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CAISO board adopts final set of 2021 summer readiness initiatives

April 26, 2021

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
April 26, 2021

The California Independent System Operator’s (CAISO) Board of Governors on April 21 adopted a final suite of market and operational improvements intended to support grid reliability throughout the West during tight supply conditions.

The board approved the Market Enhancements for Summer 2021 Readiness-Export, Load and Wheeling Priorities initiative, which will refine the prioritization of energy imports, exports, and transfers through the ISO’s balancing authority area (BAA), CAISO noted.

The initiative, slated for implementation in July, “enhances the ISO’s ability to reliably manage intertie energy transactions during electricity shortages such as those that occurred during the August 2020 heatwave that caused rotating power outages,” the grid operator said.

The initiative was the final near-term summer readiness initiative for the Board’s consideration and, if approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), will be effective until May 31, 2022.

The ISO is scheduled to begin a regional stakeholder process on a long-term solution to wheeling priorities — energy transfers through the ISO’s BAA — in the coming months.

Because the initiative generally affects the real-time energy market, the Western EIM Governing Body last week met to consider the proposal under its advisory role to the Board of Governors and voted to advise the board to take the necessary steps to start a regional stakeholder process and engage the FERC as necessary to proactively create a durable long-term regional solution to the issues relating to export, load, and wheeling priorities.

In March, the Board of Governors and the EIM Governing Body in part, adopted the bulk of market enhancements for summer 2021 readiness to prepare for extreme heat waves that could affect California and the West this summer.

CAISO president and CEO Elliot Mainzer discussed CAISO’s preparation for this summer in a recent episode of the American Public Power Association’s Public Power Now podcast.

Maine legislators announce plan to convert state’s IOUs to consumer ownership

April 26, 2021

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
April 26, 2021

A bipartisan group of legislators in Maine last week announced plans to introduce legislation that would create a consumer owned utility that would take over the electric service now provided by Central Maine Power (CMP) and Versant Power.

Together, the two investor-owned utilities serve 96.2 percent of the state’s residential load and have 963,187 residential customers, according to state regulators. The remaining residential load is served by public power utilities – or consumer-owned utilities, as they are known in Maine – and electric cooperatives.

“Our new bill, ‘An Act to Create the Pine Tree Power Company,’ will allow us to control our own money and our own energy destiny — to advance fast and fairly toward our own clean energy and connectivity future,” Democratic Rep. Seth Berry, sponsor of the bill and House Chair of the Energy, Utilities and Technology Committee, said in a statement.

The bill will likely be printed in late April and have its first legislative hearing in May, Berry said via email. If the bill is passed later this year, the conversion would likely take three or four years. Unlike many successful conversions Pine Tree Power would face few legal hurdles and would bear no separation cost, Berry said.

The effort to convert Maine’s electric service to consumer ownership is supported by Our Power, a coalition of ratepayers, business leaders, energy experts, and conservationists. Proponents cite high electric rates, high outage rates, and the foreign ownership of CMP and Versant.

“Maine’s for-profit, investor-owned utilities — CMP and Versant — are charging Maine households 58% more than our consumer-owned utilities,” Democratic Rep. Nicole Grohoski, a member of the legislature’s utilities committee, said in a statement. If CMP and Versant charged the same average rate as consumer-owned utilities, Mainers would save $155 million/year, she said.

“Right now, foreign governments and foreign corporations own Maine’s major utility monopolies,” Republican Senator Rick Bennett, said in a statement. “This ownership model has been a disaster, leaving Maine with the most outages, the longest outages, the worst customer service, and among the highest rates in the country.”

Central Maine Power is a subsidiary of Avangrid, which owns eight electric and gas utilities in New York and New England. Avangrid is part of Spanish energy company Iberdrola Group.

Versant Power, formerly Emera Maine, was formed when Bangor Hydro Electric and Maine Public Service merged in 2014. Versant is owned by Enmax, based in Calgary, Alberta.

The conversion proposal, as it now stands, calls for Pine Tree Power to be governed by an elected board of directors, as well as four expert advisory members chosen by the elected officials, Berry said.

The board and management staff would solicit bids for executives to replace CMP’s and Versant’s current executive leadership and to oversee the utility’s day-to-day operations. All other CMP and Versant workers would retain their jobs and pensions. The new utility would also be subject to regulation by Maine’s regulatory commission, Berry said.

The current plan calls for Pine Tree Power to pay between net book value and 1.5 times net book value for CMP’s and Versant’s assets, “far less than the IOUs suggest,” Berry said.

Looking ahead, future costs would be lower because Pine Tree Power could use tax-exempt revenue bonds to finance its infrastructure at interest rates of 2 to 3 percent, compared with 8 to 14 percent for the IOUs, reducing future capital expenditures and saving $9 billion over 30 years, according to Our Power’s website.

The current proposal is not the first time a conversion proposal has been floated in Maine. In early 2019, Berry sponsored a bill that would have created Maine Power Delivery Authority that would have bought CMP and Versant. That bill died at the conclusion of the legislative session in November 2020.

In explaining the previous bill’s failure, Berry said, “due diligence takes time,” noting that the legislative session was adjourned early because of the COVID-19 pandemic. He also noted the differences introduced in the new proposal, namely, a directly elected board of directors, added benefits to workers and communities, and a clarified mission.

Texas expected to add 10 GW of solar by 2023, according to EIA

April 25, 2021

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
April 25, 2021

Texas is on track to add 10 gigawatts (GW) of utility-scale solar power by year-end 2022, a surge that would represent one-third of 30 GW expected to come online in the U.S. by 2023 and would put the Lone Star State within reach of California’s lead in solar power capacity, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Texas’ solar power boom began in 2020 with the addition of 2.5 GW of capacity. The EIA’s Preliminary Monthly Electric Generator Inventory now expects the state to add 4.6 GW of solar capacity in 2021 and 5.4 GW in 2022, which will bring total installed solar capacity in Texas to 14.9 GW.

The EIA expects California to have nearly 18 GW of utility-scale solar capacity online by year-end 2022.

With 30.2 GW, Texas leads the nation in wind power capacity, and 2020 was a record year for wind power installations nationwide, but solar power installations are expected to outstrip wind installations between 2020 and 2022, according to the EIA.

The EIA expects almost half of the new generation added over the next two years in Texas will be solar power plants, surpassing wind expected contribution of 35 percent of new generation and natural gas’ expected 13 percent contribution.

The growth in solar power is being spurred by the availability of the federal Investment Tax Credit (ITC), EIA said. Utility-scale solar projects that begin construction in 2021 or 2022 are eligible for a 26 percent tax credit. The tax credit drops to 22 percent for projects that start in 2023 and to 10 percent for projects that start in 2024 or later.

The growth in solar power is also being driven by declining costs and, particularly in the Permian Basin in West Texas, plentiful sunlight. Between 2013 and 2018, average capacity weighted construction costs for utility-scale solar generation fell 50 percent while costs for wind fell 27 percent and costs for natural gas fell 13 percent, according to the EIA.

In addition, because most solar power is generated during the middle of the day when wind generation is typically lower, Texas has available transmission capacity to handle the increase in solar output, the EIA report noted.

Despite the recent growth of solar capacity in Texas, utility-scale solar still only made up 4 percent of the state’s generating capacity in 2020 and 2 percent of in-state generation, the EIA noted. Natural gas-fired generation made up 53 percent of Texas’s capacity in 2020 and 52 percent of in-state generation. Wind power comprised 23 percent of the state’s capacity and 20 percent of in-state generation.

Last November, three Texas public power cities – Bryan, Denton and Garland – entered into agreements to buy energy from a 1,310-megawatt solar plant that is expected to be the largest solar farm in the nation when it is completed in 2023.

Pennsylvania report recommends increasing solar-plus-storage projects

April 25, 2021

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
April 25, 2021

Pennsylvania should pair grid-scale solar arrays with battery energy storage to help reduce carbon dioxide emissions and increase grid resilience, according to a report released by the state’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).

One way to encourage the growth of energy storage would be to set a state energy storage capacity target, the report, Pennsylvania Energy Storage Assessment: Status, Barriers, and Opportunities, said, noting that seven other states have already set energy storage targets.

The report’s aim, which was commissioned by the DEP’s Energy Programs Office and prepared by Strategen Consulting, was to determine the best path forward to increasing energy storage statewide. The report was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s State Energy Program.

Pennsylvania currently has about 1.5 gigawatts (GW) of energy storage capacity in the form of 22 operating or announced energy storage projects, including 1.07 GW of pumped hydro storage facilities, 18 megawatts (MW) of lithium-ion batteries, 12.5 MW of lead carbon batteries, 6 MW of ice and chilled water thermal storage, as well as smaller amounts of other technologies.

“Pennsylvania’s climate continues to get warmer, and we’ve already started seeing the impacts, with increasing swings in temperature and extreme weather,” Patrick McDonnell, DEP secretary, said in a statement. “Solar-plus-storage can help in two ways: It can help slow down climate change by incorporating more clean renewable energy into Pennsylvanians’ daily electricity use, and it can also make the grid more reliable during extreme weather events, better protecting Pennsylvanians’ health and safety as well as critical facilities.”

Strategen used two scenarios in conducting the analysis in the report. One involved utility scale solar-plus-storage systems to serve the grid, the other used stand alone behind-the-meter energy storage systems that provide electricity customers with direct savings on their bills.

The first scenario found the potential for “significant economic and environmental benefits,” particularly if solar-plus-storage projects are supported by public- or ratepayer-funded investments to buy down the incremental costs of adding storage to solar power purchase agreements. Strategen found that about $65 million of public investment in energy storage could be used to leverage private investment and yield $545 million annually in grid and environmental benefits.

In the second scenario, the report found that under current retail rate structures, energy storage provides very limited value to customers in the form of direct bill savings. Analyzing multiple configurations of energy storage sizes and durations, the report found that most resulted in negative payback.

The report also looked at barriers to energy storage development and, among other recommendations, said Pennsylvania should “establish a storage procurement goal or target.” As an example, the report said a storage target linked to 25 percent of the state’s Solar Future plan could “equate to 1,500 MW of storage by 2030 and yield an estimated benefit of about $273 million per year.

The report also said a target for behind-the-meter energy storage could build on existing energy peak reduction targets overseen by the Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission.

Pennsylvania’s Solar Future plan calls for 10 percent, or about 11 GW, of the state’s electricity to come from solar energy by 2030.

The storage report also recommends 14 other measures to foster energy storage investment and integration, including convening a statewide storage issues forum, designating public funding to accelerate storage deployment, establishing incentive programs for storage projects, and accelerating microgrid deployment at critical facilities.

Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority board OKs wind power purchase agreement

April 25, 2021

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
April 25, 2021

The Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority’s (WAPA) governing board recently approved a wind power purchase agreement between WAPA and Advance Power LLC.

Under terms of the agreement, Advance Power will develop, finance, permit, design, construct, test, operate and maintain a wind farm at Bovoni Point on St. Thomas.

Project completion is expected within 24 months of the effective date of the contract.

The wind facility, comprised of six wind turbine generators, will produce approximately 10 MW of wind energy that will be sold to WAPA.

Advance Power was the most responsive bidder to a request for proposals issued in April 2017 and negotiations have been underway since August 2017, WAPA said in a news release.

WAPA Interim Executive Director and CEO Noel Hodge said the wind facility will compliment several other similar renewable projects the Authority is pursuing as part of a federally funded strategic transformation plan.

Hodge noted that WAPA has applied to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for approval of solar and wind projects “as we move the needle forward in diversifying our generation mix. We recognize the need for the Authority to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels to generate electricity, and where feasible, WAPA will pursue projects that allow harnessing energy from lower cost sources such as solar and wind.”

Hodge said that the reduction of reliance on fossil fuel for electrical generation will result in operational savings to WAPA and lower the cost of electricity to customers.

The approved agreement lays the foundation for the development of a wind farm capable of generating about a sixth of the total peak power consumption on St. Thomas, WAPA said.

A report by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) identified the site for wind generation as early as 2012. The report estimated the total capacity of a Bovoni wind farm as between 7,000 and 29,000 megawatt hours per year.

“The wide range of potential energy generation represented by these estimates is a function of the total installed plant size, which is in turn limited by the number of turbines that can be placed on Bovoni Point and varying levels of productivity associated with specific turbine designs,” a summary of the report said.

WAPA said that the report also estimated that the cost of generation would be much lower than the cost of oil or liquid petroleum gas-based generation.

The governing board voted unanimously on March 25 to approve the agreement with Advance Power.

APPA receives third patent tied to machine learning techniques

April 25, 2021

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
April 25, 2021

The American Public Power Association (APPA) has received a patent related to protecting the ability of public power utilities to use machine learning techniques for advanced analytics and benchmarking to improve safety.

This is the third patent APPA has received in its work to help ensure that public power utilities have long-term access to advanced analytical technologies for business-related decision making.

The application was initially submitted to the U.S. Patent Office in March 2018.

While it is likely that utilities will increasingly use specialized machine learning techniques to predict and prevent outages and equipment failure, this application is focused on increasing the likelihood that maintenance actions are safe. “Using machines to help us see patterns that aren’t obvious is a great role for technology and can help keep us safe,” said Alex Hofmann, Vice President, Technical and Operations Services, APPA.

“Through the system we have designed, our systems and workers will be able to take actions that are safer for a given situation. How many times has the weather drastically changed and lineworkers keep working without adjusting to the new risk, leading to injury?” Though participation in our eSafety Tracker service, APPA is helping public power utilities work together to build and train machine learning models to predict the safety-related outcomes of planned future maintenance actions. 

Hofmann is one of the inventors of the system that received the patents.

APPA praises Clean Energy for America Act for helping public power invest in clean energy

April 21, 2021

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
April 21, 2021

The American Public Power Association (APPA) on April 21 said it appreciates the work Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and his staff have put into refining and improving federal energy tax incentives in the Clean Energy for America Act (CEA).

The CEA recognizes that tax-exempt entities are excluded from energy investment tax incentives, which are intended to promote non-emitting resources to address climate change. Lack of access to these incentives makes it difficult for public power utilities to make investments in clean energy resources.

This is a significant omission given that tax-exempt entities, including public power utilities, serve nearly 30 percent of the nation’s retail customers, or approximately 90 million Americans, APPA said in a news release.
 
APPA noted that the CEA encourages key investments by public power utilities and rural electric cooperatives by allowing these projects to be financed with taxable direct payment Clean Energy Bonds (CEBs).

Projects financed by a CEB would not qualify for either the investment or production tax credits. However, the federal government would reimburse the project owner by making payments of up to 70 percent of the interest paid on a CEB. These payments would provide a significant savings over the life of a project, APPA said.
 
The GREEN Act, which will be considered by the House of Representatives later this year, takes a different approach by allowing public power utilities to receive discounted tax credits and production tax credits on a refundable basis. 

APPA said that it is pleased to see that Congress “is now considering how to best to ensure that all utilities are included in energy incentives, not stuck on whether to do it at all. With these incentives, not-for-profit utilities will be better positioned to finance and build clean energy resources to help face the challenges posed by climate change.”

Glendale Water & Power launches demand response program

April 21, 2021

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
April 21, 2021

California public power utility Glendale Water & Power (GWP) has launched a demand response program for residential and commercial customers, GWP reported on April 19.

Through the peak savings program, customers will receive incentives for reducing demand on the electric grid on days when demand is highest. The program will be run by Franklin Energy, a provider of energy efficiency and grid optimization solutions.

For residential customers, the program will automatically adjust customer smart thermostats by up to three degrees Fahrenheit on peak events. Participating customers receive $50 for enrolling, and $50 each year on their enrollment anniversary through a prepaid debit card. Customers who do not have a smart thermostat are eligible to receive a $100 instant rebate when purchasing a smart thermostat through GWP’s Energy and Water Efficiency Marketplace which will be launched in the coming weeks.

Commercial customers that participate in the program receive a complimentary site assessment to determine ways to reduce energy during peak events, GWP noted.

 An energy advisor will provide a customized energy reduction plan which will be implemented on peak events to help reduce peak electric demand. Participating commercial customers can receive up to $250 per event.

Up to 15 peak events can be called each year. Residential customers can opt out of a maximum of two events without affecting their incentives. Commercial customers may opt out of any event, but will not receive incentives for the peak events they did not participate in.

The peak savings program is designed to deliver up to 10 MW of controllable demand by 2024

First phase of Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority microgrid plan receives funding

April 21, 2021

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
April 21, 2021

The first phase of the Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority’s (WAPA) plan to develop an 18-megawatt (MW) microgrid, complete with a battery storage system, for the west end of St. Croix, Virgin Islands, has received an initial allocation of federal funding, WAPA said on April 9.

The funds will cover costs associated with the design and engineering of the project. 

WAPA Interim Executive Director Noel Hodge said that $4.4 million was approved by the Federal Emergency Management Agency on April 2.

“WAPA can now begin the engineering studies and design of the St. Croix microgrid, which encompasses one component of the Authority’s five-year Strategic Transformation Plan,” he said. “The entire project, which is federally funded, will total more than $129 million.”

WAPA said its plan calls for the development of a more efficient, reliable and resilient electrical system using federal funds that have been designated for hazard mitigation projects in the aftermath of hurricanes in 2017.

It includes the addition of new generation at the territory’s power plants, undergrounding of electrical equipment to at least 50% of utility customers, the addition of more wind and solar renewables and the installation of composite poles that can better withstand the effects of major windstorms.

As it relates to the St. Croix west end microgrid, the project includes construction of a solar generation plant and a battery energy storage system.

When completed, the 18 MW generated by the microgrid will be coupled with four megawatts of renewable energy produced by the solar facility at Spanish Town to represent 50% of the daily power generation by renewables produced on St. Croix, WAPA said.  

The approval of funding for phase one of the St. Croix microgrid comes as work is about to commence on four electrical underground projects, three on St. Croix and one on St. John.

Additionally, at the end of March, approximately 3,400 of the newer composite poles have been installed across the territory. The pole project, which is slated for completion in 2024, is about 40% complete.

WAPA “is pursuing every opportunity for initiatives such as new and efficient power generation and the addition of solar and wind to reduce the utility’s operating costs. Reduced operating costs will translate to lowering the cost of electrical service to all of our customers,” Hodge said.

NYPA unveils five-year sustainability plan, first annual sustainability report

April 21, 2021

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
April 21, 2021

The New York Power Authority (NYPA) on April 20 unveiled a five-year plan that establishes goals and strategies to achieve the state’s climate goals through a comprehensive sustainability agenda.

Progress against NYPA’s sustainability plan will be measured with annual sustainability reports.

The 2021-2025 sustainability plan outlines the steps NYPA and its subsidiary, the New York State Canal Corporation, are committed to taking to advance sustainability efforts across 15 environmental, social and governance (ESG) focus areas.

The plan will evolve as the ESG initiatives advance to support VISION2030 implementation. The document complements NYPA’s first annual sustainability report, also released on April 20, which details the Authority’s progress in ESG areas in 2020.

NYPA noted that sustainability, measured through an ESG structure, is a foundational pillar of VISION2030, NYPA’s recently introduced strategic plan to help lead the state energy infrastructure’s transformation into a clean, reliable, resilient and affordable system over the next decade.

VISION2030 also sets NYPA on a path to support the state’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act’s (CLCPA) goal of achieving a net-zero carbon economy by 2050.

NYPA will assess its business through the ESG framework, which guides long-term business investments and shows transparency and accountability.

The sustainability plan describes NYPA goals and strategies that have been identified for 15 key sustainability focus areas, in alignment with VISION2030, the CLCPA, state energy programs and executive orders, and industry leading practices, NYPA said.

“The areas, ranging from renewable energy to employee development to risk management, are considered to have the greatest potential impact on NYPA’s business and to be of most importance to stakeholders. The plan has been developed with guidance and input from business units and department leaders across the organization, including Sustainability Advisory Council members, subject matter experts and other key stakeholders,” NYPA said.

The 2020 sustainability report outlines progress toward achieving the goals identified in the five-year plan to date.

Annual reports will disclose comprehensive data related to the implementation of sustainability goals that will be leveraged for decision-making across the organization. NYPA said its goal is to become one of the first U.S. utilities to issue an integrated report for the 2022 reporting cycle.

The report approved on April 20 highlights NYPA’s sustainability commitments and accomplishments in 2020, including: