Mass. Joint Action Agency To Participate In National Heat Pump Technology Challenge
December 8, 2021
by Vanessa Nikolic
APPA News
December 8, 2021
Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Company (MMWEC) has been selected by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to participate in a technology demonstration program for next generation heat pumps in support of reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm announced DOE’s partnership with MMWEC on Dec. 3 at the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center’s Wind Turbine Technology Center in Boston.
DOE is also partnering with Energy New England (ENE), the largest municipal utilities cooperative in the Northeast, as well as Eversource, an investor-owned energy company, and National Grid, a multinational electricity and gas utility company.
ENE says its participation in the challenge ensures that its member municipal light plants have a voice during this point in the drive for carbon neutrality.
Granholm was joined by state officials, including Massachusetts Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Katie Theoharides, and Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources Commissioner Patrick Woodcock, to discuss the partnership, which is part of DOE’s Residential Cold Climate Heat Pump (CCHP) Technology Challenge.
Granholm mentioned that MMWEC would be part of a “consortium of those who will be getting us to the goals of efficiency and the deployment of heat pumps.”
The CCHP Challenge was announced by the Biden Administration in May and aims to reduce the carbon footprint of cold climate heating solutions by bettering the efficiency and affordability of new heat pumps. The challenge focuses on centrally-ducted, electric-only CCHPs that exceed efficiency performance at five degrees Fahrenheit or below.
MMWEC’s participation will include recruiting sites to install a prototype heat pump in a residential unit, fostering data collection, encouraging testing of grid interactivity features, and conducting customer satisfaction surveys.
MMWEC plans to work on developing customer incentives and pilot programs to promote the benefits of CCHP adoption. DOE will cover the costs related to equipment, installation, testing and evaluations of the pilot demonstrations.
Bill Bullock, sustainable energy policy and program senior manager at MMWEC, said MMWEC’s involvement in the challenge highlights its leadership in bringing technology opportunities to its member municipal utilities.
Established in 1976, MMWEC is a joint action agency that provides power supply, financial, risk management, and other services to municipal utilities in Massachusetts.
Voters Overwhelmingly Approve Net Zero Energy Revenue Bond For Burlington Electric Department
December 8, 2021
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
December 8, 2021
Voters in Burlington, Vermont, on Dec. 7 overwhelmingly approved a $20 million Net Zero Energy Revenue Bond for public power utility Burlington Electric Department with 70% of voters supporting the ballot measure.
Largely cost neutral to ratepayers, the Net Zero Energy Revenue Bond will allow Burlington Electric Department to continue and expand green stimulus incentives that have helped Burlington residents switch to electric vehicles (EVs) and cold-climate heat pumps, the utility noted.
The bond also will support grid updates for reliability, technology systems to better serve customers, and new EV charging stations.
“Through this bond, we’ll continue and expand our efforts to support our customers in switching from fossil fuels to clean technologies such as electric vehicles, cold-climate heat pumps, and more,” said Darren Springer, General Manager of Burlington Electric Department, in a statement.
The vote “not only moves us toward a Net Zero Energy future but also offers a compelling financing model for other public power utilities around the nation to consider as we all look to meet our climate commitments,” he said.
Additional information about the bond is available here.
Texas Utility Regulators Adopt Rule For Coordination Between Gas And Electric Industries
December 7, 2021
by APPA News
December 7, 2021
The Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUC) recently adopted a rule related to critical natural gas facilities that supply fuel to electric generators.
This joint effort with the Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC) will increase the coordination between the electric and gas industries during energy emergencies.
Based on legislation from the Texas Legislature, the new PUC rule creates a new designation for critical natural gas facilities that supply the majority of natural gas in Texas.
The rule also requires a critical natural gas facility to provide information to the utility from which it receives electric delivery service.
The electric utility must use this information to prioritize natural gas in energy emergencies. The PUC rule and corresponding RRC rule will be in effect this winter.
The rule adoption complements work being done to map the supply chain between the natural gas and electric industries, the PUC said.
Natural gas facilities have already registered critical status with their electric delivery utility in much greater numbers than last winter, it noted. “Now electric utilities can plan and respond much more accurately to keep natural gas facilities energized during an emergency,” the PUC said.
In February 2021, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas entered emergency conditions and initiated rotating outages in the state in the wake of an arctic blast.
Texas public power utilities took a number of actions to help protect customers financially in the wake of the arctic blast.
The American Public Power Association in November 2021 applauded the joint efforts of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), and NERC’s Regional Entities to analyze the February 2021 cold weather event in Texas and the South-Central U.S.
Federal Highway Administration Issues RFI For EV Grants Under Infrastructure Bill
December 7, 2021
by Peter Maloney
APPA News
December 7, 2021
The Federal Highway Administration, part of the federal Department of Transportation, has issued a Request for Information (RFI) for two new programs aimed at supporting the spread of electric vehicles.
The National Electric Vehicle Program or EV Charging Program will provide funding to states to deploy electric vehicle charging infrastructure and to establish an interconnected network to establish data collection, access and reliability.
The RFI also applies to the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Program that aims to strategically deploy publicly accessible electric vehicle charging infrastructure and hydrogen, propane, and natural gas fueling infrastructure in designated alternative fuel corridors.
Both programs are being created as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), also known as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, that was signed into law in mid-November.
As a first step, the law directs the Department of Transportation (DOT) to coordinate and consult with the Department of Energy (DOE) to develop guidance for the two new programs.
DOT’s Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) posted the RFI in the Federal Register on Dec. 1 to invite public comments that will inform the development of guidance for the programs.
FHWA said it is particularly interested in comments suggesting ways that the guidance could promote equity in the development of electric vehicle charging infrastructure under the programs.
The new law “includes the largest dedicated bridge investment since the construction of the Interstate System, and the largest investment in electric vehicle charging infrastructure in history,” FHWA said in the RFI notice.
Specifically, FHWA said the BIL provides more than $350 billion over five fiscal years, from 2022 to 2026, for surface transportation programs, representing on an average annual basis nearly 29 percent more Federal-aid funding for highway programs and activities than under prior law and establishes more than a dozen new highway programs.
Among other things, the BIL apportions a total of $2.5 billion for “charging and fueling infrastructure grants” between fiscal years 2022 and 2026.
The RFI comment period will be open for 60 days.
The American Public Power Association is currently evaluating the RFI.
APPA Says FERC Should Avoid Mandating Top Down Transmission Planning Approaches
December 7, 2021
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
December 7, 2021
Any proposed rule in a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) transmission-related proceeding should avoid mandating “top down” planning approaches, particularly those that identify resources based on speculative long-term assumptions about particular areas that have “potential” for resources to be developed, and/or that are based on long-range planning horizons, the American Public Power Association (APPA) recently argued.
APPA’s reply comments came in an advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANOPR) proceeding at FERC. FERC issued the ANOPR in July 2021 to reform its transmission planning, cost allocation, and generator interconnection rules (Docket No. RM21-17).
APPA emphasized in its initial comments that its members’ experiences regarding transmission planning, generator interconnection, and cost allocation have varied by region and by transmission provider, and that diversity of perspectives is evident in the initial comments.
In the reply comments, the public power trade group said developing actionable transmission plans 10-20 years into the future on a uniform basis creates the risk of missing material changes in available resources, technology and load characteristics, as well as local and state laws imposing locational resource requirements, as commenters explained.
Although some commenters and technical conference panelists downplay the risk of overbuilding the grid or creating stranded transmission investment, the comments adequately substantiate these concerns, particularly as longer planning horizons are proposed, APPA said.
“Moreover, as Dr. David Patton observed at the November 15 Technical Conference, even if transmission does not go wholly unused, it may be economically inefficient from a consumer perspective if the assumptions on which transmission planning is based prove to be inaccurate,” APPA said. Patton serves as an independent market monitor for several regional grid operators.
“APPA recognizes that an overly conservative approach to transmission planning carries its own risks. But an effective bottom-up planning approach focused on the plans of LSEs [load-serving entities] is not overly conservative; it reflects a sufficiently broad and long-term view of future resources, while limiting transmission based on speculative future generation.”
LSE resource plans, “moreover, provide a basis for collaboration and input between transmission planners, transmission owners, LSEs, states, and other stakeholders to identify the most efficient and cost-effective transmission facilities to meet the needs driven by LSE resource plans.”
Such collaboration “is likely to result in greater consensus on appropriate transmission facilities and help reduce cost allocation disputes. By focusing on cost-effective transmission solutions that ensure that LSEs can serve their customers reliably and affordably, the transmission planning process is likely to consider the sort of long-term look at anticipated future generation that the Commission discusses in the ANOPR.”
If, contrary to APPA’s recommendations, the Commission facilitates a more speculative, top-down, long-range transmission planning process, it should consider measures that will diminish the risk to transmission customers, the group argued.
The initial comments and November 15 Technical Conference discussion also indicate support for regional flexibility in applying any revised transmission planning rules adopted by the Commission, APPA pointed out.
APPA urged the Commission to take a broader approach to regional flexibility. “Consistent with the path taken in Order No. 1000, the Commission could set more general guidelines about the need to plan for anticipated future generation and let particular planning regions propose compliance plans,” it said.
With respect to costs, APPA urged caution with respect to allocating costs based on ill-defined resilience benefits provided by new or upgraded transmission facilities.
“The Commission should not be prescriptive about how ‘resilience’ should be accounted for in the planning process, or how costs associated with promoting resilience should be allocated,” APPA said.
Regional planning processes that account for anticipated generation and utilize scenario planning as supported by APPA “should be able to identify particular risks or scenarios that stakeholders must guard against from a reliability and resilience perspective, which should also allow for reasonable identification of beneficiaries for purposes of allocating costs.”
Lincoln Electric System Annual Holiday Event With Local Zoo Fosters Customer Engagement
December 6, 2021
by Vanessa Nikolic
APPA News
December 6, 2021
Nebraska public power utility Lincoln Electric System (LES) partnered with the Lincoln Children’s Zoo (LCZ) to provide a holiday event for the community – Zoo Lights Powered by LES. The event offers an energy-efficient light show to the Lincoln community.
Zoo Lights Powered by LES was launched in 2019 and attracted 36,945 attendees. In 2021, the event continues to be LES’ main holiday engagement effort and remains one of the largest light shows in the area. The event is 100% lit by energy-efficient LED bulbs.
After LCZ transitioned from being open seasonally to open year-round, LES staff wanted to support the zoo’s new hours and approached LCZ staff with its idea to sponsor a community lighting event for the holidays. Both LES and LCZ saw the benefits of a community partnership.
The event continues to show many benefits to LES’ communications efforts from general brand awareness to customer outreach and community engagement. LES staff members volunteer by distributing handouts and answering customer questions during the event.
During the event’s inaugural year, the LES communications team developed a model gingerbread house to use as a platform to educate visitors about energy-efficient technologies, energy-saving tips, and rewards programs that LES offers. LES aims to expand its presence at the zoo and think of new ways to engage attendees.
LES says the event gives the utility a platform to speak to the community about electricity through the lens of holiday lights.
The “Zoo Lights” experience includes a 40-foot Christmas tree, over 30 lit animal silhouettes, holiday train rides, a tree canopy light walk, a 60-foot light tunnel, s’mores and hot chocolate stations, and more. Visitors can also take photos with two life-sized LES lineworker nutcrackers, Volts and Watts.
The event is open to the public through December 30 from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. local time. For more information, visit LES.com/ZooLights.
Proceeds from Zoo Lights Powered by LES directly supports LCZ and its animals in the winter months.
To watch a preview of Zoo Lights Powered by LES, visit LES’ YouTube page.
Public Power Executives Detail Storage Project Benefits, Lessons Learned
December 6, 2021
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
December 6, 2021
Executives from public power utilities in North Carolina, Rhode Island and Minnesota recently detailed benefits and lessons learned from energy storage projects that their utilities have pursued.
The officials from Fayetteville Public Works Commission in North Carolina, Grand Rapids Public Utilities Commission in Minnesota and Rhode Island’s Pascoag Utility District, made their remarks during a session at the American Public Power Association’s (APPA) Public Power Forward Virtual Summit on Dec. 2.
Michael Kirkwood, General Manager at Pascoag Utility District, described a non-wires alternative project that “became a real money-saving option to avoid a large transmission expenditure that we were facing.” The project “fit in with some other reinforcements that we were doing on our system. The battery storage really made this possible and saved us a lot of money.”
Pascoag Utility District serves 4,900 customers in Pascoag and Harrisville, two villages in northwest Rhode Island. The PUD is connected to the outside world via two 5-mile 13.8 kV lines from investor-owned National Grid.
Peak load for the public power utility on the hottest summer days is about 13 megawatts. In 2018 and 2019, Pascoag Utility District started to reach the thermal limits of the main feeder line.
In 2019, Pascoag Utility District commissioned a system impact study that was completed by National Grid and offered several alternatives.
The public power utility determined that a non-wires alternative was the most cost-effective solution using a combination of substation enhancements and battery storage. The 3-megawatt/9-megawatt hour lithium-ion energy storage system is being built by Agilitas Energy.
The project has helped Pascoag Utility District avoid having to spend $6 million to $12 million “and if you look at that over 4,900 customers that’s a big nut to crack for a lot of years,” Kirkwood said.
The project will also increase reliability and reduce loading on the feeder lines, he noted.
Another panelist, Julie Kennedy, General Manager for Minnesota public power utility Grand Rapids Public Utilities, offered details on the utility’s solar plus battery storage project.
She noted that the project got its start in 2016 through a citizen initiative. A community solar project was initially considered, Kennedy said.
In late 2018, the public power utility presented a final report to its commission. “We said, you know what, it is a little bit difficult to make that subscription model work.” While the utility could have pursued that approach, “it really wasn’t meeting the hopes and desired outlook that we had had when we had our community outreach,” Kennedy said.
“What we did notice, though, was the parity in the pricing between solar only and the solar plus storage and so we started looking at those economics a little bit more closely and that is what caused us to add the energy storage.”
Along with US Solar and Grand Rapids Public Utilities, other parties involved in the project are Minnesota Power, a subsidiary of investor-owned Allete, the Itasca Clean Energy Team, and the City of Grand Rapids. US Solar is developing the two-megawatt solar array and one-megawatt/2.5-(megawatt?) hour energy storage battery on city-owned land near the Grand Rapids/Itasca County Airport.
Kennedy noted that installation of the solar panels at the site was completed in the fall. The storage battery “is, unfortunately, out at sea, still. We have been postponed with supply chain issues. Our next anticipated date is December 16. We are waiting to run our test energy. We are hopeful that it will be on site December 16,” with commissioning by the end of the year.
Meanwhile, Elaina Ball, CEO of Fayetteville Public Works Commission, detailed the utility’s community solar plus storage project.
“We were the first municipal community solar project in the state of North Carolina,” she noted. The project came online in 2019.
The 1-megawatt, 3,384 panel farm is located in northeast Cumberland County, adjacent to the utility’s Butler-Warner Generation Plant. In addition, the farm has 500-kilowatt battery storage. The battery is discharged 100% over two hours.
Ball said that the installed cost of the battery system itself “was a little over $900,000 and we expect about $5,500 in annual O&M costs just around the battery system and based on demand shaving that we’ve had, we expect our annual savings to be about $120,000. In a simple payback term, the battery is paying for itself in eight years.”
She said that “looking to the future, we want to add additional storage.” Ball noted that the utility’s wholesale contract allows for Fayetteville PWC to go up to 2 megawatts, “so we are in the process of adding another” one-and-a-half megawatts of storage.
“That’s really going to do two things. One, it’s going to be a four-hour discharge potential, which will give us much longer duration and give us an even better tool to hit that coincident peak window. But it’s also going to allow us to maximize our battery storage capacity. So we got our toe in the water, know how to operate this system” and the utility now wants to “push the capacity and we want to make sure that we’re getting as much value out of these resources as possible,” Ball said.
The utility is also studying additional community solar projects in its service territory. It is focused on looking at the economics of those projects, as well as “making sure that there’s customer demand to support additional resources in the community,” she said.
APPA Storage Tracker
APPA recently launched a Public Power Energy Storage Tracker, which is a resource for association members that summarizes energy storage projects undertaken by members that are currently online. The tracker is available here.
Calif. CCAs Issue First Ever Clean Energy Bonds Valued At More Than $2 Billion
December 6, 2021
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
December 6, 2021
Three California community choice aggregators (CCAs) have issued California’s first ever municipal non-recourse Clean Energy Project Revenue Bonds through the California Community Choice Financing Authority (CCCFA). The two separate bond issuances are valued at over $2 billion for thirty-year terms.
The three CCAs are East Bay Community Energy, Marin Clean Energy (MCE) and Silicon Valley Clean Energy. The two Clean Energy Project Revenue Bonds will prepay for the purchase of over 450 megawatts of renewable energy.
These transactions will reduce renewable power costs by almost $7 million annually for the first 5-10 years, according to the CCAs.
They noted that a Clean Energy Project Revenue Bond is a form of wholesale electricity prepayment that requires three key parties: a tax-exempt public electricity supplier (the CCA), a taxable energy supplier, and a municipal bond issuer.
The CCAs enter into long-term power supply agreements for clean electricity sources like solar, wind, geothermal, and hydropower.
The municipal bond issuer — in this case, CCCFA — issues tax-exempt bonds to fund a prepayment of energy that is to be delivered over 30 years. The energy supplier utilizes the bond funds and provides a discount to the CCA on the power purchases based on the difference between the taxable and tax-exempt rates. This discount is historically in the range of 8-12%, and minimum discounts are negotiated for each transaction.
The first of these bonds, which was issued by CCCFA for the benefit of East Bay Community Energy and Silicon Valley Clean Energy, was underwritten by Morgan Stanley. It successfully generated nearly $1.5 billion in proceeds, after having received an investment grade “A1” rating from Moody’s Investors Service and a “Green Climate Bond” designation from Kestrel Verifiers, making it the largest ever issuance of prepayment bonds for clean electricity.
The second transaction, issued by CCCFA for the benefit of MCE, was underwritten by Goldman Sachs. The bond sale produced approximately $700 million in bond proceeds. The issue received an investment grade “A2” rating from Moody’s and a “Green Climate Bond” designation from Kestrel Verifiers.
CCCFA was established in 2021 with the goal of reducing the cost of power purchases for member CCAs through pre-payment structures. The founding members of CCCFA include Central Coast Community Energy, East Bay Community Energy (EBCE), MCE, and Silicon Valley Clean Energy.
EBCE is a not-for-profit public agency that operates a community choice energy program for Alameda County and fourteen incorporated cities, serving more than 1.7 million residential and commercial customers.
MCE provides electricity service and programs to more than 540,000 customer accounts and more than one million residents and businesses in 37 member communities across four Bay Area counties: Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, and Solano.
Silicon Valley Clean Energy provides electricity from renewable and carbon-free sources to more than 270,000 residential and commercial customers in 13 Santa Clara County jurisdictions.
The American Public Power Association has initiated a new category of membership for community choice aggregation programs.
Phillips Sworn In As FERC Commissioner
December 4, 2021
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
December 4, 2021
Willie Phillips on Dec. 3 was sworn in as a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for a five-year term that ends June 30, 2026.
Phillips was nominated to FERC by President Biden in September 2021 and confirmed by the Senate on November 16, 2021.
Phillips, a Democrat, returns FERC to its full complement of five commissioners, and he provides the Democrats with a 3-2 majority.
Before joining FERC, Phillips was the Chairman of the District of Columbia Public Service Commission. He previously worked as Assistant General Counsel for the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), and also worked for two law firms.
New River Light and Power Green Power Program Nominated for Cleantech Innovation Award
December 1, 2021
by Vanessa Nikolic
APPA News
December 1, 2021
North Carolina public power utility New River Light and Power’s (NRLP) Green Power Program has been nominated for a 2021 Cleantech Innovation Award from the Research Triangle Cleantech Cluster (RTCC).
RTCC is an initiative of business, government, and nonprofit leaders focused on advancing the growth of the regional and statewide clean technology (cleantech) economy.
With its Third Annual Cleantech Innovation Awards, RTCC aims to recognize the contributions of the companies, organizations, and individuals that have advanced cleantech solutions across North Carolina. The awards are judged by leaders from the cleantech industry and public sectors.
NRLP’s Green Power Program is nominated under the Cleantech Impact: Energy category which recognizes an energy project that applies cleantech to create positive impacts for the environment, economy, and residents. Projects may include innovations to existing grid infrastructure to enhance resiliency, renewable energy installations, microgrid deployments, or innovative energy efficiency programs.
The Green Power Program provides residential and commercial customers with the opportunity to purchase clean energy. NRLP customers can choose to purchase blocks of hydroelectric power to offset their monthly carbon-based electric use. Each block costs $5 and represents 250 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of clean energy.
NRLP launched the program and made it available to customers at the beginning of August 2021. Prior to its launch, plans to offer the program were in the works for a number of years as customers became more interested in renewable energy.
The utility conducts customer surveys every three years through ElectriCities of North Carolina. NRLP’s 2020 customer survey found that 65% of its residential customers indicated they would be willing to pay an additional $5 on their monthly bill to obtain 30% of their electricity from renewable sources.
NRLP public communications specialist Chris Nault said the nomination recognizes and supports the utility’s commitments to providing clean energy and outstanding service to its customers and the community.
“This nomination for a 2021 Cleantech Innovation Award is an honor for NRLP and App State,” Nault said. “It is great to know that our hard work and service to our customers is being recognized by an organization like the Research Triangle Cleantech Cluster.”
The winners in each category will be announced at an awards ceremony on Wednesday, December 8 in Raleigh, North Carolina.
For a complete list of nominees, visit https://www.researchtrianglecleantech.org/cleantechawards2021.
NRLP was previously nominated for a 2019 Cleantech Innovation Award for Grid Innovation related to the deployment of technology on its electric grid. Additional details on the 2019 nomination can be found here.
NRLP is an electric utility, owned by Appalachian State University, that serves nearly 9,000 residential and commercial customers in Boone, North Carolina and the surrounding community. The Green Power Program is made possible through NRLP’s new wholesale power agreement with Carolina Power Partners, effective January 2022.
The NRLP Green Power Program is a component of Appalachian State University’s commitment to reduce its use of fossil fuels and provide an option for NRLP customers to do the same.