Small Modular Reactor Technology Delivers Reliability, Resiliency, Safety, and Affordability

December 17, 2022

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
December 17, 2022

New nuclear technologies, such as small modular reactors (SMR), have reached a point where they are able to help utilities address growing concerns about fulfilling their core mission: delivering safe, affordable, and reliable electric power.

Several industry trends are challenging utility executives’ abilities to balance those three key objectives.

A July report from the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) highlighted the growing threats to reliability, including extreme weather events, the growing proliferation of “inverter based resources” such as photovoltaic solar power and energy storage, and increasing reliance on natural gas-fired generation.

The growth of renewable resources aimed at meeting state and federal goals aimed at addressing greenhouse gas emissions has been impressive. In the first half of the year, 24 percent of utility-scale generation in the United States came from renewable sources, according to the Energy Information Administration. However, as NERC pointed out this summer, as renewable resources have proliferated, gas-fired generators are becoming “necessary balancing resources” for reliability, leading to an interdependence that poses “a major new reliability risk.”

In this environment, if utilities are going to stay on track to meet their clean energy targets while providing secure, safe and reliable electric power to meet growing demand, they are going to need a new solution.

“NuScale Power’s SMR technology offers a carbon-free energy solution with features, capability, and performance not found in current nuclear power facilities,” Karin Feldman, Vice President of NuScale’s Program Management Office, said in an interview.

Several utilities have already begun exploring the potential of a new generation of nuclear technology to help them meet both their clean energy and reliability needs as they work toward meeting growing demand.

NuScale’s project portfolio includes a six module, 462-MW VOYGR™ SMR power plant. Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) plans to develop at the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Idaho National Laboratory in Idaho Falls for their Carbon Free Power Project (CFPP).

NuScale also has memorandums of understanding to evaluate the deployment of its SMR technology with Associated Electric Cooperative in Missouri and Dairyland Power Cooperative in Wisconsin.

“What we bring to the table is a technology that is smaller and simpler; that lowers total costs while providing high reliability and resilience, and greater safety,” said Feldman, who develops and manages NuScale’s portfolio of projects and establishes and maintains project controls, cost estimating, and risk management standards. She is also NuScale’s primary interface with the DOE.

Cost Comparisons

The smaller scale of NuScale’s reactors – 77 MW versus 700 MW or even 1,600 MW or more for conventional reactors – brings several cost advantages, Feldman said. Smaller reactors can be fabricated in a factory, which is cheaper than field fabrication, because it involves repetitive procedures that foster iterative improvement and economies of scale, she said. Smaller reactors also take less time to build, which lowers construction costs.

Because they are modular, an SMR does not force a utility to commit to participation in a nuclear project in the 1,000-MW to 2,000-MW size range. An SMR project can be scaled to meet demand, and modules can be added as demand requires, Feldman said. That helps reduce financial risk for a utility, she said.

Another, related consideration, highlighted by the supply chain disruptions in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, is that much of NuScale’s technology can be locally sourced. “We are taking advantage of the U.S. supply chain to the greatest extent possible,” Feldman said. “We have some overseas manufacturers, but we are also engaged to develop additional U.S. capabilities in areas such as large-scale forgings.”

Reliability and Resiliency

Nuclear power plants generally have high reliability, over 92 percent, nearly twice the reliability of coal and natural gas plants, but the smaller, compact design of SMR technology can offer additional reliability advantages, Feldman said. Because NuScale plants are designed to scaled up in incremental steps, if any one of the individual reactors has an issue, the other reactors can continue to generate power, she explained.

NuScale’s SMR technology also enhances resiliency, Feldman said. The design calls for the reactors to be housed in a building below grade, hardening their vulnerability to airplane strikes and very large seismic events, she said.

An SMR plant also is designed with black start capability so that it can restart after a disruption without using the surrounding electric grid. “So, in the event of an emergency, it could be a first responder to the grid, one of the first generators to start up,” Feldman said.

And because the design calls for multiple reactors, a problem with one reactor does not require the entire plant to shut down. An SMR plant can also operate in island mode, serving as a self-sufficient energy source during an emergency, Feldman said.

In some ways, a NuScale SMR power plant resembles a microgrid. In fact, NuScale’s technology team has done a lot of analysis on microgrid capacity, Feldman said, noting that the analysis found that a 154-MW SMR plant could run for 12 years without refueling. “The technology is very good for mission critical functions and activities,” she said.

Safety First

Cost and resiliency are important considerations, but if a power plant, especially a nuclear power plant, is not safe, other considerations pale in comparison.

Safety is built into NuScale’s SMR design, Feldman said. “The SMR has a dual walled vessel design that gives it an unlimited coping period,” she said. “If an incident does occur, the plant can shut down without operator intervention or action and be safe and secure,” she said.

NuScale’s integrated design encompasses the reactor, steam generators and pressurizer and uses the natural action of circulation, eliminating the need for large primary piping and reactor coolant pumps.

If needed, the reactor shuts down and self cools indefinitely without the need for either alternating current or direct current power or additional water. The containment vessel is submerged in a heat sink for core cooling in a below grade reactor pool housed in a Seismic Category 1 reactor building as defined by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). In essence, the unit continues to cool until the decay heat dissipates at which point the reactor is air cooled, Feldman said.

In 2018, the NRC found that NuScale’s SMR safety design eliminates the need for class 1E power, that is, power needed to maintain reactor coolant integrity and remain in a safe shutdown condition.

In August 2020, the NRC approved the overall design of NuScale’s SMR. In a next step, the NRC in July directed staff to issue a final rule certifying NuScale’s SMR design.

If approved, the certification would be published in the Federal Register and have the effect of law, providing even greater comfort to any entities exploring SMR technology to provide clean, emission free, reliable and affordable power, Feldman said.

The rulemaking is on NRC’s docket for a decision in November.

Finally, after a rigorous years long review by the NRC, the Final Safety Evaluation Report (FSER) regarding NuScale’s Emergency Planning Zone (EPZ) methodology was issued. This is another tremendous “first” for NuScale’s technology. With the report’s approval of our methodology, an EPZ that is limited to the site boundary of the power plant is now achievable for a wide range of potential plant sites where a NuScale VOYGR™ SMR power plant could be located.

Utility Scale Battery Storage Growth Tracks Renewables, But is Even Faster: EIA

December 16, 2022

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
December 16, 2022

Utility-scale battery storage capacity is poised for explosive growth in the United States as it tracks and outpaces renewable growth, especially in California and Texas, according to a report released this week by the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA). 

Over the next three years, U.S. utility-scale battery storage capacity could reach 30 GW by year-end 2025, from 7.8 GW as of October 2022, according to the EIA’s latest Preliminary Monthly Electric Generator Inventory, which is based on data reported to the agency by developers and power plant owners.

Battery storage in the United States was “negligible” prior to 2020, but began growing rapidly, the EIA said. The growth of battery storage capacity tracks the rising pace of wind and solar installations but is even outpacing the early growth of utility-scale solar capacity, which grew from less than 1 GW in 2010 to 13.7 GW in 2015, according to EIA data.

U.S. battery storage capacity was 1.5 GW in 2020 and by year end it could reach 9.2 GW with another 20.8 GW expected to come online between 2023 and 2025. More than 75 percent of the 20.8 GW in development is in Texas and California, which account for 7.9 GW and 7.6 GW, respectively, of the expected additions by 2025. Both of those states are also leaders in renewable resources.

Texas has 37.2 GW of wind capacity, more than in any other state, and developers expect to add an additional 5.3 GW over the next three years, the EIA said. Texas also has 10.5 GW of utility-scale solar capacity and developers plan to install another 20.4 GW between 2023 and 2025 in the Lone Star state.

California has more utility-scale solar capacity than in any other state with 16.8 GW and another 7.7 GW expected to be added between 2023 and 2025.

As more battery capacity becomes available to the U.S. grid, battery storage projects are also becoming larger, the EIA noted. Before 2020, the largest U.S. battery storage project was 40 MW. The 250-megawatt (MW) Gateway Energy Storage System in California, which began operating in 2020, marked the beginning of large-scale battery storage installation, the EIA said.

Now, the 409-MW Manatee Energy Storage facility in Florida is the largest operating storage project in the country. Developers have scheduled more than 23 large-scale battery projects, ranging from 250 MW to 650 MW, to be deployed by 2025, according to EIA data.

NuScale, UAMPS, Others to Assess Small Nuclear Reactors for Hydrogen Production

December 16, 2022

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
December 16, 2022

NuScale Power and its partners, including Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) and Shell Global Solutions, are assessing the development of a process for producing hydrogen using small modular nuclear reactors.

In addition to UAMPS and Shell, research participants in the project also include Idaho National Laboratory, Fuel Cell Energy, FPoliSolutions, and GSE Solutions.

In July 2019, UAMPS members executed power sales contracts totaling more than 150 megawatts (MW) of subscriptions in UAMPS’ Carbon Free Power Project, a 12-module small modular reactor (SMR) being designed and built by NuScale at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory.

The hydrogen project calls for development of an economically optimized Integrated Energy System (IES) using electricity and process heat from a NuScale small modular reactor.

NuScale said the ultimate aim would be to balance and stabilize power grids dominated by renewable energies through hydrogen production, for example, by producing hydrogen when electric demand is low and, when energy demand is high and renewable energy production is low, using the hydrogen as an end-product or as fuel to create electricity using a reversible solid oxide fuel cell.

Each NuScale nuclear power module produces 250 MW of thermal energy that can be used to drive a steam turbine generator or for a variety of industrial processes, including the production of clean hydrogen, Diane Hughes, NuScale’s vice president of marketing and communications, said via email. A single 77-MW NuScale power module, working with a state-of-the-art fuel cell, is capable of producing up to 2,053 kilograms of hydrogen per hour, or nearly 50 metric tons per day, she said.

NuScale plans to conduct a techno-economic analysis to assess the number of NuScale power modules needed for hydrogen production and the quantity of hydrogen stored for subsequent electricity production. In addition, local economic factors from the UAMPS Carbon Free Power Project will be assessed, such as the impact in the Western Energy Imbalance Market, resource adequacy programs, and other local market factors.

In the second phase, NuScale plans to modify a control room simulator to evaluate the dynamics of the integrated energy system, including models for a solid oxide electrolysis system for hydrogen production and a fuel cell for electricity production.

One of the concepts being explored in the study is whether NuScale’s multi-module SMR power plant design could produce reliable clean electricity for the grid while allocating one or more modules to economically produce hydrogen when electricity demand is low, Hughes said.

NYPA Forum Details Ingredients for Moving Large Transmission Projects Forward

December 16, 2022

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
December 16, 2022

New York stakeholders detailed some of the strategies that have helped them move transmission projects forward in the state during a recent online forum sponsored by the New York Power Authority (NYPA).

The forum, Collaborating To Get It Done: How New York State Is Expanding Transmission for Its Clean Energy Economy, brought together transmission stakeholders, including NYPA, the New York Independent System Operator, GridWise Alliance, and a dairy farmer from upstate New York.

A recent report by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found institutional and structural barriers that are preventing hundreds of gigawatts of clean energy from coming online due to interconnection issues. Average interconnection costs for recent transmission projects have nearly doubled relative to historical costs from 2000 through 2018, LBNL found. New York State, meanwhile, is building more transmission than it has in 40 years and is upgrading or building hundreds of miles of transmission lines.

Three elements underpin NYPA’s success with transmission projects, “having people in the field with a local understanding,” building on that understanding, and “taking a long-term view,” Phil Toia, president of NYPA Development, said at the event.

“We know those areas,” whether it is vegetation management or asset management, “we do what we say we are going to do” and that helps with the regulatory and permitting aspects of a project, Toia said.

Toia said he has seen more transmission development over the past couple of years than he has in the past 30.

Earlier this month, NYPA, with National Grid NY, began construction on the Smart Path Connect transmission project that is rebuilding and strengthening about 100 miles of power lines in the state’s North Country and Mohawk Valley. NYPA is also working on the Smart Path project that entails the rebuilding of the Moses-to-Adirondack transmission lines.

Work also began in December on the 339-mile Champlain Hudson Power Express transmission line being developed by Transmission Developers Inc.

The Champlain Hudson Power Express and the Clean Path NY project, which is being developed by NYPA and Forward Power, a joint venture of Invenergy and energyRe, are the largest transmission developments in New York State in the last 50 years, NYPA said.

In addition, NYPA and LS Power New York are developing the Central East Energy Connect project that calls for the rebuilding and expansion of nearly 100 miles of historically heavily congested transmission lines in the Utica-Albany corridor.

New York Transco’s New York Energy Solution calls for the rebuilding of approximately 54 miles of transmission lines in the Hudson Valley, a project that is already underway, and NextEra Energy Transmission New York recently completed and energized the approximately 20-mile Empire State Line Project in Western New York. All told, New York’s transmission investments total nearly 1,000 miles of new and upgraded projects.

NYPA has also collaborated  with TransCo to submit a set of solutions dubbed Propel NY Energy to the NYISO’s solicitation for proposals for connecting new offshore wind resources to the Southeastern New York power grid. A decision on those proposals is expected in the first part of next year.

“Originally we were rebuilding old lines,” now “we are starting to look at the next phase” and at projects that are larger and more complex, Toia said. “There is always a balance in trying to get as much out of our existing resources and building new projects.”

“Interconnection is an important issue and a challenging one,” Emilie Nelson, executive vice president of the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO), said during the forum. “In many areas, we have established an effective approach, but there is room for improvement.”

Extensive investment in transmission resources is going to be necessary to deliver the renewable energy needed to meet New York State’s climate goals, Nelson said. That can be seen particularly in the imbalance between the upstate and downstate resource mix in the state. Zero emission resources make up about 90 percent of upstate electricity production while fossil fuels generate up to 89 percent of downstate electricity production.

In addition, between 111 gigawatts (GW) and 124 GW of renewable generation will need to be added to the NYISO grid by 2040 to meet New York’s goal of having an emissions free grid.

In that context, “we need to find better ways” to understand core reliability issues and “to efficiently evaluate and finalize and allow these projects to move forward,” Nelson said. One of the keys, she said is communication and figuring out how to have the parties involved effectively engage on the issues. “We absolutely need these transmission projects and supply resources to materialize.”

One of the key constituents in those discussions are landowners and, particularly in upstate New York, farmers. “You are never going to find a farmer who is going to say, ‘oh, yeah, build a tower on my land,’” Jon Greenwood, founder of Greenwood Dairy.

A farmer’s biggest concern is where the towers are going to be located because they can present impediments to planting and sowing operations, Greenwood said.

Cash offers based on appraised land values are often “not really indicative of the value of the land to our operation,” Greenwood said. A developer could pay 90 percent of the value of the land, “but it doesn’t really compensate. No one would voluntarily pay that kind of money to put an obstruction in their field.”

Anything that can be done to avoid placing a transmission tower on crop land or placing them in the least obstructive way will help smooth the path and help the developer win farmers’ cooperation, Greenwood said.

Greenwood recommended that transmission planners engage with farm owners early in the process and ask the owner’s advice on issues such as where would be the best, least obstructive location for tower access roads. He also said that monopoles are “a big improvement” over the more conventional four-legged towers that are harder to maneuver around.

“The best thing for a farmer is to work with the powers that be from the get go,” Greenwood said. For instance, a developer should ask a farmer where he would like the lines to come in rather than just using the right of way. “Communication in the key,” Greenwood said.

DEED Program Appoints Eric Miller to Board of Directors

December 14, 2022

by Jackson Bedbury
APPA News
December 14, 2022

The American Public Power Association’s (APPA) Demonstration of Energy & Efficiency (DEED) Program on November 3 appointed Eric Miller, Manager of Engineering and Project Management at Kaukauna Utilities (Wisconsin) to fill a vacant seat on the program’s board of directors.

Miller will serve as the director representing Region 2, comprising Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio, for a three-year term.

As one of twelve DEED program directors, Miller will act as a resource to help utilities refine grant applications prior to the advisory board’s review, in addition to contributing to funding and policy decisions for the program.

Region 3 Director Seat Opening

The DEED program is also currently seeking to fill a director position to oversee Region 3 (Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, and South Dakota). The nomination deadline for the seat is January 16, 2023, and the form can be accessed here.

For any questions regarding the DEED program or board of director nominations, please email DEED@PublicPower.org.

Department of Energy Reports Major Breakthrough in Fusion Energy Research

December 13, 2022

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
December 13, 2022

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) on Dec. 13 announced the achievement of fusion ignition at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), a development that DOE said is a “major scientific breakthrough decades in the making that will pave the way for advancements in national defense and the future of clean power.”

DOE reported that on December 5, a team at LLNL’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) conducted the first controlled fusion experiment in history to reach this milestone, also known as scientific energy breakeven, meaning it produced more energy from fusion than the laser energy used to drive it.

LLNL’s experiment surpassed the fusion threshold by delivering 2.05 megajoules (MJ) of energy to the target, resulting in 3.15 MJ of fusion energy output, demonstrating for the first time a most fundamental science basis for inertial fusion energy. 

DOE said that many advanced science and technology developments are still needed to achieve simple, affordable inertial fusion energy to power homes and businesses. DOE is in the process of restarting a broad-based, coordinated inertial fusion energy program in the U.S.

Fusion is the process by which two light nuclei combine to form a single heavier nucleus, releasing a large amount of energy.

In the 1960s, a group of scientists at LLNL hypothesized that lasers could be used to induce fusion in a laboratory setting. This idea became inertial confinement fusion, kicking off more than 60 years of research and development in lasers, optics, diagnostics, target fabrication, computer modeling and simulation, and experimental design.

To pursue this concept, LLNL built a series of increasingly powerful laser systems, leading to the creation of NIF, the world’s largest and most energetic laser system.

NIF, which is located at LLNL in Livermore, Calif., is the size of a sports stadium and uses laser beams to create temperatures and pressures like those in the cores of stars and giant planets, and inside exploding nuclear weapons.

Click here for a news conference held on Dec. 13 by Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm and other officials related to the announcement.

Small Modular Reactor Technology Delivers Reliability, Resiliency, Safety and Affordability

December 13, 2022

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
December 13, 2022

New nuclear technologies, such as small modular reactors (SMR), have reached a point where they are able to help utilities address growing concerns about fulfilling their core mission: delivering safe, affordable, and reliable electric power.

Several industry trends are challenging utility executives’ abilities to balance those three key objectives.

A July report from the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) highlighted the growing threats to reliability, including extreme weather events, the growing proliferation of “inverter based resources” such as photovoltaic solar power and energy storage, and increasing reliance on natural gas-fired generation.

The growth of renewable resources aimed at meeting state and federal goals aimed at addressing greenhouse gas emissions has been impressive. In the first half of the year, 24 percent of utility-scale generation in the United States came from renewable sources, according to the Energy Information Administration. However, as NERC pointed out this summer, as renewable resources have proliferated, gas-fired generators are becoming “necessary balancing resources” for reliability, leading to an interdependence that poses “a major new reliability risk.”

In this environment, if utilities are going to stay on track to meet their clean energy targets while providing secure, safe and reliable electric power to meet growing demand, they are going to need a new solution.

“NuScale Power’s SMR technology offers a carbon-free energy solution with features, capability, and performance not found in current nuclear power facilities,” Karin Feldman, Vice President of NuScale’s Program Management Office, said in an interview.

Several utilities have already begun exploring the potential of a new generation of nuclear technology to help them meet both their clean energy and reliability needs as they work toward meeting growing demand.

NuScale’s project portfolio includes a six module, 462-MW VOYGR™ SMR power plant. Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) plans to develop at the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Idaho National Laboratory in Idaho Falls for their Carbon Free Power Project (CFPP).

NuScale also has memorandums of understanding to evaluate the deployment of its SMR technology with Associated Electric Cooperative in Missouri and Dairyland Power Cooperative in Wisconsin.

“What we bring to the table is a technology that is smaller and simpler; that lowers total costs while providing high reliability and resilience, and greater safety,” said Feldman, who develops and manages NuScale’s portfolio of projects and establishes and maintains project controls, cost estimating, and risk management standards. She is also NuScale’s primary interface with the DOE.

Cost Comparisons

The smaller scale of NuScale’s reactors – 77 MW versus 700 MW or even 1,600 MW or more for conventional reactors – brings several cost advantages, Feldman said. Smaller reactors can be fabricated in a factory, which is cheaper than field fabrication, because it involves repetitive procedures that foster iterative improvement and economies of scale, she said. Smaller reactors also take less time to build, which lowers construction costs.

Because they are modular, an SMR does not force a utility to commit to participation in a nuclear project in the 1,000-MW to 2,000-MW size range. An SMR project can be scaled to meet demand, and modules can be added as demand requires, Feldman said. That helps reduce financial risk for a utility, she said.

Another, related consideration, highlighted by the supply chain disruptions in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, is that much of NuScale’s technology can be locally sourced. “We are taking advantage of the U.S. supply chain to the greatest extent possible,” Feldman said. “We have some overseas manufacturers, but we are also engaged to develop additional U.S. capabilities in areas such as large-scale forgings.”

Reliability and Resiliency

Nuclear power plants generally have high reliability, over 92 percent, nearly twice the reliability of coal and natural gas plants, but the smaller, compact design of SMR technology can offer additional reliability advantages, Feldman said. Because NuScale plants are designed to scaled up in incremental steps, if any one of the individual reactors has an issue, the other reactors can continue to generate power, she explained.

NuScale’s SMR technology also enhances resiliency, Feldman said. The design calls for the reactors to be housed in a building below grade, hardening their vulnerability to airplane strikes and very large seismic events, she said.

An SMR plant also is designed with black start capability so that it can restart after a disruption without using the surrounding electric grid. “So, in the event of an emergency, it could be a first responder to the grid, one of the first generators to start up,” Feldman said.

And because the design calls for multiple reactors, a problem with one reactor does not require the entire plant to shut down. An SMR plant can also operate in island mode, serving as a self-sufficient energy source during an emergency, Feldman said.

In some ways, a NuScale SMR power plant resembles a microgrid. In fact, NuScale’s technology team has done a lot of analysis on microgrid capacity, Feldman said, noting that the analysis found that a 154-MW SMR plant could run for 12 years without refueling. “The technology is very good for mission critical functions and activities,” she said.

Safety First

Cost and resiliency are important considerations, but if a power plant, especially a nuclear power plant, is not safe, other considerations pale in comparison.

Safety is built into NuScale’s SMR design, Feldman said. “The SMR has a dual walled vessel design that gives it an unlimited coping period,” she said. “If an incident does occur, the plant can shut down without operator intervention or action and be safe and secure,” she said.

NuScale’s integrated design encompasses the reactor, steam generators and pressurizer and uses the natural action of circulation, eliminating the need for large primary piping and reactor coolant pumps.

If needed, the reactor shuts down and self cools indefinitely without the need for either alternating current or direct current power or additional water. The containment vessel is submerged in a heat sink for core cooling in a below grade reactor pool housed in a Seismic Category 1 reactor building as defined by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). In essence, the unit continues to cool until the decay heat dissipates at which point the reactor is air cooled, Feldman said.

In 2018, the NRC found that NuScale’s SMR safety design eliminates the need for class 1E power, that is, power needed to maintain reactor coolant integrity and remain in a safe shutdown condition.

In August 2020, the NRC approved the overall design of NuScale’s SMR. In a next step, the NRC in July directed staff to issue a final rule certifying NuScale’s SMR design.

If approved, the certification would be published in the Federal Register and have the effect of law, providing even greater comfort to any entities exploring SMR technology to provide clean, emission free, reliable and affordable power, Feldman said.

The rulemaking is on NRC’s docket for a decision in November.

Finally, after a rigorous years long review by the NRC, the Final Safety Evaluation Report (FSER) regarding NuScale’s Emergency Planning Zone (EPZ) methodology was issued. This is another tremendous “first” for NuScale’s technology. With the report’s approval of our methodology, an EPZ that is limited to the site boundary of the power plant is now achievable for a wide range of potential plant sites where a NuScale VOYGR™ SMR power plant could be located.

PacifiCorp Agrees to Join California ISO’s Extended Day-Ahead Market

December 13, 2022

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
December 13, 2022

PacifiCorp, a utility which operates in six states, recently announced its plan to join the Extended Day-Ahead Market (EDAM) being developed by the California Independent System Operator (CAISO), as well as the Western Power Pool’s Western Resource Adequacy Program (WRAP).

PacifiCorp is the first utility to sign on to the new Western day-ahead market.

PacifiCorp noted that it has been working with the CAISO and a wide range of stakeholders to develop the new day-ahead market. The EDAM builds upon CAISO’s existing Western Energy Imbalance Market.

Plans call for the EDAM to begin operation in 2024, subject to federal regulatory approval.

The current real-time WEIM optimizes the energy imbalances throughout the West by transferring energy between participants in 15-minute and 5-minute intervals throughout the day. The proposed EDAM builds on this real-time market by extending optimization to a high volume of resource commitments that must be made a day in advance, which are then re-optimized in the real-time WEIM as conditions change. 

CAISO on Dec. 8 noted that the final EDAM proposal was released on December 7 and the CAISO Board of Governors and Western EIM Governing Body will be briefed on the proposal on December 14.

The final proposal will be brought forward to the CAISO Board of Governors and WEIM Governing Body for a decision under the joint authority decision framework on February 1 and filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission later in 2023.

Pacific Power, a PacifiCorp division, serves customers in Oregon, Washington and California.

PacifiCorp is also joining the Western Resource Adequacy Program, which is managed by the Western Power Pool. PacifiCorp said it has worked extensively with the Western Power Pool and other potential participants in the development of the WRAP, which is expected to provide regionwide reliability benefits to it participants by pairing regional diversity with common resource adequacy standards. 

This means WRAP participants will be held to common planning standards to serve winter and summer peak loads. The common planning standards and increased regional collaboration will create a pool of resources that can be used to serve load, if needed, thus increasing reliability for the entire region.

Quidnet Awarded $10 Million to Fund CPS Energy Pumped Hydro Storage Project

December 13, 2022

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
December 13, 2022

Quidnet Energy has been selected to receive $10 million in funding from the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) for a pumped hydro storage project the Houston company is developing for CPS Energy, the public power utility serving San Antonio, Texas.

Quidnet plans to use the ARPA-E funding to scale up its Geomechanical Pumped Storage (GPS) project to a 1-megawatt (MW), 10-megawatt hour (MWh) commercial system.

CPS Energy signed a 15-year capacity tolling agreement with Quidnet in March. The energy storage project could eventually be scaled up to as much as 15 MW.

CPS Energy said the project will support its “Flexible Path” Resource Plan to reduce net emissions by 80 percent by 2040.

Quidnet’s geomechanical technology stores energy by using renewable resources to pressurize water and store it underground in “storage lens” between layers of rock. The storage lens technology has been successfully demonstrated using different geologies across the United States, the DOE said.

Quidnet, which was co-founded by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, hopes to move its GPS technology from pilot scale to commercial scale by increasing the size of the storage lens, improving lens sealing, and commissioning the first grid-connected system. The company said the commercialization of the technology is aided by the fact that it uses existing drilling and hydropower machinery supply chains.

The funding for the GPS project falls under ARPA-E’s Seeding Critical Advances for Leading Energy technologies with Untapped Potential (SCALEUP) program, which provides further funding to previous ARPA-E teams that have been determined to be feasible for widespread deployment and commercialization.

Quidnet said its objective is to lower the cost of long-duration energy storage, that is, energy storage capable of providing 10 or more hours of electrical output, by 50 to 75 percent in an effort to make intermittent renewable energy sources more reliable and cost effective.

Maine’s Secretary of State Clears Path for Voters to Consider Public Power Utility in 2023

December 12, 2022

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
December 12, 2022

Maine’s Secretary of State Shenna Bellows in late November announced the completion of the certification of petitions that will allow voters in the state next year to consider replacing investor-owned utilities in Maine with a statewide, consumer-owned utility.

Bellows confirmed that 69,735 valid signatures were submitted for the initiative, enough to move forward to the November 2023 ballot.

The Maine Legislature will now consider this initiative, which would replace Central Maine
Power and Versant Power with a nonprofit, Maine-owned utility.

Legislators will have the opportunity to enact the bill as written or to send it forward to a statewide vote on the November 2023 ballot.

In October, a group in Maine called Our Power submitted more than 80,000 signatures from voters in 422 Maine towns.