Requirements for Energy

What We Want

Our Need	System Requirements
Affordable	Families should be able to heat, cool, light, and power their homes without financial strain.
Reliable	Power should stay on during heat waves, cold snaps, storms, cyber incidents, and supply disruptions.
Abundant	America should have enough energy to support households, transportation, manufacturing, industry, data centers, and future growth.
Secure	Critical infrastructure should be protected from cyberattack, sabotage, fuel disruptions, and foreign supply-chain dependence.
Clean	Energy policy should reduce harmful pollution and support long-term environmental sustainability.
Efficient	Projects should be approved and built faster, with less waste, less duplication, and clearer accountability.
Fair	Low-income households, rural communities, and working families should not bear disproportionate costs.

A sound energy system balances security, equity/affordability, and environmental sustainability. That framework is reflected in the World Energy Council’s Energy Trilemma and is a useful way to define what “good energy policy” actually means.

Requirements

1. Affordability Requirements
   • The energy system shall reduce total household energy burden, not merely shift costs from one part of the bill to another.
   • The system shall prioritize lower total delivered cost of electricity, heating, and transportation energy.
   • Public subsidies, tax credits, and incentives shall be evaluated based on measurable effects on consumer bills.
   • Low-income assistance shall be targeted, transparent, and adequate to prevent energy insecurity.
   • Utilities and regulators shall publish plain-English bill explanations showing energy, delivery, taxes, riders, and fees separately.

2. Reliability and Resilience Requirements
   • The grid shall maintain adequate reserve margins and dispatchable capacity where needed.
   • Infrastructure shall be hardened against storms, wildfire, flooding, cold weather, heat waves, and cyber threats.
   • Utilities shall meet measurable outage prevention, restoration, and maintenance standards.
   • The system shall support local resilience through microgrids, distributed generation, storage, and backup systems where cost-effective.
   • Grid planning shall account for rising demand from electrification, industrial growth, and data centers.

3. Supply and Infrastructure Requirements
   • The nation shall expand generation, transmission, storage, and fuel infrastructure sufficient to meet projected demand.
   • Interconnection processes shall be faster, transparent, and based on real project readiness.
   • Transmission expansion shall be treated as a national priority where congestion raises prices or reduces reliability.
   • The system shall support replacement of aging transformers, substations, and other critical grid equipment.
   • Domestic manufacturing capacity for key components shall be strengthened to reduce supply-chain risk.

4. Regulatory and Market Requirements
   • Permitting shall be faster, more predictable, and less duplicative while preserving legitimate environmental review.
   • Regulatory decisions shall be based on reliability, affordability, security, and environmental impact together, not one factor alone.
   • Federal, state, and regional authorities shall better coordinate planning, siting, cost allocation, and implementation.
   • Markets shall reward dependable capacity, flexibility, efficiency, and grid-supporting performance.
   • Policy shall favor measurable outcomes over slogans, mandates without infrastructure, or politically selective exemptions.

5. Clean Energy and Environmental Requirements
   • The system shall reduce harmful emissions and local air pollution.
   • Energy efficiency shall be treated as a core resource because it lowers demand and can reduce bills.
   • Clean energy deployment shall be paired with transmission, storage, backup capacity, and realistic timelines.
   • Policy shall evaluate lifecycle, land-use, reliability, and supply-chain impacts.
   • Environmental performance shall be measured alongside affordability and reliability.

6. Accountability Requirements

   Congress, DOE, FERC, states, and utilities shall publish annual scorecards on:

   • price
   • outages
   • reserve margins
   • transmission additions
   • interconnection timelines
   • emissions
   • project completion
   • Major public investments shall be audited for actual consumer benefit.
   • Energy policy shall be reviewed against clear national performance targets every year.

What You Can Do