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Getting into the weeds of an outdated report

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* This article from Capitol News Illinois stirred up some controversy…

State law currently says that by the 2025 delivery year, one-quarter of electricity purchased by the state must come from renewable sources. Goals laid out in CEJA are even more ambitious, requiring the state’s energy production to be carbon-free by 2045.

But the Illinois Power Agency – which handles energy procurement for the state’s utilities – reports that the state is lagging far behind its goals. In its current long-term plan for renewable purchasing, which was published in May, the agency projected that by the 2025 delivery year, only 8.1 percent of electricity will come from sources that qualify as renewable under state law.

“Achieving these goals would require a substantial increase in new renewable energy generation,” according to the agency’s report.

The federal Energy Information Administration, which uses a slightly different method to calculate its figures, reports that 15.4 percent of Illinois’ electricity generation came from renewables in October. That lags the state’s statutory goal for this year of 22 percent and behind the nation’s average renewable electricity generation of 22.3 percent.

* The governor’s spokesperson Jordan Abudayyeh, tweeted in response, “IL isn’t behind in our energy goals and I wouldn’t use a report from May of last year to make that point. … Carbon-free is different than renewable energy and IL will rely heavily on nuclear to reach our carbon-free goals.”

Carbon-free is hugely important in the mix because the state gets more than half of its electrical power from nuclear plants.

* Since numbers from the Illinois Power Agency were used in the news story, I reached out to the agency to get their perspective…

Hi Rich,

We were not contacted by CNI on this story, so we can’t speak authoritatively on from where CNI pulled this information. It’s possible that the “May report” in the article refers to the Modified 2022 Long-Term Renewables Procurement Plan, but RPS [Renewable Portfolio Standards] goal/target data contained is indeed approximately two years outdated (as that Plan was originally filed with the ICC in January 2022). So, assuming that CNI used this document to inform its article, the Governor’s Office is correct that this information is outdated.

To the broader question, our 2022 Annual Report includes data on the overall nameplate capacity amount of installed renewable energy generation physically located in Illinois. The 2022 Annual Report shows the total installed percentage of renewable capacity at 18.6%, with the percentage of megawatt hours from renewables at 12.4%. These are percentages out of all electricity generation in Illinois, as opposed to all electricity consumed in Illinois—if the latter were used as the denominator, then these percentages would be higher [about 17 percent, as it turns out], as Illinois is a net exporter of electricity.

The Agency’s next annual report is due out on February 15 and will be published on the IPA’s website. I will make sure we send you a copy of the report when it’s published.

Setting aside the issue of outdated data, conflating RPS progress with overall share of electricity from renewables statewide is a common area of misunderstanding—people often reference the former while meaning the latter. To address this concern, CEJA (through changes to Section 1-125 of the IPA Act) now requires the IPA to report on items including “the percentage of installed and scheduled renewable energy generation capacity as a share of overall electricity generation capacity physically located in Illinois” through its annual report. We’d be happy to follow up with our latest copy of that report when it becomes available.

…Adding… CNI has now corrected its story.

posted by Rich Miller
Friday, Jan 26, 24 @ 10:07 am

Comments

No matter how you slice the numbers, we’re way behind where we need to be on our renewable targets. There are major issues that need to be addressed including the failure of four successive wind procurements. Hopefully that will get done this year.

Comment by New Day Friday, Jan 26, 24 @ 10:17 am
Looking at the MISO Grid Status, at 11:25am this morning.
Coal 41.97%
Natural Gas 38.27%
Nuclear 12.20%
Wind 4.21%
Other 2.18%
Solar 1.17%

I would say they are way behind the goals at least in Southern Illinois.

Comment by Mike Murphy Friday, Jan 26, 24 @ 10:30 am
- MISO Grid Status -

There are 14 other states in MISO.

Comment by Excitable Boy Friday, Jan 26, 24 @ 10:40 am
===There are 14 other states in MISO. ===

It’s big. Please don’t try to conflate MISO with only Illinois, Mike.

https://www.ferc.gov/participation-midcontinent-independent-system-operator-miso-processes

Comment by Rich Miller Friday, Jan 26, 24 @ 10:43 am
CEJA was signed into law in the Fall of 2021. We’re two years in and the report referenced used data from a time when CEJA wasn’t even in place. If you have problems with FEJA’s goals and the fact that no work was done to make any progress take that up with Bruce Rauner. It was on the bill he actually managed to sign and then did nothing to actually implement appropriately.

Comment by reality Friday, Jan 26, 24 @ 10:53 am
At least the MISO numbers referenced reflect production that is currently online and available. To suggest that the pending IEA report will reflect “the percentage of installed and scheduled renewable energy generation capacity as a share of overall electricity generation capacity physically located in Illinois” will only continue to provide cover for our lagging renewable energy conversion.

Comment by Big Tent Friday, Jan 26, 24 @ 11:19 am
So they aren’t counting nuclear as renewable?

Comment by Chicagonk Friday, Jan 26, 24 @ 2:24 pm