TVA signs deal for solar-plus-storage project for Facebook
March 10, 2021
by Peter Maloney
APPA News
March 10, 2021
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) on March 4 said it is partnering with Origis Energy to develop a 150-megawatt (MW) solar and 50-MW, 250-megawatt hour (MWh) battery storage facility in Lowndes County, Mississippi, to support two Facebook data centers in the Tennessee Valley.
Origis, through a long-term power purchase agreement with TVA that was signed on Facebook’s behalf, will own and operate the facility. The project, which is part of TVA’s Green Invest program, is scheduled to be complete in late 2023, pending environmental reviews.
“Our region is ready for companies who want to use renewable energy to achieve their sustainability goals,” Chris Hansen, TVA vice president of origination and renewables, said in a statement. “Green Invest is more than a renewables program; when businesses relocate here, jobs are created and people can find work – revitalizing both rural and urban communities.”
In August, TVA signed a Green Invest deal for a 70-MW solar project in Madison County, Tennessee, to support Facebook’s operations in the region. In that deal, TVA partnered with Nashville-based solar developer Silicon Ranch. The developer is funding construction of the solar facility and will own and operate the plant, which is due online in fall 2022.
In all, Facebook has announced purchases totaling 597 MW since 2018 that will be generated by solar farms linked to TVA’s grid in Alabama, Tennessee and Mississippi. The project in Lowndes County, however, is Facebook’s first renewable energy project in Mississippi and its first large energy storage project.
Through its Green Invest program, TVA matches demand for green power from large business and industrial customers with renewable projects that TVA puts together with its development partners. The utility says the program confers to commercial customers the benefits of TVA’s scale and negotiating expertise in building power projects.
The program also helps attract new businesses to the region, TVA says, citing the 250 construction jobs, as well as full time jobs for as many as five full-time operations and maintenance personnel that the Lowndes County project will create.
The Green Invest program is also available to local power companies in TVA’s territory. In January 2020, TVA announced a partnership with Nashville Electric Service and Vanderbilt University for a 35-MW solar project in Bedford County, Tennessee. Last March, TVA entered into a deal to secure 212 MW of solar power for Knoxville Utilities Board’s customers.
In February, TVA said it has increased its contracted solar power capacity by 60 percent, to 2,129 MW, since October 2020 and that it expects to add 7,000 MW to 10,000 MW of solar energy by 2040.
RFP seeks solar generation PPA bids for several AMP member utilities
March 9, 2021
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
March 9, 2021
American Municipal Power Inc. (AMP) recently launched a request for proposals (RFP) to procure renewable generation for several of its member utilities.
AMP is seeking responses for projects in the PJM Interconnection and delivered to the Louisville Gas and Electric Company (LGEE) interface. LGEE is an interface from PJM to the LGEE control area.
Total contract capacity ranges from 100-150 megawatts ac with a maximum capacity of 50 MW ac for the LGEE delivered project. Term preference for these projects are between 10-30 years. Products are to include energy, capacity, and environmental attributes.
AMP is seeking bids for full attribute, solar generation power purchase agreements with a preferred commercial operation date of 2023. Key tenets of project consideration are project viability, price, congestion risk, and deliverability.
The Energy Authority (TEA) is the administrator for the RFP.
Responses are due by April 19, 2021 and the RFP is available here.
AMP is a nonprofit wholesale power supplier and service provider for 135 members, including 134-member municipal electric systems in the states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Virginia, Kentucky, West Virginia, Indiana, and Maryland and the Delaware Municipal Electric Corporation, a joint action agency with eight members headquartered in Smyrna, Delaware.
DOE offers up to $100 million in funding for clean energy technology R&D
March 9, 2021
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
March 9, 2021
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently announced up to $100 million in funding for clean energy technology research and development through its Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy’s (ARPA-E) “OPEN 2021” funding opportunity.
“The first of billions of dollars of DOE R&D opportunities to be announced this year, this funding will help identify cutting-edge, disruptive clean energy technologies to address the climate crisis,” the DOE said in February.
Potential applicants can visit ARPA-E’s newly launched OPEN 2021 website to access information and resources, including a teaming partner list for help forming new project teams and identifying potential collaborations, and webinars featuring program directors discussing technical areas they hope to pursue.
To apply for funding through OPEN 2021 click HERE.
The DOE said that since its founding in 2009, ARPA-E has provided $2.4 billion in R&D funding, and ARPA-E projects have attracted more than $4.9 billion in private sector follow-on funding to commercialize clean energy technologies and create sustainable clean energy jobs.
NYPA program helps local governments to host community solar project
February 24, 2021
by APPA News
February 24, 2021
New York recently accelerated its efforts to help local governments and agencies in the state participate in community solar projects.
Under the new program, the New York Power Authority (NYPA) will work with municipal and state government entities to assist in the development of community solar projects on their buildings and land to mitigate the challenges they face in adopting distributed renewable energy.
Long development timelines and uncertain revenue streams can pose problems for municipalities trying to secure approvals and find funding for community solar projects. The new program provides NYPA staff to assist in the project development process, from scoping, design, and purchasing to execution, project management and close-out.
As project hosts, local governments would bear no upfront capital cost for the solar projects, which would be able to generate revenues in the form of lease payments and subscriber fees.
NYPA said the new program would help it meet its 2025 community solar target of having 75 megawatts (MW) of solar capacity online by 2025, including 15 MW of paired battery storage. NYPA estimates those projects could stimulate more than $135 million in direct, private investments toward their development, construction, and operation, and create more than 1,250 jobs. NYPA estimates the program could support at least 40 community solar projects.
“By setting a stretch target to address the need for more solar and storage systematically, NYPA will help governments overcome potential hurdles in onboarding solar projects and more effectively serve as ‘anchor subscribers’ which can then help engage the surrounding community,” Gil Quiniones, president and CEO of NYPA, said in a statement.
A June 2020 New York Public Service Commission order allows Community Distributed Generation (CDG) projects to sign up large commercial customers to “anchor” a community solar project.
Prior to the order, the incentives available for community solar projects often put developers in the position of trying to support a project’s financing wholly on the basis of residential customer subscriptions.
The commission’s order allows large electric customers to serve as anchor subscribers for distributed solar projects, helping to reduce costs by improving economies of scale and providing more certain income streams, NYPA said.
NYPA has several community solar projects in its development pipeline, including projects in Quarryville in Ulster County and at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, as well as a community solar program with the City of White Plains.
The new program is part of the state’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act agenda that calls for installing 6,000 MW of solar power by 2025 and 3,000 MW of energy storage by 2030.
AMP launches RFP to procure behind-the-meter renewable generation for members
February 22, 2021
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
February 22, 2021
American Municipal Power (AMP) has launched a request for proposals (RFP) to procure behind-the-meter renewable generation for Hillsdale Board of Public Utilities and Coldwater Board of Public Utilities in Michigan.
AMP is seeking responses for a project located behind each cities’ meters with the primary goal of load modifying resource reduction and peaking energy needs.
Contract capacity request is for approximately 8 megawatt (ac) at a site owned by the City of Hillsdale and approximately 5 MWac at a site owned by the City of Coldwater.
Term preference for both projects is between 20-25 years. Products are to include energy, capacity and environmental attributes.
AMP is seeking bids for full attribute, solar generation power purchase agreements with a preferred commercial operation date between January 1, 2022- June 1, 2024.
Key tenets of project consideration are project viability, price, local benefit of the resource, and equipment performance.
The Energy Authority is serving as the administrator for the RFP.
To access the RFP document, schedule, and term sheet, visit TEA’s procurement site.
AMP is a nonprofit wholesale power supplier and service provider for 135 members.
MMWEC announces plans to construct 7-MW solar project
February 22, 2021
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
February 22, 2021
Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Company (MMWEC) recently announced plans to construct a 7-megawatt (MW) nameplate capacity solar project on its campus in Ludlow, Mass. Six MMWEC municipal utility members are participating in the project.
The ground-mounted solar project will be built on a 30-acre section of MMWEC’s 200 -acre property in Ludlow. The site is well suited for solar, MMWEC noted in a Feb. 10 news release.
After receiving responses to a request for proposals, MMWEC is working on a contract with EDF Renewables Distributed Solutions Inc., as the project developer. Construction is scheduled to start this summer, and the project is expected to come online by late 2021.
Using its unique statutory financing authority as a political subdivision of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, MMWEC plans to use a local financial institution to issue tax-exempt revenue bonds to finance the project. The project’s cost is estimated at $14.5 million.
The municipal utilities located in Boylston, Ipswich, Mansfield, Marblehead, Peabody and Wakefield are participating in the project.
The project was developed in alignment with the state’s decarbonization goals, MMWEC said. It also allows for member municipal utilities that may not have ideal locations for projects within their own communities to add more solar to their power portfolios.
MMWEC provides a variety of power supply, financial, risk management and other services to the state’s consumer-owned municipal utilities. It has 20 municipal utility members and 28 project participants.
TVA increases contracted solar capacity by 60 percent
February 17, 2021
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
February 17, 2021
The Tennessee Valley Authority on Feb. 8 announced a 60% increase in contracted solar capacity since October 2020.
TVA said that a 2020 request for proposals for solar capacity and its Green Invest program added 964 megawatts of contracted solar and 130 MW of battery storage to the TVA system, pending environmental review.
The increase was due in part from Green Invest commitments from Knoxville Utilities Board, and Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Vanderbilt University through a partnership with Nashville Electric Service. TVA will announce additional partnerships in the coming months.
TVA noted that its 2019 RFP and Green Invest program attracted over $736 million in solar investment and 1,025 jobs, and secured 651 MW in solar commitments.
Currently, with over 7,000 MW of renewable energy, TVA expects to add 7,000 to 10,000 megawatts of solar energy by 2040.
Almost 60% of the electricity TVA supplies for the seven-state region is carbon-free and this spring, TVA will issue a new request for proposals for additional renewable energy.
NREL reports examine effects of solar penetration on grid stability
February 16, 2021
by Peter Maloney
APPA News
February 16, 2021
Rising contributions from variable generation sources, particularly photovoltaic (PV) solar, present challenges but, overall, the Western Interconnection has enough inherent flexibility and ramping ability to manage fluctuations in net load, a new report from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) found.
The report’s authors also noted, however, that flexibility in the Western Interconnection is “heavily dependent” on transmission between regions and the dominant sources of ramping vary by region, and each region’s flexibility is dependent on one another’s ramping capability.
System flexibility can be provided from conventional generation, from less conventional generation – such as storage, demand response, concentrating solar power with thermal energy storage – as well as from imports and exports between neighboring regions, the report said.
The report, Power System Flexibility Requirements and Supply, is one in a series that examines the challenges related to planning power systems with higher solar photovoltaic penetrations.
The report, along with several others, was commissioned by the Western Interstate Energy Board (WIEB) as part of the Enhanced Distributed Solar Photovoltaic Deployment via Barrier Mitigation or Removal in the Western Interconnection project funded by the Department of Energy in collaboration with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
For its power system flexibility report, NREL created an open-source tool to analyze the flexibility of the results of a specific commercial unit commitment and economic dispatch tool (PLEXOS). The tool assesses the demand of a system through a net load analysis. The constraints and limitations of each generator are then considered to determine the available supply. Supply and demand are then compared to paint a more complete picture of potential flexibility concerns.
NREL’s reports for the project focused on four broad categories: bulk dispatch, system planning, dynamic stability, and the distribution grid.
NREL’s Resource Adequacy Considerations report examined the availability of resources to meet requirements during periods of peak load. The report found the Western Interconnection is overbuilt in general, with “extremely high levels of capacity adequacy,” and that the future buildouts computed by NREL’s models appear to have sufficient resources to serve peak net load with PV penetrations of up to 33%.
The authors said that planning reserve constraints used in resource planning may be conservative and could lead to higher-than-necessary investments in capacity resources. They cautioned, however, that a more accurate representation of the grid’s planning reserve needs could be achieved through studies that test NREL’s results under a wider range of system operating conditions and use more detailed representations of transmission and energy-limited resources.
Another NREL report, Simulating Distributed Energy Resource Responses to Transmission System-Level Faults Considering IEEE 1547 Performance Categories on Three Major WECC Transmission Paths, studied transmission issues related to wider solar power penetration. The report found that distributed energy resources could ride through transmission-level faults associated with prolonged voltage events, thereby limiting the impact of faults on power reliability by keeping more distributed generation online both during and after a disturbance.
NREL’s report on Behind-the-Meter Solar Accounting in Renewable Portfolio Standards, found that a common accounting practice among states has the potential to decrease the total amount of renewable generation in a state.
If a renewable portfolio standard (RPS) is designed so that behind-the-meter solar renewable energy credits (RECs) can be used for compliance and the load served by behind-the-meter solar generation is not covered by the RPS, the presence of behind-the-meter solar resources and the transfer of those RECs for compliance can decrease the total amount of renewable generation in a state, compared with a situation in which there is no behind-the-meter solar power, NREL said.
On the other hand, if load served by behind-the-meter solar generation counts toward the RPS load and behind-the-meter solar RECs cannot be used for compliance, the presence of behind-the-meter resources does not change the amount of RECs a utility is required to retire, but additional RECs will be retired by the behind-the-meter solar resource owner, increasing the total amount of renewable generation on a one-to-one basis as behind-the-meter solar generation rises.
Finally, NREL’s report on how power inverters used by distributed energy resources can influence grid stability. The report, Stability and Control of Power Systems with High Penetrations of Inverter-Based Resources: An Accessible Review of Current Knowledge and Open Questions, reviewed literature describing what may be required to transition from spinning inertia associated with traditional generation, to mostly inverter-based power systems and serves as a reference for grid operators and planners.
Silicon Valley Clean Energy funds programs aimed at deep decarbonization
February 3, 2021
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
February 3, 2021
California community choice aggregator (CCA) Silicon Valley Clean Energy (SVCE) has selected four proposals to fund from a spring 2020 application round of an SVCE grant program that seeks to address key technical, market and policy barriers to achieving deep decarbonization.
The application round targeted innovative solutions for community-wide energy resiliency, SVCE said on Jan. 29.
“Public safety power shutoffs, heat waves, and rolling blackouts have put energy resilience at the forefront and highlighted the critical need for enhanced solutions to ensure a smooth transition to a carbon-free grid,” it said.
SVCE selected the program proposals to fund from the spring 2020 application round of Innovation Onramp.
The Innovation Onramp program was launched to leverage SVCE’s “unique position to engage and support the innovation ecosystem in addressing key technical, market and policy barriers to achieving deep decarbonization in our service territory and beyond,” the CCA says on its website.
SVCE provided additional details on the four pilot projects that were selected to further resiliency for SVCE communities.
Under one pilot Span.IO will install its smart electrical panels in homes across the SVCE service territory, addressing several key barriers to the all-electric transition and community resilience.
Under a second pilot, Extensible Energy and Community Energy Labs will demonstrate that load management technology can reduce electricity costs and enable schools to cost-effectively install battery back-up and serve as community resilience centers.
Under a third pilot, Outthink will provide e-bikes to four income-qualified residents and implement low-cost streetscape modifications to demonstrate the benefits and challenges of mode shifting and active transportation.
And under the fourth pilot, Electron will develop a prototype of an SVCE-owned local marketplace for load flexibility from distributed energy resources such as battery storage and smart thermostats, to unlock the value that they can provide to customers and the broader SVCE community, the CCA said.
SVCE noted that applications are now open for spring 2021 Innovation onramp funding. For this round, SVCE has dedicated $100,000 to provide seed funding to third parties with building decarbonization solutions.
The ideas funded through this round will complement the efforts described in the Building Decarbonization Joint Action Plan, which was recently adopted by the SVCE Board of Directors.
The American Public Power Association has initiated a new category of membership for community choice aggregation programs.
New York issues solicitation for RECs from existing in-state resources
January 26, 2021
by Peter Maloney
APPA News
January 26, 2021
New York State on Friday launched a renewable energy procurement program aimed at retaining existing in-state renewable energy resources.
The Competitive Tier 2 program, administered by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), aims to ensure the state’s existing baseline renewable energy generation is retained through three annual solicitations.
In the solicitation, issued Friday, NYSERDA is seeking proposals from existing privately owned hydropower and land-based wind generators in New York State that entered commercial operation prior to Jan. 1, 2015.
Owners of renewable energy facilities participating in the solicitation must bid a fixed renewable energy credit (REC) price in RECs per megawatt hour (MWh) and bid quantity in annual MWh.
There is no minimum bid quantity. There are no penalties for under delivery of Tier 2 RECs, but under delivery cannot be made up in subsequent years. And RECs cannot be carried over from year to year.
Facilities selected via the solicitation will receive a three-year contract from NYSERDA and will retain ownership and all rights to RECs generated that exceed the state’s annual REC cap.
In the solicitation, NYSERDA will use a maximum acceptable bid price to target an unquantified majority of the available Tier 2 supply in each RFP. In order to preserve the competitiveness of the solicitation, NYSERDA is keeping both the maximum acceptable bid price and the target volume of RECs confidential.
The Competitive Tier 2 program is funded through Tier 2 renewable energy credits (REC) load serving entities in New York State are required to purchase from NYSERDA each year.
In October, a New York State Public Service Commission order directed NYSERDA to create the competitive Tier 2 program as part of an expansion of the state’s Clean Energy Standard refocusing New York’s existing regulatory and procurement structure on achieving the goals laid out in the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA).
New York recently expanded its Clean Energy Standard, advancing Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s goal of obtaining 70 percent of the state’s electricity from renewable sources by 2030 as mandated in the Climate Leadership and (CLCPA).
The program is designed to work in parallel with NYSERDA’s other solicitations for new large-scale land-based and offshore wind projects.
In July, New York announced a solicitation seeking up to 2,500 megawatts (MW) of offshore wind energy. The solicitation also includes a requirement for offshore wind generators to partner with any of 11 prequalified New York ports to stage, construct, manufacture key infrastructure components to support offshore wind power development. Funding for the port investments includes $400 million in public and private funding.
Cuomo’s office said the solicitation has the potential to bring New York State halfway to its goal of having 9,000 MW of offshore wind in operation by 2035, as called for in the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act.
At the same time, Cuomo also announced solicitations, coordinated by NYSERDA and the New York Power Authority (NYPA), for 1,500 MW of energy from large land-based renewable energy projects.
Regarding the recently released solicitation, NYSERDA said it would evaluate the Competitive Tier 2 proposals based on the lowest price received. Proposals are due on Feb. 24, 2021 by 3:00 p.m. NYSERDA expects to announce the winner of the solicitation in the second quarter.
Interested proposers can apply online. A webinar scheduled for Jan. 26, will provide interested parties with more information.