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Grand Rapids Public Utilities collaborates on solar-plus-storage project

December 11, 2020

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
December 11, 2020

A solar-plus-storage project in the City of Grand Rapids, Minn., is the result of a collaboration between Minnesota public power utility Grand Rapids Public Utilities and several other parties.

US Solar is developing the two-megawatt solar array and one-megawatt/2.5-hour energy storage battery on city-owned land near the Grand Rapids/Itasca County Airport.

The solar array will include single-axis trackers and bifacial modules which significantly increase the efficiency of the solar array.

The project is expected to start producing energy for Grand Rapids Public Utilities customers by the end of 2021.

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 plans to install a mix of pollinator-friendly, low lying, deep-rooted plants throughout the array. This native pollinator habitat supports bees, butterflies, and other local wildlife. This vegetation has also been proven to decrease stormwater runoff and improve the quality of soil, water, and air, US Solar said in a Dec. 10 news release.

A recent article in Public Power Daily detailed how public power utilities across the country are working hard on biodiversity efforts in their communities and one example of these efforts can be found in their support of pollinator populations.

In terms of positive economic benefits, Grand Rapids Public Utilities ratepayers “will receive affordable, reliable, clean energy throughout the 25-year life span of the project,” US Solar noted. The project represents over $6 million in private investment and will support over 25 construction jobs.

Over the course of the project term, it will generate over $465,000 in local tax revenue and land lease payments that will benefit the City of Grand Rapids and its residents.

NYPA board OKs new strategic plan, as well as diversity and inclusion effort

December 11, 2020

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
December 11, 2020

The New York Power Authority’s (NYPA) Board of Trustees on Dec. 8 approved a new strategic plan, VISION2030, which focuses on five strategic priorities to achieve the clean energy goals of NYPA’s customers and the state.

NYPA said that the strategic priorities to achieve the clean energy goals include NYPA’s intention to:

Partnering with customers

NYPA said that it will partner with its customers and the state to meet their individual energy goals in alignment with the state’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act “by providing clean and affordable energy, along with innovative, integrated customer solutions.”

NYPA will help its customers decarbonize by working with them to realize climate leadership projects in energy efficiency, renewables generation, optimized electrification and digitization. There will be a 70% renewable energy supply provided by 2030 in a cost-effective manner.

NYPA will also enable 325 megawatts of distributed and customer-sited solar by 2025 and facilitate 450 MW of storage projects by 2030.

In addition, NYPA noted that the transition to electric vehicles is being accelerated through the installation of charging stations for EV drivers, including chargers built for transit agencies to electrify buses, and through EVolve NY, NYPA’s public fast charging network.

Decarbonization

NYPA said that in order to lead the transition from natural gas to even cleaner electricity, it will be a first mover in developing and demonstrating new low-to-zero carbon technologies and short- and long-duration battery storage.

NYPA will evaluate the economic performance of its gas fleet “and pursue a collaborative approach with policy makers, community members and the private sector as it advocates for market rules and policies and aims to achieve zero-carbon emissions by 2035,” ahead of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s 100% zero-emission electricity by 2040  goal. NYPA also will commit to supplying its customers with carbon-free electricity by 2035.

NYPA recently signed an agreement with environmental justice groups to assess how its natural gas-fired peaker plants, six in New York City and one on Long Island, can be transitioned to utilize clean energy technologies while continuing to meet the unique electricity reliability and resiliency requirements of New York City.

Potential siting of battery storage and hydrogen blending at the plants is under consideration.

Growing transmission to connect renewables

As part of VISION2030, NYPA aims to be the leading transmission developer, owner and operator for New York State.

Building new transmission infrastructure to move distant renewable energy resources is critical to the integration of renewables, such as land-based and off-shore wind and solar, into the bulk power system and achieving the goal of 70% renewable electricity by 2030, it said.

Three major projects to help the state meet its changing transmission needs are currently underway:

Hydropower

NYPA said it will preserve and enhance the value of NYPA’s hydropower assets, which account for approximately 25 percent of New York State’s electricity, as a continued core source of carbon-free power and as a source of flexibility and resilience as the state’s grid evolves.

“Retaining assets in good repair, actively advocating for policy and market rules recognizing hydro benefits to the grid and evaluating alternative contracting or offtake arrangements will help optimize the benefit of hydropower for New Yorkers,” it said.

A 15-year, $1.1 billion life extension and modernization program, first announced in July 2019, is currently underway to significantly extend the operating life of NYPA’s flagship Niagara Power Project, one of the largest hydroelectric projects in the U.S.

Canals

Meanwhile, NYPA said it will continue to reinvigorate the New York State canal system primarily through the Reimagine the Canals initiative announced by Cuomo earlier this year. Simultaneously, NYPA and the Canal Corporation will work to ensure that these investments safeguard the Canal’s role as a driver of economic growth for New York State.

Priorities will be supported by four-year financial plan

The Authority said that the strategic priorities will be supported by NYPA’s recently approved four-year financial plan.

The financial plan includes five foundational pillars:

Board approves diversity, equity and inclusion plan

In other action, the Board of Trustees at its Dec. 9 meeting, approved a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion plan that NYPA said will expand customer energy products and services in underserved and environmental justice communities to help customers lower utility costs and meet their environmental and sustainability goals.

The approvals support development, retention, promotion and engagement of staff through training, career and leadership programs, and support hiring of a workforce that reflects the diverse communities NYPA serves, the Authority said.

NYPA said that through the plan, students of color will have more opportunities to join and advance in the clean energy sector. A recent article in Public Power magazine also outlined NYPA’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in further detail.

Also, in order to further meet Cuomo’s goal for procuring at least 30% of products and services from minority and women owned businesses (MWBEs), NYPA will increase funding to its supplier diversity programs – through mentoring, outreach and education initiatives – to drive up participation of MWBEs in the organization’s supply chain.

Additional details on the plan are available here.

Texas public power cities to buy energy from 1,310-MW solar facility

November 25, 2020

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
November 25, 2020

Three public power cities in Texas – Bryan, Denton and Garland – have entered into agreements to buy energy from a 1,310-megawatt solar energy generation facility to be built in the state.

Invenergy, the project’s developer, said that the facility will be the largest solar project in the United States upon completion. The Samson Solar Energy Center is currently under construction in northeast Texas.

Along with Bryan, Denton and Garland, the following corporations will also purchase energy from the solar facility: AT&T, Honda, McDonald’s, Google and The Home Depot.

The breakdown of energy to be purchased from the facility is:

Located in Lamar, Red River and Franklin Counties, Samson Solar is a $1.6 billion capital investment, Invenergy said.

Samson Solar will be constructed in five phases over the next three years, with each phase commencing operation upon completion.

The full project is slated to be operational in 2023.

FERC affirms and clarifies final rule that revised regulations implementing PURPA

November 23, 2020

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
November 23, 2020

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Nov. 19 affirmed a final rule it approved this summer that revised its regulations implementing the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA).

In its action at its monthly open meeting, FERC dismissed or disagreed with most arguments raised on rehearing but offered clarification of the final rule itself.

Order No. 872 granted flexibility to state regulatory authorities in establishing avoided cost rates for qualifying facilities’ (QF) sales inside and outside of the organized electric markets.  The July 16 final rule also gave states the ability to require that energy rates, but not capacity rates, vary during the term of a QF contract. The flexibility for state regulatory authorities also extends to public power and electric cooperative regulators.

The final rule also modified the “one-mile rule” for determining whether generation facilities are considered to be at the same site for purposes of determining whether a facility meets the 80 MW limit on qualifying small power production facilities.

It also reduced the rebuttable presumption for nondiscriminatory access to power markets, from 20 megawatts to 5 megawatts, for small power production, but not cogeneration, facilities.  This change will make it easier for electric utilities (including public power utilities) in certain markets to seek relief from PURPA’s mandatory purchase requirement for smaller QFs under PURPA section 210(m).

For a QF to establish a legally enforceable obligation for an electric utility to purchase the QF’s output, the final rule required that the QF must demonstrate commercial viability and financial commitment to build under objective and reasonable state-determined criteria.

FERC’s Nov. 19 order provided clarifications related to:

APPA, LPPC supported FERC plans to reform PURPA

The final rule largely adopted proposals in a September 2019 FERC Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR).

In response to the NOPR, the American Public Power Association and the Large Public Power Council in December said that the development of competitive power markets and the dramatic growth of a renewable power sector now largely independent of the boost once provided by PURPA justify significant changes in PURPA regulations.

Berkeley Lab report finds three policies most effective at solar PV adoption

November 20, 2020

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
November 20, 2020

A new study by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory identified three policy and business models that boost “adoption equity” for solar power installations.

The authors of the study define adoption equity as the degree to which adopter incomes reflect the incomes of the general population.

“I think most people are aware that the benefits of solar energy have not been equitably distributed with respect to income,” Eric O’Shaughnessy, a Berkeley Lab affiliate researcher and the study’s lead author, said in a statement. The “key takeaway of our study is: It doesn’t have to be that way – especially now that solar is getting cheaper.”

The study, “The impact of policies and business models on income equity in rooftop solar adoption,” published in Nature Energy earlier this month, analyzed five policies and programs that have been used to spur solar photovoltaic (PV) adoption:

The report found that the first three types of interventions – targeted incentives, leasing, and PACE – are effective at increasing adoption equity.

“The results for those three interventions are pretty strong,” O’Shaughnessy said. “And the research also provides evidence that these interventions are leading to both deepening, or expanding in existing markets, and broadening, or moving into new markets – low-income areas where there traditionally was not solar.”

The authors argued that when solar installations enter a new market or neighborhood, it can have a spillover effect. “If a system is installed in a neighborhood that had no solar before, then the neighbors are going to see that system, and that makes them a little bit more likely to adopt themselves,” O’Shaughnessy said. “There’s lots of research on these peer effects. So, if the market broadens and solar deployment moves into new markets, the potential indirect effects are more significant than if the market only deepens by installing systems on lower-income households in existing markets.”

In addition, as the solar power market grows and costs continue to decline, the decision to install a system is driven less by environmental concerns and more by financial benefits. “Surveys suggest that roughly half of people who adopt nowadays are really doing it primarily for economic reasons,” O’Shaughnessy said.

And, for low- and middle-income households, financial benefits can make more of a difference. “Many low- and moderate-income households have a large ‘energy burden,’ which is the fraction of a household’s income that gets spent on energy and utility expenses,” Galen Barbose, a Berkeley Lab research scientist and one of the authors of the report, said in a statement. “There’s growing interest now in solar PV as being another arrow in that quiver of helping to reduce the energy burden of low-income households.”

The authors also noted that low- and middle-income housing accounts for 42% of PV-viable rooftop space in the United States.

In the study, the authors tapped household-level PV adopter income data covering more than 70% of the U.S. residential PV market. The study covered the period from 2010 to 2018 and included data on more than 1 million residential rooftop PV systems installed on single-family homes in 18 states. The researchers compared modeled household-level income estimates for PV adopters with area median household incomes, based on U.S. Census data.

Redwood Coast Energy Authority, Valley Clean Energy sign resource adequacy agreements

November 17, 2020

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
November 17, 2020

California community choice aggregators Redwood Coast Energy Authority and Valley Clean Energy have signed resource adequacy agreements with California-based Leap, which enables real-time automated trading on energy markets.

Under the agreements, Leap will provide a total of 12.5 megawatts in flexible capacity to Redwood Coast Energy Authority and Valley Clean Energy. The new capacity will be made available for use by the CCAs starting in June 2021 over a ten-year term and will be sourced from Leap’s marketplace for grid flexibility.

The new agreements will allow the CCAs to unlock a new means of meeting energy demand in their service territories by gaining access to a statewide market of distributed energy resources, Leap said in a recent news release.

This includes delivering flexible capacity from within the CCAs’ service territories, as some of the resources in the Leap marketplace will be provided by customers of the CCAs.

According to Leap, it has been the largest participant in California’s Demand Response Auction Mechanism over the past two years.

Leap’s marketplace for grid flexibility grants energy resources — including battery energy storage, electric vehicles, smart thermostats, HVAC systems and industrial facilities — access to demand response programs, wholesale markets, and real-time pricing through a single application programming interface.

The Redwood Coast Energy Authority is a local government joint powers agency whose members include the County of Humboldt, Calif., all incorporated cities within the county, and the Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District.

Valley Clean Energy is a not-for-profit public agency formed to provide electrical generation service to customers in Woodland, Davis, Winters and the unincorporated areas of Yolo County, Calif.

Additional information about Leap is available here.

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

Groups urge FERC to reject objections to small utility opt-in mechanism under DER order

November 16, 2020

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
November 16, 2020

The American Public Power Association and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association are urging the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to reject objections to a small utility “opt in” mechanism that the Commission adopted in Order No. 2222, a final rule that allows for distributed energy resource (DER) aggregators to compete in regional organized wholesale electric markets.

In addition, APPA and NRECA said that FERC should not carve out an exception to the small utility opt-in for energy efficiency resources (EERs) in a Nov. 3 filing.

Order No. 2222, which FERC approved in September, enables DERs to participate alongside traditional resources in the regional organized wholesale markets through aggregations, opening U.S. organized wholesale markets to new sources of energy and grid services (Docket No. RM18-9-000).

In October, the Sierra Club, Sustainable FERC Project, and Natural Resources Defense Council filed a request for rehearing and clarification in response to Order No. 2222.

These groups argued challenged the final rule’s small utility opt-in on the grounds that “state authorities simply do not possess the power to directly determine whether resources are permitted to participate in RTO/ISO markets,” asserting that “such state actions directly ‘aim at’ wholesale transactions and are therefore field preempted.”

This argument “mischaracterizes the nature of the small utility opt-in, which is not a unilateral assertion of state and local authority over wholesale transactions, but rather a framework adopted by the Commission pursuant to its jurisdiction to establish the criteria for participation in wholesale markets,” APPA and NRECA said in a joint answer to the filing made by the Sierra Club, Sustainable FERC Project, and Natural Resources Defense Council.

NRECA and APPA pointed out that under the small-utility opt-in, state and local actions do not directly “aim at” FERC-regulated wholesale transactions.

“Rather, the Commission accounts for state and local preferences and concerns in determining eligibility to participate in wholesale markets.” In adopting the small-utility opt-in, the Commission “appropriately exercised its discretion to determine that, given the burdens that the final rule could impose on small utilities, retail customers of those utilities are not eligible to participate in DER aggregations under Order No. 2222” unless the relevant electric retail regulatory authority affirmatively allows such retail customer participation.

“This is an exercise of the Commission’s jurisdiction, not an intrusion upon it,” APPA and NRECA said.

APPA, NRECA also argue that FERC should not carve out an exception for EERs

Meanwhile, APPA and NRECA told FERC that it should not carve out an exception to the small utility opt-in for EERs.

That proposal was made in an Oct. 19 request for clarification, or, in the alternative, rehearing filed by Advanced Energy Economy (AEE) and Advanced Energy Management Alliance (AEMA).

“As a threshold matter, AEE and AEMA do not establish that participation of EERs in DER aggregations could have no impacts on small distribution utilities or their regulators that justify providing the opt-in,” APPA and NRECA argued.

AEE and AEMA pointed to the Commission’s assertion in a case involving AEE that, compared to demand response, EERs are not likely to present the same operational and day-to-day planning complexity that might otherwise interfere with a load-serving entity’s day-to-day operations.

But FERC “never said that EER wholesale market participation could impose no obligations on distribution utilities, nor would such an assertion be accurate,” APPA and NRECA noted.

“For example, a small distribution utility with EERs on its system participating in an aggregation might need to monitor how any capacity provided by the EERs was accounted-for in determining the utility’s resource adequacy obligations.”

Similarly, under Order No. 2222, small distribution utilities and/or their regulators might need to coordinate with RTOs and ISOs concerning whether a resource participating in a state or local energy efficiency program should be restricted from participating in a wholesale aggregation under the provisions of Order No. 2222 that are designed to avoid double compensation, APPA and NRECA said

“Indeed, just the obligation for distribution utilities and their regulators to monitor and track the complex RTO and ISO rules that will govern DER aggregation could impose a significant burden on small distribution utilities.”

Further, the fact that EERs are not subject to the Commission’s opt-in/opt-out regulations under Order Nos. 719 and 719-A is not a reason to exclude EERs from the small utility opt-in, as AEE and AEMA contend, the public power and cooperative trade groups argued. Order Nos. 719 and 719-A addressed improvements to RTO governance.

Final rule builds off recent court ruling on Order No. 841

FERC in September said that Order No. 2222 builds off a ruling earlier this year from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Order No. 841 in which the court affirmed the Commission’s exclusive jurisdiction over the regional wholesale power markets and the criteria for participation in those markets.

In July, the appeals court issued an opinion that denied an appeal filed by the American Public Power Association and several other parties that challenged certain aspects of Order Nos. 841 and 841-A, which established rules for the participation of electric storage resources in RTO and ISO markets. 

New England public power utilities sign PPAs for hydroelectric power

November 13, 2020

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
November 13, 2020

A total of 21 public power utilities in New England have signed agreements to purchase 200 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year of hydroelectric power produced by FirstLight Power in Western Massachusetts.

The purchase agreement, which was structured and executed by Energy New England, will take energy from the Turners Falls and Cabot generating facilities on the Connecticut River in Montague and will save the participating utilities’ ratepayers millions of dollars over the life of the contract, according to Energy New England, a wholesale risk management and energy trading organization serving public power utilities in the northeast.

“Never before have so many municipal light plants, municipal electric departments, and other public power utilities come together to buy emissions-free renewable power on this scale,’’ John Tzimorangas, president and CEO of Energy New England, said in a statement.

Power purchases by Massachusetts public power utilities served by Energy New England on average now account for 29% fewer carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions than electricity generated in the state as a whole, Energy New England said, adding that the new contracts will raise the public utilities’ average to 34% below the state average.

FirstLight and Energy New England offered an excellent opportunity for Reading Municipal Light Department “to increase its portfolio of local renewable energy at competitive rates for our customers in the four towns we serve,” Coleen O’Brien, general manager of the Reading utility, said in a statement.

The participating utilities are mostly in Massachusetts and include:

Also participating are the Block Island Utility District and Pascoag Utility District in Rhode Island and Stowe Electric Department in Vermont.

FirstLight Power is a clean power producer and energy storage company in New England with a portfolio that includes nearly 1.4 gigawatts of pumped hydro storage, battery storage, hydroelectric generation, and solar generation.

Vanderbilt University, Nashville partner with TVA, NES on new solar farm

November 12, 2020

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
November 12, 2020

Vanderbilt University and the city of Nashville, Tenn., recently announced a Green Invest partnership with the Tennessee Valley Authority and Nashville Electric Service that calls for the construction of a solar farm to be built in Tullahoma, Tenn., by Nashville-based Silicon Ranch Corp.

Vanderbilt will be a 25-megawatt co-subscriber to the array for campus operations. The new solar farm project is scheduled for completion in 2023.

This marks the university’s second solar project with TVA, NES and Silicon Ranch through TVA’s Green Invest program.

In January, TVA reported that a partnership between Nashville Electric Service, Vanderbilt University and TVA to bring new, large-scale renewable energy to the Tennessee Valley marked the first of its kind under the Green Invest program.

TVA’s Green Invest program leverages long-term agreements to build new, large-scale renewable energy installations through a competitive bid process.

In other recent Green Invest news, TVA on Nov. 9 said that a new 100-megawatt solar facility in Obion County, Tenn., will supply energy to Google’s data centers in Clarksville, Tenn., and Hollywood, Ala.

TVA reports new solar facility will supply energy to Google data centers

November 9, 2020

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
November 9, 2020

The Tennessee Valley Authority on Nov. 9 said that a new 100-megawatt solar facility in Obion County, Tenn., will supply energy to Google’s data centers in Clarksville, Tenn., and Hollywood, Ala.

Florida-based solar developer Origis Energy is using TVA’s Green Invest program to develop the solar farm, TVA noted in a news release.

The program helps customers like Google meet their long-term sustainability goals with new renewable energy projects. In the past two years, Green Invest has generated $1.4 billion in economic activity in TVA’s service area, TVA said.

Under Green Invest, companies receive renewable energy certificates. Companies initiate a project and TVA sources the power through power purchase agreements.

Through a long-term power purchase agreement, Origis Energy will own and operate the plant. Origis plans to have the solar facility operational by the end of 2022, pending environmental reviews.

To power the data centers, Google had already purchased a total of 266 MW of power generated by multiple solar farms linked into the TVA electric grid.  

Monday’s announcement comes on the heels of four other major Green Invest deals TVA has completed this year involving General Motors, Vanderbilt University, Knoxville Utilities Board and Facebook.

In August, TVA said that a new 70-MW solar facility in Madison County, Tenn., announced in February will support Facebook’s operations in the region. TVA is partnering with Nashville-based solar developer Silicon Ranch to develop the project.

GM will secure half of a 200-MW solar farm announced earlier this year by TVA in Lowndes County, Miss., which is being developed by Origis Energy.

In April, TVA announced that it had selected First Solar and Origis Energy to develop 212 megawatts of solar power to fulfill the Knoxville Utilities Board’s March 2020 commitment to new renewable energy.

KUB is using the Green Invest program to produce carbon-free energy equivalent to 8% of KUB’s annual electric load, TVA noted.

In January, TVA reported that a partnership between Nashville Electric Service, Vanderbilt University and TVA to bring new, large-scale renewable energy to the Tennessee Valley marked the first of its kind under the Green Invest program.

OPPD, Google and Facebook

Other public power utilities have also collaborated with Facebook and Google.

Facebook in 2017 said that it had selected a new Nebraska wind project to supply power to the social media company’s new data center in Papillion, Neb. The Omaha Public Power District played a key role in bringing the data center to Nebraska through an innovative rate plan.

In late 2019, Google announced plans to build a $600 million data center in Papillion, Neb., making it the second company to take advantage of the OPPD rate designed to help meet the needs of large-power, high voltage transmission-level customers.

TVA and OPPD in 2018 were recognized as among the top-ranking U.S. utilities in economic development by Site Selection magazine.