Department of Justice Charges Two People With Conspiracy to Attack Maryland Substations
February 6, 2023
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
February 6, 2023
The U.S. Department of Justice on Feb. 6 announced the filing of a federal criminal complaint charging two people with conspiracy to destroy substations in Maryland.
The criminal complaint was unsealed upon the arrests of the defendants, Sarah Beth Clendaniel, of Catonsville, Maryland, and Brandon Clint Russell, of Orlando, Florida.
As alleged in the affidavit filed in support of the criminal complaint, from at least June 2022 to the present, Russell conspired to carry out attacks against critical infrastructure, specifically electrical substations, in furtherance of Russell’s racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist beliefs.
Russell posted links to open-source maps of infrastructure, which included the locations of electrical substations, and he described how a small number of attacks on substations could cause a “cascading failure.” Russell also discussed maximizing the impact of the planned attack by hitting multiple substations at one time, the DOJ said.
According to the DOJ, Clendaniel collaborated on a plan to carry out the attacks. Clendaniel conspired to secure a weapon and identified five substations she planned to target.
Clendaniel allegedly stated that if they hit a number of them all in the same day, they “would completely destroy this whole city,” and that a “good four or five shots through the center of them . . . should make that happen.” She further added, “[i]t would probably permanently completely lay this city to waste if we could do that successfully.”
If convicted, Russell and Clendaniel each face a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison for conspiracy to damage an energy facility.
In a statement released on Feb. 6, investor-owned Exelon and its subsidiary Baltimore Gas & Electric said that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had notified Exelon and BGE that it had disrupted a plot to target several BGE electric substations with gunfire.
“We are working closely with the FBI and state and local law enforcement as they continue their investigation, and we are thankful for their vigilance and the precautions taken to protect the electric grid for our customers and employees,” the companies said.
Exelon and BGE noted that law enforcement acted before the perpetrators were able to carry out their plan, and there was no damage to any of the substations, nor was any service disrupted.
“The substations are not believed to have been targeted out of any connection to BGE or Exelon, or because of any particular vulnerability. We have a long-standing partnership with law enforcement and state and federal regulators of the grid to secure critical infrastructure; this work is even more important now as threats have increased in recent years. There are no currently known threats to any of our facilities,” the utilities said.
The American Public Power Association offers a wide array of resources to help its members create a more resilient and secure electric grid that is prepared for both cyber and physical threats. Click here for additional details.
APPA offers a suite of resources to help in hardening a utility’s physical security including “Physical Security Essentials: A Public Power Primer,” which addresses physical security protective measures and describes leading practices that can help mitigate risks. This publication is available through the APPA product store. The physical security checklist associated with this publication can be accessed here.
The Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center recently released the Physical Security Resource Guide for Electricity Asset Owners and Operators. This publication is only available to logged-in APPA utility, joint action agency, or state association members.
Michael Coe Joins APPA as Vice President for Security, Resilience, and Energy Solutions
February 6, 2023
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
February 6, 2023
Michael Coe recently joined the American Public Power Association as Vice President for Security, Resilience, and Energy Solutions at APPA.
Prior to his new role at APPA, Coe held a series of positions at the U.S. Department of Energy starting with his role as Chief of Staff for DOE’s Office of Electricity in 2018.
Coe subsequently served in the following positions at DOE: Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary, Transmission Permitting and Technical Assistance Division in 2019, Director of Transmission Development (2019-2020), Director of Energy Planning and Strategy (2020-2021) and Director of Defense Critical Energy Infrastructure (2021-2023).
Coe also held positions with consulting firm ICF, the Hawthorn Group, an international public affairs company, and the Camber Corporation.
Coe, who received a JD from the University of Baltimore School of Law, reports to Adrienne Lotto, Senior Vice President for Grid Security, Technical & Operations Services at APPA.
Heartland Energy Intern Will Analyze and Report on Bitcoin Mining Impacts on Public Power
February 6, 2023
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
February 6, 2023
South Dakota-based Heartland Energy is seeking applications for a summer Intern who will analyze and report on the impacts of bitcoin mining operations on public utilities.
“The successful candidate will work directly with our Operations team, having the opportunity to advance their knowledge and gain experience working in the wholesale power industry,” the job description for the position notes.
Heartland Energy provides wholesale power to public power communities across South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa and Nebraska. Based in Madison, SD, Heartland Energy also provides a suite of customer service programs including economic development, energy efficiency, cybersecurity and more.
As Heartland Energy is approached with large economic development loads, “we often ask ourselves which customer systems can handle a large addition to their system,” said Nate Jones, Chief Operations Officer at Heartland Energy in response to questions from Public Power Current.
“In addition, it is highly likely that we don’t know the limit that our municipal systems can handle. Many times, we have to respond that our customers wouldn’t be capable of supplying that type of load without significant infrastructure improvements,” he said.
“But in the end, we don’t have any real answers as to what portions of the system would need to be upgraded and what the cost of these upgrades would be. To complicate things further, bitcoin mining operations are looking for short-term deals likely not wanting to pay back lofty infrastructure costs over long periods of time,” Jones said in an email.
Heartland Energy hired a consultant “to tell us what our municipal systems were/are potentially capable of for load additions without the need to add a substation or make major upgrades. For example, perhaps Customer A can handle a 2 MW load addition, but this same load would push Customer B to a breaking point,” he said.
The internship was designed to fill in the gaps for Heartland for those customers that it didn’t have data for. “The intern would be doing data gathering on the following pieces of information and performing a simple analysis (power system study) to determine the headroom on each system.”
He said that ideally, the intern would collect the following information:
- One-Line Diagram of substation(s) (with equipment nameplate information, etc.)
- Electric distribution system map (with circuit locations, conductor sizes, etc.)
- Existing system loading information pertaining to the circuits/substations
- Transmission feed(s) and alternate feed(s) and any limiting factors here
Heartland could then send this information to its consultant to analyze and put together a cost matrix for Heartland.
Jones said that the intern will deliver a final report to Heartland Energy at the conclusion of his or her internship.
“We like all of our interns to deliver an end of the summer presentation and report to staff and our Board,” he noted.
Study Finds Steeply Rising Interconnection Costs In PJM
February 6, 2023
by Peter Maloney
APPA News
February 6, 2023
The costs to connect a power project to the grid in the PJM Interconnection region have risen steeply, according to a new report by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Interconnection costs have risen across the board, according to the report, Interconnection Cost Analysis in the PJM Territory.
For projects with completed studies and plants in service, costs have doubled. For active projects still in the interconnection queue, estimated costs have grown eightfold since 2019.
More specifically, average costs for completed projects have doubled, rising from a mean cost of $42 per kilowatt in 2000-2019 to $84/kW in 2020-2022 and a median cost of $18/kW in 2000-2019 to $30kW in 2020-2022.
Costs of active projects in the queue have risen even more steeply, with mean costs growing from $29/kW in 2017-2019 to $240/kW in 2020-2022 and median costs rising from $8 in 2017-2019 to $85/kW in 2020-2022.
Withdrawn projects had the highest costs of all, with a mean cost of $599/kW in 2020-2022 and a median cost of $156.kW, which was likely a “key factor in those withdrawals,” the authors of the report said. “Project costs vary widely and a small number of high cost projects caused average costs to rise above median costs,” the authors noted.
The main driver behind the cost increases has been broader network upgrade costs, the Berkeley report found. Average costs for upgrades beyond the interconnecting substation have risen sharply since 2019, to $71/kW for complete projects, $227/kW for active projects, and $563/kW for withdrawn projects, the authors said.
A small subset of generators faces lower network upgrade costs by choosing interconnection services as an energy instead of a capacity resource, but those owners forfeit preferential treatment during high load hours, cannot participate in PJM’s capacity market, and may face increased curtailment, the report said.
PJM’s interconnection queue has ballooned in recent years, with 2021’s active queue increasing by 240 percent compared with year-end 2019, reaching a level nearly twice as large as PJM’s peak load in recent years of about 155 gigawatts.
At year-end 2021, PJM had 259 GW of generation and storage capacity actively seeking grid interconnection. Most of that capacity is represented by solar interconnection requests, 116 GW, followed by standalone battery storage, 42 GW, wind projects at 39 GW, and solar-battery hybrid projects at 32 GW.
PJM’s data also shows that 79 GW of projects have dropped out of the queue because they entered service while 432 GW of projects dropped out of the queue because they withdrew.
The rapid growth of interconnection requests, along with lengthy study timelines and high project withdrawal rates, motivated PJM to reform its interconnection process in 2022, adopting a “first-ready, first-served” cluster study approach and increasing study deposits that are at risk if a project is withdrawn.
CAISO-WEIM Agreement Forges Path For Extended Day-Ahead Market
February 5, 2023
by Peter Maloney
APPA News
February 5, 2023
The governing bodies of the California Independent System Operator’s and the Western Energy Imbalance Market on Thursday approved initiatives establishing an extended day-ahead market.
The EDAM final proposal will allow WEIM entities that currently buy and sell energy in the real-time market to participate in an extended day-ahead market, giving them access to additional economic, environmental and reliability benefits and better position them to respond to operational challenges stemming from a changing resource mix and extreme weather events, CAISO said.
Along with the EDAM initiative, the governing bodies also approved a proposal that, among other things, would apply the existing joint approval authority of the WEIM’s board and governing body to the EDAM market rules.
The proposal would also encourage the WEIM Regional Issues Forum to engage more directly in the stakeholder process for establishing priorities on policy initiatives,
CAISO said its next step in the EDAM process is the development of tariff language through additional stakeholder engagement over the coming months, and then spend the rest of the year and part of 2024 focusing on implementation activities.
CAISO’s board of governors also adopted the Transmission Services and Market Scheduling Priorities Phase 2 initiative that supports grid reliability by providing a long-term approach to allocating transmission capacity to California load-serving entities while enabling external entities to obtain priority scheduling, or wheel-through rights, to transfer energy across the ISO’s system.
PacifiCorp in December announced its intention to join EDAM when it launches. In May, the Bonneville Power Administration became one of the newest members of the Western Energy Imbalance Market.
Agreement For 11-MW Microgrid at New York State Airport is Unveiled
February 5, 2023
by Peter Maloney
APPA News
February 5, 2023
AlphaStruxure in late January announced an agreement to design, build, and operate an 11.3-megawatt microgrid at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York that will feature the largest rooftop solar array in New York City and on any airport terminal in the United States.
The microgrid, at the New Terminal One at the airport, will provide sustainable, resilient, locally generated, and cost-predictable energy and will deliver immediate greenhouse gas emission reductions of 38 percent over grid-sourced energy, the project’s developers said.
The microgrid will include 7.66 MW of rooftop solar, 3.68 MW of fuel cells, a 2-MW battery storage unit capable of providing 4 megawatt-hours of energy, and will use reclaimed heat to generate chilled water and heating hot water.
The microgrid will consist of four power islands with each functioning as a local, integrated energy system with sources of generation, storage, advanced automation and control.
The microgrid would enable the New Terminal One to be the first airport transit hub in the region that can function off-grid during power disruptions, the developers said.
New Terminal One is being developed by a consortium of labor, operating, and financial partners including Ferrovial, Carlyle, JLC Infrastructure, and Ullico. The project is being privately financed in partnership with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
The project is delivered through an Energy as a Service contract, a long-term agreement ensuring predictable operating costs and guaranteed performance without upfront capital expenditures.
Upon project completion, New Terminal One will be the first resilient airport transit hub in the New York region that can function independently of the power grid, to maintain 100 percent of airport operations during power disruptions across the 23 gates and more than 177,000 square feet of dining, retail, lounges, and recreational space.
AlphaStruxure is a joint venture of Carlyle and Schneider Electric. Carlyle is financing the microgrid. Schneider Electric is providing microgrid technology, software, and services.
APPA Releases 17th Edition of Safety Manual
February 1, 2023
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
February 1, 2023
The American Public Power Association this week released the 17th edition of its Safety Manual, which has been a key tool for public power utility workplace safety programs since 1955.
In order to ensure relevance and accuracy, the Safety Manual is updated every four to five years to reflect important changes in the industry, as well as National Electrical Safety Code and Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards.
Members of APPA’s Safety Manual Revision Task Force met in early 2022 to review proposed changes to the latest edition of the manual. The meeting was hosted by CDE Lightband in Clarksville, Tenn. The group reviewed proposed changes to help develop the 17th edition of the APPA Safety Manual.
There were also meetings held at APPA’s offices in Virginia, the offices of the Minnesota Municipal Utilities Association and in South Carolina, as well as additional virtual meetings.
“This 17th edition of the Safety Manual would not be possible but for the tireless work of the revision taskforce members under the leadership of Chair Mike Willetts and Vice-Chair Jon Beasley,” said Adrienne Lotto, Senior Vice President for Grid Security, Technical and Operations, at APPA. “A safe and injury free work environment is essential for any public power utility and APPA is pleased to provide this latest version to members.”
An upcoming episode of APPA’s Public Power Now podcast will feature Beasley, Vice President for Training and Safety at Electric Cities of Georgia, and Willetts, Director of Training and Safety at the Minnesota Municipal Utilities Association, who will discuss the newest edition of the Safety Manual.
To order the safety manual, visit PublicPower.org and click on Shop or email Products@PublicPower.org.
The Journey to a Smart Grid: Funding and New Technology Make it Possible
February 1, 2023
by Aaron Larson
Power Magazine
February 1, 2023
With the U.S. government funneling billions of dollars into new grid infrastructure, and private companies rolling out new systems to mitigate outages and developing artificial intelligence that can predict with greater accuracy than ever before, the prospects for a truly smart grid have never been better.
Read the story here :https://www.nxtbook.com/accessintelligence/POWER/power-february-2023/index.php#/p/26
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January 31, 2023
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DOE Funding Opportunity Targets Clean Hydrogen Technologies
January 31, 2023
by Peter Maloney
APPA News
January 31, 2023
The Department of Energy recently announced up to $47 million in funding to accelerate the research, development, and demonstration of affordable clean hydrogen technologies.
The funding, which is being administered by the DOE’s Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office, is focused on the research, development, and demonstration of hydrogen delivery and storage technologies, as well as affordable and durable fuel cell technologies.
Clean hydrogen, which is produced with zero or near-zero emissions, can play a role in reducing emissions from some of the hardest-to-decarbonize sectors of the economy, including industrial and chemical processes and heavy-duty transportation, but while hydrogen technologies have come a long way, costs and other challenges to at-scale adoption need to be addressed for clean hydrogen to realize its full potential, the DOE said.
The DOE said the fuel cell projects should focus on applications for heavy duty trucks that have the potential to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and eliminate tailpipe emissions that are harmful to local air quality.
The DOE said those efforts will work in concert with hydrogen-related activities funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, including the Regional Clean Hydrogen Hubs and an upcoming funding opportunity for research, development, and demonstration projects to advance electrolysis technologies and improve the manufacturing and recycling of critical components and materials.
Last February, the DOE announced two requests for information to collect feedback from stakeholders to inform the implementation and design of the infrastructure law’s Regional Hydrogen Hub and the Electrolysis and Clean Hydrogen Manufacturing and Recycling Programs.
The DOE said the aim of the funded projects is to reduce costs, enhance hydrogen infrastructure, and improve the performance of hydrogen fuel cells in order to advance the goal of the agency’s Hydrogen Shot program, which is to reduce the cost of clean hydrogen to $1 per kilogram within a decade.
Achieving those cost reductions will accelerate the use of clean hydrogen across multiple sectors and strengthen the nation’s energy security while supporting the Biden administration’s goals of a 100 percent clean electric grid by 2035 and a net-zero emissions economy by 2050, the DOE said.
The DOE said it would provide financial assistance awards in the form of cooperative agreements, and the estimated performance period for each award would be approximately two to four years.
The DOE is encouraging applicant teams that include stakeholders within academia, industry, and national laboratories across multiple technical disciplines, as well as teams that include representation from diverse entities such as minority serving institutions, labor unions, and community colleges.