their well-being.”

For instance, one scenario the researchers studied for expanding the electricity grid from 2022 to 2050 assumes that only counties with historic negative health effects would be prioritized for clean electricity-generating infrastructure. 

Alternatively, the most expensive of these options — only 0.6% costlier than it would be to expand the grid using the cheapest method possible — suggests that wind and solar only be added in counties with a large percentage of lost energy industry jobs. Over time, this would likely lead to about 233,500 more jobs in the clean energy sector, said Gingerich. 

“The decisions that we make now will have decades of consequences,” he said. “So to prevent wasted economic investments, we have to pick the right technologies to use in the right places.” 

Gingerich also notes that it isn’t only hotter temperatures that are driving changes in how we generate power. As large-scale electricity users like data centers and EV chargers come online, the grid will also need to evolve to accommodate their increased needs. Alternative renewable energy sources like wind and solar power could be the solution to that. 

More sophisticated iterations of the team’s model could also be useful in evaluating both the economic burden and environmental impacts of these additions to the grid and eventually help promote policies that champion a more equitable future for the energy sector. 

Read the latest edition of Public Address, the Glenn College magazine.