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FERC to look at PJM capacity construct during two-day technical conference in March

February 22, 2021

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
February 22, 2021

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in March will convene the first in a series of technical conferences focused on modernizing electricity market design.

The technical conference will be held on March 23 and 24, 2021. News of the conference was unveiled at FERC’s monthly open meeting on Feb. 18. The meeting was Richard Glick’s first open meeting as Chairman.  Glick was named Chairman by President Biden on January 21, 2021.

 At the meeting, Glick noted that next month’s conference will address the role of capacity constructs. The focus of this first conference will examine the PJM Interconnection’s capacity construct “and examine options for creating a durable resource adequacy construct” that will accommodate states’ exercise of their authority in the modern electricity sector, he noted.

“We will also plan to hold similar conferences regarding ISO New England and New York ISO in the months ahead,” Glick said.

“In addition, later this year we will convene additional conferences to examine how energy and ancillary services markets may need to evolve to meet challenges posed by the grid of the future.”

Clements to lead effort to establish new FERC Office of Public Participation

In another announcement, Glick said that he has asked Commissioner Allison Clements to take the lead in getting a FERC Office of Public Participation up and running. 

Although 1978 legislation provided for such an office within FERC, it has never been established. Congress recently directed FERC to develop a plan for establishing and operating the Office of Public Participation. 

With respect to her lead role in establishing an Office of Public Participation, Clements said that she intends “to place priority on listening to stakeholders, in particular reaching out to environmental justice and front line communities, that lacked representation before FERC.” 

She cited the importance of such an office not only for natural gas pipeline proceedings, but in cases impacting the reliability and affordability of electricity. 

Clements said FERC would be holding a workshop on April 16, 2021 to receive input on the establishment of the Office of Public Participation, along with an opportunity to submit written comments. 

Glick also highlighted his recent announcement of the creation of a senior level position to help consider the impact of FERC actions on historically marginalized communities.

FERC terminates docket tied to grid resilience issues in RTOs, ISOs, Chatterjee dissents

In other news from the meeting, FERC terminated a generic administrative docket it initiated in January 2018 to explore grid resilience issues in regional transmission organizations (RTOs) and independent system operators (ISOs). 

Commissioner Neil Chatterjee dissented from FERC’s decision to terminate the docket.

“I acknowledge that the issues teed-up in this proceeding are multi-layered and complex. I also acknowledge that this proceeding has politically charged origins beginning with the Department of Energy’s (DOE) initial proposed rulemaking to compensate certain categories of generators with on-site fuel,” wrote Chatterjee in his dissent.

“However, a unanimous, bi-partisan Commission rejected DOE’s proposal and, in its stead, posed fuel-neutral, critical questions about what it means to have a resilient grid and what steps the Commission can take to foster it. Those questions and their answers remain as critical today as they were three years ago.”

Despite thorough examinations of previous cold weather events, “we find ourselves wondering what went wrong this week when much of the nation encountered extreme cold weather that led to load shed in ERCOT, MISO, and SPP,” he said.

“Initial reports suggest that, as with previous cold weather events, these regions experienced unusually high demands, inadequate natural gas supplies, frozen infrastructure, correlated generation resource outages, and varying levels of load shed,” wrote Chatterjee.

The severity of the event, “measured in duration, geographic scope, amount of load shed, customers affected, and amount of unplanned generation outage — suggests that, despite the lessons learned and actions taken in the past to improve winterization and gas-electric coordination, the bulk power system may not be able to adequately withstand extreme cold weather events,” he said.

Chatterjee said he is concerned that extreme weather events will continue to increase in frequency and severity, and present serious risks to the resilience of the bulk power system.

“I would prefer that the Commission grapple with the resilience concerns raised in this proceeding in a more comprehensive way,” he wrote. “The Commission is well positioned to, for instance, adopt a definition of resilience that could be implemented in all regions, describe categories of resilience concerns that would include extreme weather events and common-mode failures, and then take additional steps to ensure that the Commission, RTOs/ISOs, and stakeholders can understand how each RTO/ISO assesses the resilience of its region.”

Such assessments “would enable a comparative, cross-market view of how each RTO/ISO identifies and addresses resilience needs and would enhance coordination across regions. Such a holistic review would not only assist RTOs/ISOs and their stakeholders in considering different approaches to these efforts, but also help the Commission understand how to best assess and address bulk power system resilience,” Chatterjee said.

FERC Commissioner James Danly offered a concurrence.

“I concur in the result of this order insofar as it is the privilege of the majority to terminate a discretionary inquiry. I write separately, however, to highlight my concern that the resilience issues raised in this proceeding have not been solved—indeed, in most cases they have not even been addressed,” he wrote.

Commissioners Christie, Clements offer joint concurrence

Commissioners Mark Christie and Clements offered a joint concurrence in the RTO/ISO grid resilience docket “to emphasize that our agreement to terminate this specific proceeding is purely procedural, not substantive.” 

 The issues “attendant to grid resilience and reliability that this particular proceeding raised are compelling and must command this Commission’s future attention. Procedurally, this matter has languished for more than three years with no action, so the unavoidable conclusion is that these issues need to be shifted to other procedural vehicles to make progress.  On that basis, we concur,” wrote Christie and Clements.

“As the widespread power outages this very week in Texas – as well as the outages in California last summer – graphically demonstrate, the challenges of ensuring a reliable supply of power to American consumers as the generation mix changes, remain as relevant and compelling as ever,” the Commissioners said.

“Reliability to most Americans means power available 24/7; not just during good weather, but during bad weather, when they need it most to heat or cool their homes, operate their businesses, and to some consumers, even to maintain their very health.”

Christie and Clements also agree that “while there are general issues attendant to reliability and resilience, each RTO/ISO is different and faces different challenges from its generation mix and weather patterns.  FERC’s job is to ensure that each RTO/ISO is meeting its individual operational responsibilities to ensure a 24/7 supply of power.”

To meet that reliability challenge, RTOs and ISOs “must be willing to face and speak inconvenient truths about what is – and is not – feasible from an engineering standpoint, given the state of technology,” the Commissioners wrote.

“They must also tell the public and the elected political leaders at both the state and federal levels about the realistic impacts on the bills consumers will have to pay for reliability. Politically driven mandates and deadlines may not be grounded in engineering reality and we depend on the leadership of each RTO and ISO to provide forthright information about what is needed to ensure the 24/7 power supply Americans expect.”

Christie and Clements said that decarbonization “is a necessary policy goal and preliminary reports from ERCOT, for example, indicate supply problems not only with wind resources, but also with gas and other forms of dispatchable generation as well. We should avoid drawing final conclusions about the events in these various RTOs/ISOs before complete investigations and reports are available. Common sense tells us, however, that as what is called the ‘energy transition’ takes place, it must be grounded in the scientific facts of electrical engineering and physics, if Americans are to receive the reliable supply of power they need at the least cost to them.”  

The Commissioners noted that they do not take issue with the sentiments included in Chatterjee’s dissent — “indeed, we share them. Resilience and reliability issues remain compelling and unavoidable. Unfortunately, this specific proceeding, which began long before we came to this Commission and is rooted in another proposal that was unanimously rejected, no longer appears to be the right vehicle.” 

In that regard, “we agree with Commissioner Chatterjee’s statement that he ‘. . . would prefer that the Commission grapple with the resilience concerns raised in this proceeding in a more comprehensive way.’ It is our hope that this Commission will do exactly that – and soon.”

Lafayette Utilities System sends crews to help La. public power communities restore power

February 22, 2021

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
February 22, 2021

Lafayette Utilities System (LUS) line worker crews were recently deployed to the City of Natchitoches, La., and the Town of Vidalia, La., to assist with power restoration efforts in the wake of outages caused by harsh winter weather.

Alex Antonowitsch, Public Information Specialist at LUS, on Feb. 18 said that five LUS line workers were deployed to Natchitoches through Sunday, while thirteen line workers were deployed to Vidalia.

They were deployed under a mutual aid agreement.

A total of 3,500 customers were initially without power in Natchitoches, while 2,500 customers were initially without power in Vidalia.

On Feb. 17, the City of Natchitoches reported that electrical outages were starting to be reported across the city as ice accumulation on power lines and trees were impacting its electrical system. “The Utility Department is aware and working to address these outages. Please be patient as weather conditions make our response slower than normal,” the city said.

On the evening of Feb. 18, the City of Natchitoches reported on its Facebook page that power had been restored to 99% of utility customers at that time. Crews are now assisting to restore power to isolated cases across the city, it said.

“Conditions have been very wet and icy. Our guys have been taking extra safety precautions especially when climbing the poles in this weather,” said Greg Labbe’, LUS Electric Operations Manager.

“The roads were slick with ice on the way to Vidalia. We had to cut away some trees blocking the road just to get there,” said Colby Boggs LUS T&D Foreman.

Public power utilities help Portland General Electric restore power

February 22, 2021

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
February 22, 2021

Public power utilities recently sent crews to help Oregon investor-owned Portland General Electric (PGE) with power restoration efforts after PGE was hit hard by a winter storm this month.

Seattle City Light crews left Seattle at 6 a.m. on Monday, Feb. 15 to assist PGE.

Julie Moore, Seattle City Light’s Director of Communications, noted that the utility sent two crews (10 people total). Tentatively, they will return on Friday, Feb. 26, but it depends on how the restoration goes, she noted.

The Seattle City Light crews were deployed under a mutual aid agreement with PGE.

Meanwhile, Washington State’s Snohomish County PUD reported that it had four service crews working in western Oregon to assist PGE with power restoration.

Snohomish noted that more than 500,000 customers were without power at the height of the storm, “but incredible progress has been made.”

PGE reported that it has also received assistance from Avista Utilities, Central Lincoln PUD, Puget Sound Energy and Eugene Water and Electric Board.

AMP launches RFP to procure behind-the-meter renewable generation for members

February 22, 2021

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
February 22, 2021

American Municipal Power (AMP) has launched a request for proposals (RFP) to procure behind-the-meter renewable generation for Hillsdale Board of Public Utilities and Coldwater Board of Public Utilities in Michigan.

AMP is seeking responses for a project located behind each cities’ meters with the primary goal of load modifying resource reduction and peaking energy needs.

Contract capacity request is for approximately 8 megawatt (ac) at a site owned by the City of Hillsdale and approximately 5 MWac at a site owned by the City of Coldwater.

Term preference for both projects is between 20-25 years.  Products are to include energy, capacity and environmental attributes.

AMP is seeking bids for full attribute, solar generation power purchase agreements with a preferred commercial operation date between January 1, 2022- June 1, 2024.

Key tenets of project consideration are project viability, price, local benefit of the resource, and equipment performance.

The Energy Authority is serving as the administrator for the RFP.

To access the RFP document, schedule, and term sheet, visit TEA’s procurement site.

AMP is a nonprofit wholesale power supplier and service provider for 135 members.

MMWEC announces plans to construct 7-MW solar project

February 22, 2021

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
February 22, 2021

Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Company (MMWEC) recently announced plans to construct a 7-megawatt (MW) nameplate capacity solar project on its campus in Ludlow, Mass. Six MMWEC municipal utility members are participating in the project.

The ground-mounted solar project will be built on a 30-acre section of MMWEC’s 200 -acre property in Ludlow. The site is well suited for solar, MMWEC noted in a Feb. 10 news release.

After receiving responses to a request for proposals, MMWEC is working on a contract with EDF Renewables Distributed Solutions Inc., as the project developer. Construction is scheduled to start this summer, and the project is expected to come online by late 2021. 

Using its unique statutory financing authority as a political subdivision of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, MMWEC plans to use a local financial institution to issue tax-exempt revenue bonds to finance the project. The project’s cost is estimated at $14.5 million. 

The municipal utilities located in Boylston, Ipswich, Mansfield, Marblehead, Peabody and Wakefield are participating in the project. 

The project was developed in alignment with the state’s decarbonization goals, MMWEC said.  It also allows for member municipal utilities that may not have ideal locations for projects within their own communities to add more solar to their power portfolios.

MMWEC provides a variety of power supply, financial, risk management and other services to the state’s consumer-owned municipal utilities. It has 20 municipal utility members and 28 project participants.

Texas regulators, lawmakers, governor and AG want answers on outages, soaring bills

February 22, 2021

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
February 22, 2021

Texas utility regulators, state lawmakers, the governor and the state attorney general are moving to get answers on events tied to the recent series of rotating power outages implemented by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and soaring power bills faced by some customers.

ERCOT on Friday, Feb. 19 said it expected to come out of emergency conditions later that morning. “There is enough generation on the electric system to allow us to begin to return to more normal operating conditions,” said ERCOT Senior Director of System Operations Dan Woodfin.

No additional outages were needed overnight to keep power supply and electric demand in balance, and only a few generating units tripped, the grid operator said, noting that electric utilities continued to address remaining customer outages.

As of 7:30 on the morning of Feb. 19, approximately 34,000 megawatts of generation remained on forced outage due to the winter weather event. Of that, nearly 20,000 MW was thermal generation and the rest is wind and solar.

In the wake of record-setting freezing temperatures, ERCOT entered emergency conditions and initiated rotating outages at 1:25 a.m. on Monday, Feb. 15. Two other grid operators — the Southwest Power Pool (SPP) and the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) — also took steps in response to bitterly cold temperatures.

Texas PUC launches investigation

The Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) on Feb. 19 said it was launching an investigation “into the factors that combined with the devastating winter weather to disrupt the flow of power to millions of Texas homes.” The action took place at an emergency open meeting held by the PUCT.

The Commission also unanimously approved a series of steps designed to protect retail electric customers feeling the financial effects of the ERCOT grid event.

“The immediate impact of this terrible weather was the loss of power for millions of Texas households and the financial aftershocks could be devastating,” said PUCT Chairman DeAnn Walker in a statement. “We must act swiftly to discover not only how this crisis came together, but also take meaningful steps to protect electricity customers.”

The Commission said that chief among its customer-focused actions was the decision to waive deadlines surrounding the Provider of Last Resort (POLR) program in which retail electric providers (REPs) volunteer to accept the customers of other REPs exiting the market.

These “volunteer” REPs are required to charge a competitive rate, rather than the higher so-called “POLR rate.”

The changes include extending the registration deadline for REPs willing to serve as a volunteer provider in order to expand the pool of available providers and delaying customer transitions to volunteer providers until February 24, 2021 to allow the new POLR REPs time to register and prepare for the influx of new customers.

Commissioners delegated authority to the agency’s Executive Director to execute the plan.

Texas state lawmakers schedule hearings

Meanwhile, Texas state lawmakers have scheduled hearings for this week to examine events surrounding the outages.

On Feb. 25, the Committees on State Affairs and Energy Resources in the Texas House of Representatives will hold a joint public hearing “to consider the factors that led to statewide electrical blackouts during the recent unprecedented weather event; the response by industry, suppliers, and grid operators; and changes necessary to avoid future power interruptions.” 

And Texas Senator Joan Huffman on Feb. 18 announced that the Senate Committee on Jurisprudence will hold a hearing to examine the law and jurisprudence governing ERCOT and the PUCT.

Texas law charges the PUCT with the duty to oversee ERCOT, and the hearing will study whether additional jurisprudential safeguards, such as statutes or administrative provisions, could have prevented the ongoing crisis, Huffman’s office said in an news release.

“The Senate Committee on Jurisprudence is committed to investigating the legal implications of ERCOT’s and the PUC’s action, or inaction, in contributing to this catastrophe across our state,” Huffman said. “As critical entities to the state, their legal responsibilities to the people they serve must be crystal clear in state law. If there are ambiguities, inconsistencies, or potential deficiencies in state law, they must be addressed immediately through legislative action,” she said.

The date of the hearing will be released in the coming days as the Senate prepares to reconvene.

The hearing is intended to complement a hearing of the Senate Committee on Business and Commerce on February 25 by examining the crisis through a jurisprudential lens, the news release said.

The purpose of the Senate Committee on Business and Commerce hearing will be to examine extreme weather condition preparedness and circumstances that led to the power outages as directed by ERCOT, according to a notice from the committee.

The committee will also review generator preparedness and performance, utility outage practices, natural gas supply, and the reliability of renewable generation, as well as overall ERCOT system resilience.

Texas governor

On Saturday, Feb. 20, Texas Gov. Governor Greg Abbott convened a meeting with Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan, and members of the Legislature “to discuss the spike in energy bills affecting many Texans following the recent power outages throughout the state,” Abbott’s office said.

Abbott opened the call by discussing financial challenges many Texans will face as a result of the winter storm. He also gave an update on his conversations with the White House and potential federal relief that may be available to Texans.

The governor discussed the need to ensure that Texans are not left with unreasonable utility bills they cannot afford because of the temporary massive spike in the energy market, according to a readout of the meeting.

On Feb. 17, Abbott’s office noted that the governor had ordered natural gas producers not to export product out of state until February 21 and instead sell it to providers within Texas.

On Feb. 16, the governor declared the reform of ERCOT an emergency item this legislative session. In declaring this item an emergency, Abbott called on the legislature to investigate ERCOT “and ensure Texans never again experience power outages on the scale they have seen over the past several days,” a news release from the governor’s office said.

Texas attorney general

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Feb. 19 issued Civil Investigative Demands (CIDs) to ERCOT and other power companies regarding power outages, emergency plans, energy pricing, and more related to the winter weather event.

CIDs were sent to:

The CIDs sent to these entities are available here.

A story posted on the Dallas Morning News website on Friday, Feb. 19 reported that Griddy “warned its customers over the weekend that their bills would rise significantly during the storm and that they should switch providers.”

Last week, “foreseeing a huge jump in wholesale prices, the company encouraged all of its customers — about 29,000 people — to switch to another provider when the storm arrived. But many were unable to do so,” the New York Times reported on Feb. 20.

Austin Energy says customers should not expect to see massive electric bills

Texas public power utility Austin Energy on Feb. 20  said it was “aware of media reports regarding potential massive electric bills for non-Austin Energy customers and want to stress to our customers that Austin Energy will not benefit financially in any way from this winter storm event.”

The customers impacted by major bill spikes are seeing electric rates controlled by variable price billing and are therefore vulnerable to sudden price swings from the wholesale energy market, both increases and decreases, Austin Energy noted.

In contrast, Austin Energy’s base rates are fixed and any changes must be authorized by Austin City Council, our governing body, after a thorough rate review process.

The Austin City Council directed Austin Energy to adjust customer’s base electric rates most recently in 2017 when rates decreased 6.7%.

Part of Austin Energy’s rate structure is a Power Supply Adjustment (PSA). Austin Energy charges customers what it costs to provide power to the community. It covers fuel for our power plants, the cost of electricity purchased from the grid and any net revenues or losses experienced as Austin Energy produces and sells power to the grid. The PSA is reviewed annually. The City Council last directed Austin Energy to reduce the PSA by 1.9% in November 2020. 

Austin Energy said it will evaluate the impact, or the cost, of buying electricity from ERCOT, minus the net revenue from generating electricity during the winter event. The electric utility will then have a better indication of the financial impact on the PSA and make recommendations to City Council.

Residential customers are billed for their actual energy usage, measured in kilowatt hours (kWh), recorded from their electric meter. Anyone without power during this time period had no electric use recorded from meters during these outage events.

Austin Energy noted that customers are charged only for the power consumed and will be charged at the existing rates as approved in the November 2020 rate tariff. If a customer consumed higher than average kWh, their electric bill will be higher than a normal month. If a customer consumed less than their average kWh, their bill will be less than a normal month.

Austin Energy offers customers insight into their usage and bills at COAUtilities.com, giving information they need to manage their accounts and bills. Auto Pay is a free service and customers continue to receive a bill for review before it is drafted.

Greenville Electric Utility System

Another Texas public power utility Greenville Electric Utility System (GEUS) on Feb. 20 said it “recognizes many of you have concerns about media reports concerning high electric prices caused by the recent extreme weather conditions.” 

This concern “is real for non-GEUS customers that are getting their power from electric utilities that depended heavily or solely on the Electric Reliability Council of Texas’ (ERCOT) real-time market to purchase energy during this event,” it said.  

“Maintaining stable rates for customers is a priority for municipal utilities like ours so we work hard every day to maximize our energy purchase options,” said GEUS General Manager Alicia Hooks. 

GEUS noted its energy portfolio includes a mix of local natural gas-fired generation, wind, solar and fixed price power agreements used to cap energy prices for our customers. This enables the utility to stabilize rates during periods such as this.  

“We generated energy from our local power plant through this winter event, which helped protect GEUS customers from record high ERCOT energy costs while also utilizing the other resources in our energy portfolio,” Hooks added.

CPS Energy

In a Feb. 20 media briefing, Paula Gold-Williams, President and CEO of Texas public power utility CPS Energy, said that “our focus is to make sure that we can protect our customers as much as possible from the affordability standpoint.”

CPS Energy is “going to use every tool in our toolbox to make sure that San Antonio doesn’t see some of the excessive monthly bills that we think will follow across Texas,” she said.

Public power utilities in other states offer help

Public power utilities from out of state are taking actions to help utilities affected by the outages.

For example, Missouri public power utility Carthage Water and Electric Plant reported that two of its linemen departed on Feb. 19 for San Augustine, Texas to aid in the power restoration efforts.

And Iowa public power utility Waverly Utilities “self-generated electricity for 24 hours from Tuesday to Wednesday to aid southern states experiencing rolling blackouts caused by the extreme cold weather conditions,” reported the Waterloo, Iowa newspaper the Courier on Feb. 19.

“With our self-generating ability, as long as fuel is available, we can isolate the community from grid-reliability issues that we witnessed happen in the southern states,” Waverly Utilities CEO Darrel Wenzel said in the article.

President Biden approves Texas disaster declaration

Meanwhile, President Biden on Feb. 19 declared that a major disaster exists in the state of Texas and ordered federal assistance to supplement state and local recovery efforts in the areas affected by the recent severe winter storms.

Assistance can include grants for temporary housing and home repairs, low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses, and other programs to help individuals and business owners recover from the effects of the disaster.

Federal funding is also available to state and eligible local governments and certain private nonprofit organizations on a cost-sharing basis for emergency protective measures and hazard mitigation measures statewide.

The President’s action makes federal funding available to affected individuals in a large number of Texas counties. The complete list of those counties is available here.

FERC

At the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s monthly meeting on Feb. 18, FERC Chairman Richard Glick acknowledged the power outages in Texas and other parts of the country, calling it a “humanitarian crisis.” 

He characterized the situation as “simply unacceptable,” and said that, while the short-term focus should be on restoring power to the grid, FERC has a responsibility to ensure a similar situation does not happen again. 

Although recognizing FERC’s lack of jurisdiction over ERCOT, the Chairman observed that FERC, along with the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), has a responsibility to protect bulk power system reliability, including in Texas. 

FERC and NERC announced on Feb. 16 that they will open a joint inquiry into the operations of the bulk-power system during the extreme winter weather conditions experienced by the Midwest and South Central states.

Glick said that FERC must make sure that the results of the inquiry “don’t just sit on the shelf gathering dust like so many other reports of this kind.”

He also suggested that past reliance on voluntary guidance in response to weather-related outages had been inadequate, pointing in particular to a 2011 FERC-NERC report on cold weather outages in the Southwest. 

Glick said he was “prepared, if necessary, to support the imposition of new mandatory standards to make sure that electric generators and others are better prepared when weather strikes the next time and there will be a next time.”

Climate change “is unfortunately already having a dramatic impact on our weather, be it wildfires, hurricanes or the extreme cold we’ve seen across the middle of the country. The challenges that climate change poses for the grid are only going to grow more starker and more immediate.”

He also said that Congress and the Texas state government need to rethink the state’s “go it alone approach” for much of the state’s electric grid. “Does it really make sense to isolate yourself and limit your ability to get power from neighboring regions just to keep FERC at bay? That strikes me as the proverbial cutting off your nose to spite your face.”

Kansas governor, other state officials urge FERC to launch investigation

Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly and other state officials on Feb. 19 urged FERC “to take all necessary and possible steps” to investigate the causes of system failures during the recent extreme-weather event in Kansas and protect Kansans from natural gas and electricity price surges resulting from increased demand.

Along with Kelly, Kansas Corporation Commission (KCC) Chair Andrew French, Commissioner Dwight D. Keen, and Commissioner Susan K. Duffy also signed onto the letter sent to Glick urging a federal investigation.

Specifically, Kelly and the KCC called for FERC to:

U.S. Congress

Federal lawmakers are also seeking answers related to the recent events in Texas.

In a Feb. 16 letter to Bill Magness, President and CEO of ERCOT, and DeAnn Walker, Chairman of the PUCT, a group of U.S. Representatives from Texas asked Magness and Walker to respond to a series of questions related to the outages.

Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., has sent a letter to the Energy Department, FERC and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission “calling for federal investigations into possible price gouging of natural gas in the Midwest and other regions following severe winter storms that plunged Texas and other states into a deep freeze that caused power outages in millions of homes and businesses,” the Associated Press reported.

SPP, MISO

Effective at 10:00 p.m. Central time, Feb. 20, SPP said that it had returned to normal operations for the entire SPP balancing authority area, signaling it has enough generation to meet demand and available reserves and foresees no extreme or abnormal threats to reliability.

For its part, MISO on Feb. 19 said its MISO system was currently steady and stable with sufficient generation and transmission resources online.

A Maximum Generation Alert for the South Region was terminated at 11am ET on Feb. 19. 

MISO said it would continue supporting member restoration efforts from this week’s winter weather event. 

Public power utilities warn of scam activity

In the wake of the frigid temperatures and strain on the grid, a number of public power utilities warned their customers to watch out for scam activity.

Nebraska Public Power District (NPPD), which is in the SPP footprint, “is asking power customers around the state to be wary of scammers trying to take advantage of the recent winter weather and power outages,” it said on Feb. 18.

“These predatory individuals will call and state the customer’s bill must be paid immediately or the power will be shut off and will recommend several methods of payment. They may also indicate that immediate payment will keep someone from being included in emergent rotating outages. Sometimes the scammer’s caller-identification is falsified so it appears to originate from the utility company, a practice known as ‘spoofing’.”

Another Nebraska-based public power utility, Omaha Public Power District (OPPD) on Feb. 17 reported that it was beginning to learn of more customers receiving phone calls from scammers, falsely alleging their power will be shut off within 30-minutes for failure to pay their bills.

“This is a national scam. However, recent headlines about our regional power issues may have sparked the latest round of calls in our area. Utilities often see a spike in calls after severe weather or other power-related events, when customers may feel the most vulnerable,” it said.

Most of the latest calls have been automated messages left by a caller pretending to be employees. The message states power will be disconnected in a half hour if customers do not call back to settle up.

OPPD warned that these callers do not represent the utility, noting it never cold calls customers demanding payment.

CPS Energy in a Feb. 16 Facebook post noted that ERCOT had reported a scam circulating on social media asking customers to text their private account numbers.

“Please, DON’T DO IT! This info is not needed to restore your power. We’re working hard to get power back on. Thank you for your patience!,” CPS Energy said.

In Missouri, City Utilities of Springfield on Feb. 18 warned of two scams. One scam call claimed “that you’ll avoid being part of a rolling blackout by paying the caller immediately. HANG UP,” CU said in a tweet. It said customers could call it or send a direct message if they were concerned about their account status.

A second scam involved a call that appears like it is coming from the CU phone number “and the caller threatens to disconnect your service in the next 30-60 minutes if you don’t pay them immediately,” the utility said.

Public power mourns the passing of Columbus Light and Water GM Todd Gale

February 22, 2021

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
February 22, 2021

Todd Gale, who served as General Manager of Columbus Light and Water in Mississippi and as a member of the American Public Power Association’s Board of Directors, passed away on Feb. 12, 2021.

Throughout his career as General Manager for Columbus Light and Water, Gale served on the boards of the Tennessee Valley Public Power Association and the board of APPA.  He started his term on the APPA board in June 2018. 

“In addition, he served on many committees, too numerous to mention, for the Tennessee Valley Authority,” an obituary for Gale noted.

“During his time as the leader of the city’s primary utilities provider, Gale developed a reputation for competency, enthusiasm and cooperation, a man whose devotion to his duties was beyond question,” the Columbus Dispatch newspaper said in a Feb. 13 editorial.

“The public power community is devastated by the loss of Todd Gale,” said Joy Ditto, President and CEO of the American Public Power Association.

“His steadfast commitment to public power was evident in his multiple roles in public power including serving as a board member at APPA,” she said. “Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends and his colleagues at Columbus Light and Water.”

“All the clichés apply to Todd about being smart, friendly, professional, etc.  Anyone that knew him would say he was way more than any cliché,” said Mike Bernsen, comptroller and interim general manager at Columbus Light and Water.

“His business colleagues will tell you he was able to confront an issue and chart direction almost immediately but would listen to his managers and weigh their arguments and opinions before making a final decision,” Bernsen said.

“We were really included in his world and our discussions were always fruitful and encouraging.  He enjoyed talking with and listening to his team and we all felt energized after our meetings; Todd most of all,” Bernsen said.

“His personal friends will tell you he wrote the definition of friendship. You felt close and special being a friend of Todd Gale’s. His support was limitless,” he added.

Texas grid operator continues to grapple with extreme weather, outages

February 17, 2021

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
February 17, 2021

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) on Feb. 17 continued to grapple with bitter cold temperatures and power outages in its footprint.

According to powerOutage.US, which collects, records, and aggregates live power outage data from utilities all over the U.S., Texas had outages totaling 3,355,316 as of mid-day on Feb. 17.

ERCOT on Feb. 17 reported that it continued to restore power as quickly and safely as possible. During the overnight hours, ERCOT was able to restore approximately 3,500 megawatts of load, which is roughly 700,000 households, it said.

“We know millions of people are suffering,” said ERCOT President and CEO Bill Magness, in a statement. “We have no other priority than getting them electricity.”

However, ERCOT said that some of that was lost when the Midwest went into a power emergency of its own and ERCOT was no longer able to import approximately 600 MW.

As of 9 a.m. on Feb. 17, ERCOT was instructing local utilities to shed 14,000 MW of load representing around 2.8 million households.

“Although we’ve reconnected more consumers back to the grid, the aggregate energy consumption of customers (those recently turned back on and those already on) is actually lower this morning compared to yesterday because it’s less cold,” said ERCOT Senior Director of System Operations Dan Woodfin. “However, we are anticipating another cold front this evening which could increase the demand,” he said.

“The ability to restore more power is contingent on more generation coming back online,” said Woodfin.

Since the winter storm began on Monday, approximately 185 generating units have tripped offline for one reason or another. Some factors include frozen wind turbines, limited gas supplies, low gas pressure and frozen instrumentation, ERCOT said.

As of 9 a.m. on Feb. 17, approximately 46,000 MW of generation has been forced off the system during this extreme winter weather event. Of that, 28,000 MW is thermal and 18,000 MW is wind and solar.

Southwest Power Pool

Meanwhile, Southwest Power Pool (SPP) on Feb. 17 tweeted that “We continue to urge all homes & businesses in our 14-state region to conserve electricity, but are not directing any interruptions of service at this time. The public should follow their service providers’ directions regarding local outages, tips for conservation and safety.”

Nebraska public power utility Lincoln Electric System (LES) noted in a Feb. 17 tweet that LES officials “are in direct contact with SPP this morning as they monitor the electric grid’s status. At this time, we remain in an Energy Emergency Alert Level 2. We will let you know if a decision is made to move back to Level 3 and begin subsequent rotating outages.”

Energy Emergency Alert Level 2 is declared when SPP can no longer provide expected energy requirements and is an energy deficient entity, or when SPP foresees or has implemented procedures up to, but excluding, interruption of firm load commitments. 

Nebraska public power utility Omaha Public Power District (OPPD) noted in a tweet on the morning of Feb. 17 that while there were no current requirements for controlled outages by SPP, “this is a very fluid situation & we could be directed by the SPP to implement controlled outages w/ very little advance notice.”

“We have been able to avoid service interruptions this morning, but things may change quickly,” Nebraska Public Power District said on Feb. 17. “SPP is currently at a level 2. The next couple of hours are critical & we will keep you informed if things change. We appreciate our customers’ efforts to continue conserving energy.”

Effective at 1:15 p.m. Central time, SPP declared an Energy Emergency Alert Level 1 for its entire 14-state balancing authority area.

Generation is currently sufficient to serve system-wide demand across the region and to fully satisfy operating reserve requirements, SPP said.

“We continue to urge all homes and businesses throughout our 14-state region to conserve electricity, but are not directing any interruptions of service at this time. The public should follow their service providers’ directions regarding local outages, tips for conservation and safety.”

Electric power industry is closely coordinating in response to weather

As extreme cold weather and a series of winter storms continue to impact electricity customers across the country, investor-owned electric companies, electric cooperatives, and public power utilities are working together to ensure that power is restored to customers safely and as quickly as possible, the American Public Power Association, Edison Electric Institute and National Rural Electric Cooperative Association said on Feb. 17.

“Electric utilities in several states in the middle of the country are facing serious challenges due to extreme cold weather conditions and related power constraints,” said APPA President & CEO Joy Ditto. “The electric power industry is united in responding to this situation in order to protect the grid and get the power back on for everyone as quickly and safely as possible.”

In addition to extreme cold, several states — including Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, Oregon, Virginia, and West Virginia — have been hard hit by devastating ice and winter storms. In these areas, mutual assistance networks are activated, and crews continue to work around the clock to restore power to customers who lost power due to downed wires and other infrastructure impacts.

Electricity providers in all impacted areas are encouraging their customers to remain vigilant against scams targeting utility customers and are reminding customers that portable generators and grills never should be used indoors or in other enclosed areas where lethal fumes quickly can accumulate.

With another winter storm in the forecast this week, electric companies, electric co-ops, and public power utilities in the path are preparing and in close coordination with emergency response officials, state leaders, and customers.

TVA increases contracted solar capacity by 60 percent

February 17, 2021

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
February 17, 2021

The Tennessee Valley Authority on Feb. 8 announced a 60% increase in contracted solar capacity since October 2020.

TVA said that a 2020 request for proposals for solar capacity and its Green Invest program added 964 megawatts of contracted solar and 130 MW of battery storage to the TVA system, pending environmental review.

The increase was due in part from Green Invest commitments from Knoxville Utilities Board, and Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Vanderbilt University through a partnership with Nashville Electric Service. TVA will announce additional partnerships in the coming months.  

TVA noted that its 2019 RFP and Green Invest program attracted over $736 million in solar investment and 1,025 jobs, and secured 651 MW in solar commitments.

Currently, with over 7,000 MW of renewable energy, TVA expects to add 7,000 to 10,000 megawatts of solar energy by 2040. 

Almost 60% of the electricity TVA supplies for the seven-state region is carbon-free and this spring, TVA will issue a new request for proposals for additional renewable energy.

First Native American tribe set to be a transmission owner in the California ISO

February 17, 2021

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
February 17, 2021

The Morongo Band of the Mission Indians is on track to become the first Native American tribe to be a participating transmission owner in the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) footprint, creating a critical connection to help meet the state’s green energy goals, CAISO reported on Feb. 12.

The CAISO Board of Governors recently approved the Morongo Transmission LLC application, which is majority-owned by the Morongo Band of the Mission Indians. It marks the first time a federally recognized tribe has received the designation within the ISO’s balancing authority.

The board’s action supports the completion of the West Devers project, which connects solar, wind, and battery resources located in eastern Riverside County and Imperial Valley to the grid.

CAISO first approved the need for the project in 2011, calling for Southern California Edison (SCE) to upgrade 48 corridor miles of existing transmission lines (184 circuit miles) of 220-kilovolt circuits with high capacity conductors designed to increase the power flow by 3,200 megawatts.

To gain access to critical right-of-way on the Morongo Indian Reservation in Riverside County, SCE entered into an agreement with the tribe exchanging the right for the tribe to invest in a share of the transmission project.

The transmission line upgrade is scheduled for completion in May and supports California’s renewable portfolio standard and greenhouse gas emission reduction goals, CAISO noted.

The board’s action is conditional on the review and approval by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

“This is a very important step in diversifying the ISO’s stakeholder base,” said CAISO CEO and President Elliot Mainzer in a statement. “I’d like to recognize the Morongo Band of the Mission Indians and Southern California Edison for their creativity and flexibility in developing an innovative ownership structure that enables this critical transmission project to proceed.”

Mainzer was a recent guest on the American Public Power Association’s Public Power Now podcast. He discussed, among other things, key takeaways from a recently released final root cause analysis of an August 2020 heat wave and rotating outages in the state and how CAISO is preparing for this summer.

Click here to access the podcast episode with Mainzer.