Release of Electric Grid Study Blocked by DOE

Between August 2018 and November 2019, officials at the Department of Energy (DOE) took various steps to block publication of the findings of the so-called "Interconnection Seam Study" undertaken by researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). The study concluded that linking the eastern and western electric grid interconnections would accelerate the growth of renewable generation and thus reduce reliance on coal. 

An NREL researcher involved in the study presented the findings at a conference in Kansas in August 2018. The presentation was heard by the then deputy assistant secretary of DOE's Office of Electricity, Catherine Jereza, who emailed other department officials to raise concern about the study's anti-coal findings. According to NREL project lead, Adam Bloom, the email reached then Deputy Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette and triggered "significant political blowback" against the Interconnection Seam Study. NREL researchers involved in the study were subsequently directed not to present on its findings at conferences. A draft report detailing the study's findings was heavily edited by DOE officials over several months. According to a report by The Atlantic:

"Wordsmithing and euphemisms replaced direct references to carbon . . . The “carbon price” became an “emissions price.” Other elements simply vanished, such as a statement that CO₂ emissions were projected to drop to 30 percent of their 2024 levels by 2038. The phrase “coal plants were retired” similarly disappeared, along with colorful bar charts that had shown how [linking the two interconnections] shrank coal’s share of power generation to a thin black line."

The authors reportedly signed off on the changes, with some refinements, but the finalized report was not published. In October 2019, representatives of the Energy Systems Integration Group complained that the report was being "bottled up inside DOE." A spokesperson for DOE rejected that claim, asserting that the Interconnection Seam Study was still ongoing and that the report would be released when it was completed, likely in 2022. 

Update:

In September 2020, the chair of the House of Representatives Science Committee Eddie Bernice Johnson wrote to the Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette about DOE's "efforts to suppress" the Interconnection Seam Study. The House of Representatives subsequently passed a bill that ordered DOE to release the study. A DOE-approved version of the study was published the following month. However, according to one of the study's authors, it included extensive changes that "diluted" the findings.