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Electric Cities of Georgia Members Enter Solar Power Supply Agreement With Walmart

November 23, 2021

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
November 23, 2021

Electric Cities of Georgia (ECG) has worked with Walmart to secure a renewable energy customer agreement with 14 ECG members that will supply 26 megawatts (MW) of utility-scale solar power to Walmart facilities in their territories.

ECG, which is based in Atlanta, Ga., is a non-profit organization providing strategic and technical services to 52 public power communities with utility operations.

The agreement follows discussions between ECG and Walmart on how Walmart could work toward its renewable energy commitment by purchasing energy from a qualified renewable solar facility, ECG noted on Nov. 19.

During this process, several ECG members met with their council and board members to agree to the terms and discuss the benefits of this initiative.

ECG noted that in an article published by the American Public Power Association (APPA) in December 2020, Patrick Bowie, Utility Director for the City of LaGrange, Ga., said that buying renewable solar power through the city allows Walmart to realize better prices and keeps revenues from one of the city’s largest customers in the local economy.

The 26 MW commitment will be supplied by an 80 MW utility-scale solar project that is being finalized and expected to produce electricity by December 2023.

ECG said that in order to continue building a better working relationship and show appreciation for the recent solar renewable energy project, the Walmart corporate energy services team met in the City of LaGrange in October with ECG staff and several ECG member communities that serve Walmart facilities.

During the meeting, John Giles, ECG CEO, thanked all the parties that worked on the solar initiative for their diligence in seeing the effort to completion.

“ECG members are thankful to Walmart for jobs, investments, and providing products and services in our communities. This meeting was another significant step to an excellent working relationship,” ECG said.

ECG’s services include aggregated services, analytical services, economic and community development, engineering and energy services, hosted solutions, joint purchasing, legislative and regulatory, member training, pole attachment services, and training and safety.

Seven States Power Partners With Chattanooga, Knoxville On Green Energy Initiatives

November 23, 2021

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
November 23, 2021

Seven States Power is helping two public power utilities in eastern Tennessee expand the green energy options available to their customers.

In Chattanooga, EPB – formerly the Electric Power Board of Chattanooga – has joined forces with Seven States Power and Rock City to build a solar arbor designed to reduce energy consumption and enhance educational opportunities at the tourist attraction. The solar panels were installed on a plant arbor the partners built and will help power the ticket booth at Rock City. The “solar garden arbor,” which was constructed by Lightwave Solar, will generate about 16,800 kilowatt hours (kWh) of renewable energy per year.

Seven States Power is an energy solutions cooperative that is owned and operated by 153 local power companies across the seven states of the Tennessee Valley.

Further east in Tennessee, Knoxville Utilities Board (KUB) and Seven States Power partnered with the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, on the installation of a new electric vehicle charging station.

The single ChargePoint station features two charging ports and is in a staff parking lot, a location evaluated and chosen by students at the University of Tennessee’s Heath Integrated Business and Engineering Program (Heath IBEP).

Charging at the location will be available for $1 per hour for the first four hours, with the rate increasing to $2 per hour after that. The cost to charge a vehicle at the station comes to between two-to-three cents per mile compared with between 12 and 14 cents per mile for an average gas engine, the partners said.

The installation is the 24th electric vehicle charger on campus, but the only networked charger that offers the university real-time data for analysis. The Heath IBEP students plan to use data from the charger to assess whether or not current chargers need to be upgraded or replaced with smart chargers, monitor and give feedback on revenue as needed, and provide other educational opportunities.

Knoxville Utilities Board promotes electric vehicle use through its EV Charger Rebate Program, as well as through the adoption of Tennessee Valley Authority’s EV charger wholesale rate. “We’re proud to support the adoption of EVs throughout our service territory,” Gabriel Bolas, KUB president and CEO, said in a statement.

For Seven States, the new installation gives the cooperative more than 100 installations across the Tennessee Valley in less than three years.

Reading Municipal Light Department Gets Green Light To Participate In Offshore Wind Bid

November 19, 2021

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
November 19, 2021

Reading Municipal Light Department’s (RMLD) Citizens’ Advisory Board (CAB) and Board of Commissioners approved RMLD’s participation in the Commonwealth Wind bid proposal for offshore wind that is under consideration by Massachusetts, RMLD reported on Nov. 19.

Announced in October, Commonwealth Wind is a first of its kind partnership between Vineyard Wind and Energy New England (ENE), which is representing 20 participating Massachusetts Municipal Light Plants (MLPs), including RMLD. It is the first time MLPs were allowed to bid for Massachusetts offshore wind power.

If awarded, the Commonwealth Wind portion will be a part of the larger Vineyard Wind project proposed in an area 22 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard that was designated by the federal government in 2015 following a multi-year stakeholder process.

The Commonwealth Wind bid proposal is for 25 megawatts — or 146,000 megawatt hours per year (the maximum available to the MLPs) — plus the associated non-carbon certificates.

If the Commonwealth Wind bid is selected, RMLD’s share will represent less than 1% of its total annual power supply needs.

Massachusetts is managing the bid process and plans to announce bid winners by December 17.

“The RMLD envisions this first potential foot in the door as an opportunity for MLPs to gain more opportunities for future wind proposals to help meet decarbonization goals in the Climate Bill,” said Coleen O’Brien, RMLD General Manager.

RMLD is a municipal electric utility serving more than 70,000 residents in the towns of Reading, North Reading, Wilmington, and Lynnfield Center in Massachusetts. RMLD has over 30,000-meter connections within its service territory.

New Report Sees Record Levels Of Wind and Solar Energy Additions In 2022

November 15, 2021

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
November 15, 2021

Record levels of wind and solar generation additions are expected to come online in 2022, according to a new report from S&P Global Market Intelligence.

“It’s going to be a record year for renewable energy development in the U.S. in 2022,” with 44 gigawatts (GW) of solar and 27 GW of wind power set to be installed alongside more than 8 GW of battery storage, said Richard Sansom, Head of Commodities Research at S&P Global Market Intelligence.

The report said that the growth in wind, solar and storage will be facilitated by the creation of dedicated programs such as virtual power purchase agreements and green tariffs.

At the same time, early plant retirement costs due to the energy transition will present challenges for utilities and state regulators with 29 GW of coal retirements planned for 2020 through 2025.

The report also said that U.S. utility capital expenditures are expected to remain on the upswing, with investments in upgrading and modernizing the country’s aging energy and water infrastructure reaching $63 billion and utility renewables spending surpassing $14 billion in 2022.

The S&P Global Market Intelligence 2022 Electric, Natural Gas and Water Utilities Outlook Report is part of a “Big Picture Outlook” series published by the division’s research group that provides a look ahead of key strategic trends and opportunities.

Salt River Project Rolls Out Solar Program For Residential, Small Business Customers

November 3, 2021

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
November 3, 2021

Arizona public power utility Salt River Project (SRP) recently unveiled a new program for residential and small business customers interested in supporting large-scale solar energy growth.

Customers enrolled in SRP Solar Choice can choose to offset half or all their energy use with solar energy by paying as little as a half a cent per kilowatt-hour (kWh) on top of their current monthly price plan with SRP.

The program offsets the monthly energy use from enrolled customers’ homes or businesses with energy from SRP’s growing portfolio of utility-scale solar plants around the state.

SRP Solar Choice program replaces SRP’s legacy EarthWise Energy and community solar programs.

With SRP Solar Choice, customers pay a half a cent per kWh premium on top of their current price plan. This price is 50 percent less than SRP’s previous EarthWise Energy program, the utility noted.

For example, if a residential customer uses 1,500 kWh each month and chooses to offset 100 percent of household energy use, the SRP Solar Choice premium the customer pays would be $7.50 for the month. If the same customer chooses to offset fifty percent of energy use, the premium would be $3.75.

Customers who enroll in SRP Solar Choice also have the option to unenroll from the program if they so choose.

Lazard Reports Show Continued Cost Declines For Renewables, Energy Storage

November 3, 2021

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
November 3, 2021

A trio of recently released reports shows that the cost of renewable energy continues to decline while energy storage costs were mixed and the use of hydrogen as a fuel remains dependent on availability and technology costs.

“Our three studies together document the continued acceleration of the energy transition,” George Bilicic, vice chairman and global head of the power, energy and infrastructure group at financial advisory firm Lazard, said in a statement. “We’re also seeing that the transition will not be dominated by any one solution — rather a new ‘all of the above’ approach, which includes renewable energy, storage, hydrogen and other solutions, will be key to effecting the permanent shift to increased energy efficiency and sustainability.”

Renewable Energy

Lazard’s latest annual Levelized Cost of Energy analysis (LCOE 15.0) shows the cost of onshore wind and utility-scale solar continues to be competitive with the marginal cost of coal, nuclear and combined cycle gas generation.

When government subsidies are included, the LCOE of onshore wind averaged $25 per megawatt hour (MWh), and utility-scale solar averaged $27/MWh, while the marginal cost of coal-fired generation averaged $42/MWh, nuclear’s average marginal cost was $29/MWh, and the average marginal cost of combined-cycle gas generation was $24/MWh, according to the Lazard report. The report put the midpoint of the unsubsidized LCOE of offshore wind at $83/MWh.

While the rate of decline in the LCOE for onshore wind and utility-scale solar have slowed in recent years, the pace of decline for utility scale solar continues to be greater than that for onshore wind, the report found, noting that the average compound annual decline in LCOE of utility-scale solar was 8 percent over the past five years, compared with 4 percent for onshore wind.

And even though projects entering operation in 2021 were included in the report, Lazard cautioned that commodity cost inflation, supply chain disruption and accelerating downstream demand for renewable energy could put upward pressure on project capital costs that could become evident in future iterations of the firm’s LCOE report, though those increases might not necessarily translate into higher relative costs.

Energy Storage

Lazard’s latest annual Levelized Cost of Storage analysis (LCOS 7.0) showed mixed year-over-year changes in the cost of storage across use cases and technologies, driven in part by the confluence of emerging supply chain constraints and shifting preferences in battery chemistry.

“Industry preference is increasingly shifting towards Lithium-Iron-Phosphate (LFP) technology, which is less expensive than competing lithium-ion technologies, especially in shorter-duration applications, and has more favorable thermal characteristics, despite its relatively lower volumetric energy density,” according to the Lazard report.

In addition, other factors – such as supply constraints in commodity markets and manufacturing activities – are adding to inflation and putting pressure on energy storage capital costs, Lazard said.

The report also noted that hybrid applications, such as combining energy storage with solar power installations to mitigate renewable resource intermittency, are “becoming more valuable and widespread as grid operators begin adopting Estimated Load Carry Capability (ELCC) methodologies to value resources,” the report said.

Hydrogen

Lazard’s Levelized Cost of Hydrogen (LCOH 2.0) report showed that the cost of hydrogen is still largely dependent on the cost and availability of the energy resources required to produce it.

Most hydrogen is currently produced from fossil fuels using steam-methane reforming and methane splitting processes, producing “gray” hydrogen as distinct from “green” hydrogen produced from water and electricity generated by renewable resources.

In its analysis, Lazard did not include a cost of carbon dioxide calculation or government support mechanisms, though the authors said such considerations could be “impactful.” The analysis also did not include potentially significant factors such as conversion, compression, transmission or storage costs.

The intent of the analysis was to benchmark the LCOH of green hydrogen on a dollars per kilogram I$/kg) basis so that stakeholders could compare the cost of green hydrogen to other forms of energy in particular use cases, Lazard said. 

And while green hydrogen is “currently more expensive than the conventional fuels or hydrogen it would displace,” it has the potential to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in traditionally “hard-to-decarbonize sectors such as transportation/mobility, heating, oil refining, ammonia and methanol production, and power generation,” the report found.

California Community Choice Aggregators Seek Firm Clean Energy Resources

October 27, 2021

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
October 27, 2021

A recently issued solicitation seeks up to 200 megawatts (MW) of firm clean resources for a group of California community choice aggregators (CCAs) through one or more projects, with deliveries beginning no later than June 1, 2026.

California Community Power, a Joint Powers Agency comprised of ten California CCAs, on Oct. 25, 2021 issued a request for offers (RFO) for firm clean resources that produce renewable energy on demand and include geothermal and biomass sources.

On June 24, 2021, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) issued a decision requiring load serving entities, including members of California Community Power, to procure long lead-time clean resources to address mid-term reliability. The decision mandates new generation with at least an 80 percent capacity factor that has zero on-site emissions, or otherwise qualifies under the California Renewable Portfolio Standard program eligibility rules.

The RFO follows a set of enhanced conditions that the California Community Power board adopted for its first, joint procurement of up to 500 MW of long-duration storage in October 2020.

The guidelines state that California Community Power will also consider workforce and environmental concerns for projects through enhancing the conditions imposed on project developers for workforce, the environment, and environmental justice.

California Community Power members are: Central Coast Community Energy, CleanPowerSF, East Bay Community Energy, MCE, Peninsula Clean Energy, Redwood Coast Energy Authority, San José Clean Energy, Silicon Valley Clean Energy, Sonoma Clean Power and Valley Clean Energy.

The RFO may be found at cacommunitypower.org/solicitations. Proposals are due December 13, 2021.

The long-duration storage procurement is still ongoing. On October 8, the California Community Power board provided notice of its intent to consider a 69 MW/552 megawatt hour energy storage project to be built in Kern County, Calif.

Negotiations are still ongoing, but California Community Power is expected to enter into an Energy Storage Services Agreement for this project in December 2021.

The American Public Power Association has initiated a new category of membership for community choice aggregation programs.

Biden Administration Lays Out Plan For As Many As Seven Offshore Wind Leases

October 21, 2021

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
October 21, 2021

The administration of President Joe Biden has outlined a path for the potential sale of up to seven new offshore leases for wind power projects by 2025.

The announcement aims to further the Biden administration’s goal of deploying 30 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind energy by 2030.

That goal, as stipulated in Executive Order 14008, calls for the Interior Department to partner with other federal agencies to increase renewable energy production on public lands and waters, including offshore wind, as well as at least 25 GW of onshore renewable energy by 2025.

The lease sales would be conducted by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) for tracts in the Gulf of Maine, the New York Bight, the Central Atlantic, and the Gulf of Mexico, as well as offshore the Carolinas, California, and Oregon.

BOEM is refining its process for identifying additional wind energy areas, specifically the agency is developing clear goals, objectives, and guidelines that can be shared with government agencies, Native American tribes, industry, ocean users, and others prior to identifying such areas. BOEM also said it would use the best available science, as well as knowledge from ocean users and other stakeholders to minimize conflict with existing uses and marine life.

“We are working to facilitate a pipeline of projects that will establish confidence for the offshore wind industry,” BOEM Director Amanda Lefton, said in a statement. “At the same time, we want to reduce potential conflicts as much as we can while meeting the Administration’s goal to deploy 30 GW of offshore wind by 2030. This means we will engage early and often with all stakeholders prior to identifying any new Wind Energy Areas.”

In addition to identifying new offshore wind lease sales, BOEM is considering new lease stipulations consistent with the goals and objectives of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, such as lessee reporting requirements on efforts to minimize conflicts with other ocean users; mechanisms for project labor agreements; and investments in the U.S. domestic supply chain. Such stipulations were included in the New York Bight proposed sale notice announced in June.

Earlier this year, BOEM completed review of a construction and operations plan (COP) for the Vineyard Wind project. The agency said it is reviewing nine additional construction and operations plans and aims to complete the review of at least another six by 2025, for a total of at least 16 construction and operations plans reviews representing more than 19 GW of clean energy.

PJM Details Responses To Offshore Wind Solicitation

Separately, the PJM Interconnection said it has received 80 proposals in response to a solicitation it issued last November for transmission projects that could help connect planned offshore wind projects to PJM’s wholesale power grid.

The proposals were submitted under the State Agreement Approach provision of PJM’s Regional Transmission Expansion Plan (RTEP), which typically is driven by reliability or market-efficiency criteria.

The State Agreement Approach provides an avenue for incorporating public policy goals into the RTEP process. It enables a state, or group of states, to propose a project to assist in realizing public policy requirements as long as the state, or states, agrees to pay all costs of any state-selected buildout included in the RTEP. Those costs would be recovered from customers in those states.

New Jersey has set a goal of delivering 7,500 megawatts (MW) of offshore wind generation by 2035. So far, the state has awarded contracts for a total 3,758 MW of wind power projects and has three more solicitations pending.

The projects submitted to PJM included 45 proposals to upgrade existing onshore facilities, 22 proposals for new onshore transmission connection facilities, 26 proposals for new offshore transmission facilities, and eight proposals for offshore networks.

The submitted proposals will be evaluated by PJM and the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, which are expected to render a decision in the second half of 2022.

Report Shows How Best To Use Solar, Batteries To Offset EV Impact On Transformers

October 19, 2021

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
October 19, 2021

A new study funded by a Demonstration of Energy & Efficiency Developments (DEED) scholarship from the American Public Power Association analyzes optimal strategies that can mitigate transformer loss of life resulting from a high penetration of electric vehicles (EVs).

The premise of the study, PV Generation, EV & Stationary Battery Optimal Control & Management in Distribution Grids, was that the accelerating adoption of electric vehicles could cause the overloading of some transformers, leading to premature ageing and potentially failure and added expense for utilities and their customers.

The study found the optimized use of a residential battery energy storage system (BESS) with or without photovoltaic (PV) solar panels in areas with a high penetration of electric vehicles can mitigate transformer loss of life. In the scenario that included PV solar, however, the high price of a solar installation made the economic impact of a solar installation uneconomic without subsidies.

The study was accepted for presentation at the 53rd North American Power Symposium next month.

The study, by Milad Soleimani, a research assistant and Ph.D. candidate with the department of electrical and computer engineering at Texas A&M University in College Station, looked at seven use-case scenarios.

To evaluate each scenario, a one-year study was conducted using the data available for 2018 in Bryan/College Station, Texas. Bryan Texas Utilities was the sponsor of the DEED grant.

The study looked at 12 electric vehicles and 10 charging slots. The nominal power of the transformer connected to the buildings was 63 kilovolts (kVA) and the total PV generation capacity of each building was 10 kilowatts (kW). The rated power of the BESS inverter was 5 kW. It was assumed that the electric vehicles charger was unidirectional, and the electric vehicle could only be charged. Nissan Leafs and Chevy Bolts were used in the study.

In the analysis, the results show that the impact of PV solar installations on mitigating transformer loss of life are negligible (scenario three or c). The fourth and sixth (d and f) scenarios show that operating a BESS on price only not only does not mitigate transformer loss of life it can, in some cases, have a negative impact on transformer life.

The result showed, however, that the risk of transformer loss of life can be significantly reduced by using BESS optimized for price and transformer loss of life mitigation, as in scenarios five (e) and seven (g). The study noted, however, that because of the high cost of PV solar, combining solar power with BESS, even when optimized, may not be economic without subsidies.

In the cases where the technologies provide a good return, utilities benefit, therefore, utilities “should be investors,” Soleimani wrote. That can be done, he said, by “developing and providing rebates and other incentive programs to motivate consumers to deploy these resources.”

The study concludes that optimizing BESS for both price and transformer loss of life mitigation is “essential for making the investment in BESS profitable.”

Other key findings of the study were that the proper sizing of a BESS is essential to making the system more profitable and the impact of PV solar generation without BESS support is relatively low.

Report Details Challenges, Recommendations As Renewables Proliferate

October 19, 2021

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
October 19, 2021

A white paper by the Eastern Interconnection Planning Collaborative (EIPC) calls for operators and planners to be more engaged in the discussions about how the electric grid will evolve to meet the challenges of rising levels of renewable energy penetration.

The paper, Planning the Grid for a Renewable Future, says to ensure continued delivery of reliable, efficient, and affordable electric power, policymakers should be aware of the opportunities and challenges of integrating greater amounts of renewables onto the grid.

The white paper draws on lessons learned through historical experience and on studies of future conditions as they relate to the planning and operations of systems with a high penetration of renewables.

EPIC is composed of 19 planning coordinators from the Eastern and Central United States, including the PJM Interconnection, the Midcontinent Independent System Operators, the New York Independent System Operator, ISO New England, Southern Company, Tennessee Valley Authority, and MEAG Power.

The white paper identified several key challenges presented to grid operators by rising renewables penetration. For instance, traditional transmission planning focuses on systems built to move power from central generating stations to distant load centers. That pattern is changing, the paper noted, as renewable resources are being sited to make the best use of wind or solar availability, but those resources are not necessarily near existing transmission lines.

In addition, studies have shown that the proliferation of intermittent resources has resulted in a decline in grid performance, EPIC said. Changes are also occurring in load composition as a result of the proliferation of home backup generators, home electric vehicle chargers, and the increased penetration of rooftop solar arrays, and whole-building battery backup systems.

Grid planners also face challenges as the number of potential renewable projects seeking to connect to the power system has increased exponentially over the last 10 years. “Currently, the lack of standardized performance requirements for renewable resources with inverter-based control systems has been the cause of significant delays in the interconnection study queues of system planners across the Eastern Interconnection due to the large variety and rapid change in designs,” the EPIC report noted.

Operating the power grid has also become more challenging, EPIC said, because of limited transmission availability, the need to maintain the proper mix of generation resources to accommodate intermittent renewable resources, and load and resource uncertainty because of varying weather conditions.

Monitoring and correcting grid stability in real time is becoming more complex and is going to require the development of market products, such as ancillary services for voltage support, reactive power, and frequency response, EPIC said.

The report also noted the personnel challenges grid operators face. Most transmission planners today are familiar with control systems based on legacy synchronous generation. Going forward, transmission planners will need to develop a better understand of the quickly evolving technology of inverter-based resources, and it will take time and resources to train workers who can adapt to and take over those control and planning functions, EPIC said.

In terms of recommendations, EPIC stressed the need for coordination as it has become more problematic for policies in one jurisdiction or region to be walled off from policies in another.

EPIC recommended the enhancement of policy coordination across the “three-legged stool” of planning, cost allocation and siting. One key area where coordination will be critical is in transmission where policymakers will have to deal with the challenges of who is going to pay for new transmission assets needed to accommodate higher levels of renewable resources and the issues of siting those new lines.

EPIC also said regulators, industry and stakeholders should develop the capability “to monitor and correct course in a timely fashion if a particular path is leading to unnecessarily higher costs, limited choice for customers or negative reliability impacts.” Regulators could consider a “Reliability Safety Valve” mechanism in any future legislation, EPIC said.

And, finally, “as the pace of change continues to accelerate, it is more important than ever to work more proactively together,” EPIC said, recommending that policymakers “considering renewable portfolio standards, carbon dioxide standards, or other similar energy-related goals take the affirmative step of inviting system planners and operators to provide input.”

The challenges facing the industry and the grid are not “insurmountable, nor do they argue against moving forward with policies supporting renewables,” however, “when policymakers craft timelines, goals and deadlines, it is essential for policymakers to consider and balance the need to ensure that the power grid can remain reliable,” EPIC said.