APPA Members Encouraged to Participate in DOE Webinar on Transformers

September 26, 2023

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
September 26, 2023

The Department of Energy on Sept. 29 will host a webinar related to a survey that the agency plans to release related to the nation’s current supply of distribution transformers.

DOE is trying to get a better sense of the utility sector’s current supply of distribution transformers that can be put into service if replacement transformers are required to restore their networks after extreme weather events, wildfires, or other emergency situations. 

The webinar will take place on Sept. 29 at 2:00 pm (ET).

 The survey will be administered under the Protected Critical Infrastructure Information Program under the Critical Infrastructure Information Act of 2002. 

The Act protects information voluntarily shared with the government about the security of private and state/local government critical infrastructure.

For additional information about how to register for the webinar or related questions, contact Michael Coe, Vice President, Physical and Cyber Security Programs, at APPA at: mcoe@publicpower.org.

Report Outlines Reliability Recommendations Tied to Winter Storm Elliott

September 23, 2023

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
September 23, 2023

A final report on Winter Storm Elliott, a 2022 storm that contributed to power outages for millions of electricity customers in the Eastern half of the country, was presented to Commissioners at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Sept. 21.

The report recommends completion of cold weather reliability standard revisions stemming from 2021’s Winter Storm Uri and improvements to reliability for U.S. natural gas infrastructure.

The report, which was presented to FERC Commissioners at its monthly meeting by FERC staff and staff of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, outlines 11 recommendations for action to help prevent similar occurrences during future extreme winter weather.

The recommendations cover cold weather reliability improvements for power generators, natural gas infrastructure, gas-electric coordination and electric grid operations.

“It’s abundantly clear that we must make major improvements to the cold-weather reliability of both the natural gas and electricity production and grid systems,” FERC Chairman Willie Phillips said. “I have said repeatedly: Someone – it doesn’t have to be FERC – must have authority to establish and enforce natural gas reliability standards. And some recommendations from the 2021 Uri report are still not implemented. Please get that done. It shouldn’t take five winter storms in 11 years to show us the gravity of the situation we find ourselves in.”

NERC President and CEO Jim Robb said, “This sobering report underscores the need to take urgent action on the interdependence between the bulk electric and natural gas systems, including the need for sufficient and reliable gas and electric infrastructure to sustain energy reliability. NERC, the Regional Entities, and FERC are fully committed to finding effective, collaborative solutions in line with these findings. The report also reaffirms NERC’s equally strong commitment to completing Reliability Standards work to ensure industry is prepared for extreme cold weather.”

FERC and NERC staff, along with staff from NERC’s six regional entities, initiated an inquiry shortly after Winter Storm Elliott occurred.

Though their final report itself will be published later this fall, the presentation at the FERC meeting highlighted several key facts about the December 2022 event, including:

• There were unprecedented unplanned generating unit losses, with nearly 90,000 megawatts out at the same time.
• Nearly 80 percent of the generating units failed to perform at temperatures above their own documented minimum operating temperatures.
• Several electric grid operators had to shed firm load to maintain system reliability. 
• Natural gas pipeline pressures dropped largely because of freeze-related production declines in production of Marcellus (23 percent) and Utica (54 percent) shales, as well as other natural gas infrastructure freeze- and equipment-related problems. Every cold weather inquiry report that has studied natural gas production has found cold-related declines in natural gas production, by as much as 70 percent in some cases.
• Consolidated Edison Inc., which serves the greater New York Metropolitan area, faced reliability-threatening low pressures on its delivery pipelines, forcing it to declare an emergency and use its own liquefied natural gas facility to maintain service.

According to the presentation, the report states there must be robust monitoring of how the industry is implementing current cold weather Reliability Standards to determine if reliability gaps exist.

Also, NERC should obtain an independent technical review of the causes of cold-related mechanical and electrical generation outages to identify preventive measures, which includes determining if additional reliability standards are needed.

The report also states that congressional and state legislation or regulation is needed to establish reliability rules for natural gas infrastructure to ensure cold weather reliability.  Currently, no regulatory entity is tasked with ensuring the reliability of the natural gas infrastructure on which the electric grid relies. 

Finally, the report recommends the North American Energy Standards Board convene a meeting of gas and electric grid operators and gas distribution companies to identify improvements in communication during extreme cold weather events to enhance awareness across the natural gas supply chain.

In addition, the report suggests hiring an independent research group to analyze whether additional gas infrastructure is needed to support grid reliability and meet the needs of gas utilities.

Lawmakers Voice Concerns About DOE Transformer Proposal

September 18, 2023

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
September 18, 2023

Lawmakers voiced concerns on Sept. 13 about a Department of Energy proposal that would require a stricter standard that changes the material used in distribution transformers from grain-oriented electrical steel to amorphous steel.

The lawmakers highlighted their concerns about the proposal at a hearing held by the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy, Climate, and Grid Security titled, “Keeping the Light On: Enhancing Reliability and Efficiency to Power American Homes.”

The hearing focused on three bills including a bill sponsored by Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC) that would prohibit DOE from increasing distribution transformer conservation standards for five years (H.R. 4167, the Protecting America’s Distribution Transformer Supply Chain Act).

The American Public Power Association on Sept.13 voiced support for Hudson’s bill in a Statement for the Record submitted for the hearing.

In December 2022, APPA and other impacted organizations were dismayed when DOE announced a notice of proposed rulemaking (NOPR) seeking to increase conservation standards for distribution transformers.

The NOPR would require a stricter standard that changes the material used in distribution transformers from grain-oriented electrical steel to amorphous steel.

Amorphous steel is currently used in less than five percent of distribution transformers. “Requiring the expansion of amorphous steel in distribution transformers would halt current investment in production and materials, resulting in a complete retooling of manufacturing production lines, thereby exacerbating the severe shortage,” Desmarie Waterhouse, Senior Vice President, Advocacy and Communications & General Counsel at APPA, wrote in the Statement for the Record.

At the hearing, Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio) said that as he has traveled across his district and spoken with utilities and cooperatives, “a prime issue that has been raised in the supply chain crunch” for distribution transformers.”

He noted that since the Covid-19 pandemic, “the lead times for procuring new transformers have only gotten worse. This means that in the event of an emergency, utilities will have a harder time maintaining or restoring continuous power to their customers if they don’t have an adequate supply of replacement transformers.”

Latta said it was “baffling” to him as to why the DOE has proposed new standards that “would make the supply chain crisis worse.” He said that such a move would result in a distribution transformer market that relies on “one producer that doesn’t have enough capacity to meet the current demand.” Latta is a co-sponsor of H.R. 4167.

Subcommittee Chairman Jeff Duncan (R-SC) said, “DOE already mandates distribution transformers be manufactured at an incredibly high efficiency standard. They’re already at 99.53 percent efficient.”

The DOE rulemaking “will increase the efficiency by only a fraction of a percentage point, but significantly disrupt production of transformers, which utilities already have difficulty producing,” he said.

B. Robert Paulling, President and CEO of South Carolina’s Mid Carolina Electric Cooperative, said in his prepared testimony that lead times for large power transformers have grown to more than three years.

He stated that Mid-Carolina supports a delay in implementing new distribution transformer efficiency standards because “The utility industry needs manufacturers to be 100% focused on increasing output, not adapting to new, government-mandated efficiency requirements that are not technologically feasible nor economically justified.”

Most of the subcommittee members acknowledged having heard from a utility or knowing about the distribution transformer supply chain crisis. However, Republicans and Democrats split on how the efficiency NOPR would impact the supply chain crisis.

Republicans overwhelmingly said that the NOPR is negatively impacting production, while Most Democratic members did not see the NOPR as impacting the current supply chain crisis and instead claimed that Republicans just wanted to gut efficiency standards.

Ohio Company Begins Operation of Fully Digital Substation

September 15, 2023

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
September 15, 2023

One Energy Enterprises said it has begun operation of the first fully digital, plug-and-play, transmission-voltage substation in the United States.

The substation, at One Energy’s Findlay, Ohio, headquarters, is intended to power a Megawatt Hub and was built as proof of concept for the company’s new, fully digital station architecture.

The digital substation uses Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories’ TiDL system that connects it to the grid entirely by fiber optics, which simplifies the field wiring of the facility.

The substation’s 30-megavolt amp transformer was built by Hitachi Energy and includes a real-time dissolved gas analyzer and condition monitoring system that can detect an anomaly in the transformer and automatically send alerts via text to system operators.

The system performs a full dissolved gas analysis on the transformer every 10 minutes, compared with most substation transformers that only test oil once a year, One Energy said.

To enhance safety and resilience, One Energy said the substation is surrounded by permanent walls that are modular and made of solid concrete. To eliminate risks related to animal interference and blowing debris, the design has no exposed live parts on the medium voltage buswork, and the design also incorporates environmentally friendly oils and passive and automatic fire suppression systems, the company said.

One Power builds, owns, and operates behind-the-meter power systems and microgrids for industrial energy users. The company described its Megawatt Hubs as transmission-voltage-interconnected 30-megawatt to 150-MW sites that are ready for the energy-intensive industries of the future such as mobile data centers and commercial electric vehicle fleets.

In August, One Energy Enterprises said it intends to go public via a merger with TortoiseEcofin Acquisition Corp. III, a special purpose acquisition company. The public company will be called One Power.

Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority Composite Pole Project Advances Reliability

September 15, 2023

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
September 15, 2023

The Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority’s ongoing efforts to improve grid reliability continued to advance with its composite pole project at 88% completion territorywide.

WAPA began the Composite Pole Project in 2017. The project is 90% funded through the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Hazard Mitigation Program, with a 10% match being provided by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Composite poles, made of advanced materials, “possess exceptional durability, withstanding extreme weather conditions, including high winds and corrosive environments and offer a host of advantages over traditional wooden poles,” the public power utility noted on Sept. 13.

They are also more resistant to rot, decay, and termite damage, ensuring longevity and significantly reducing maintenance costs for the Authority in the long-term.

In less densely populated areas, composite poles offer an advantage over undergrounding because installation typically involves easy replacement of an existing pole, whereas undergrounding involves extensive excavation and more lengthy construction times.

As part of the Composite Pole project, the Authority has subcontracted Barkley Technologies for project management and design support services, with RS Poles, PECO and Trident Industries supplying composite poles and AWG providing supplies hardware.

On St. Thomas and St. Croix, composite pole installation is being performed by Haugland VI, while on St. John BBC Electric performed installations.

On St. Croix a total of 3,351 composite poles have been installed, 81% of its total. while 2,330 composite poles have been installed on St. Thomas, 99% of its total. And 1,711 composite poles have been installed on St. John, 87% of its total. Water Island is at a 100% completion with 200 composite poles installed.

APPA Voices Support for Bill That Calls for Delaying DOE Plan Tied to Transformers

September 13, 2023

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
September 13, 2023

The American Public Power Association on Sept. 13 voiced support for a bill introduced by Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC) that would prohibit the Department of Energy from increasing distribution transformer conservation standards for five years.

“A delay is urgently needed to give manufacturers the certainty to increase production to meet demand,” wrote Desmarie Waterhouse, Senior Vice President, Advocacy and Communications & General Counsel at APPA, in a Statement for the Record.

The Statement for the Record was submitted in connection with a Sept. 13 hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy, Climate, and Grid Security titled, “Keeping the Light On: Enhancing Reliability and Efficiency to Power American Homes.”

The hearing’s focus is on three bills: Hudson’s H.R. 4167, the Protecting America’s Distribution Transformer Supply Chain Act; the DOE Appliance and Equipment Standards Reform and Consumer Protection Act and the Guaranteeing Reliable Infrastructure Deployment (GRID) Act.

In December 2022, APPA and other impacted organizations were dismayed when DOE announced a notice of proposed rulemaking seeking to amend conservation standards for distribution transformers, Waterhouse noted.

The NOPR would require a stricter standard that changes the material used in distribution transformers from grain-oriented electrical steel (GOES) to amorphous steel.

Amorphous steel is currently used in less than five percent of distribution transformers. “Requiring the expansion of amorphous steel in distribution transformers would halt current investment in production and materials, resulting in a complete retooling of manufacturing production lines, thereby exacerbating the severe shortage,” Waterhouse said.

DOE claims it was required to issue the NOPR due to court decisions resulting from energy efficiency interest groups’ legal challenges under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act.

“APPA does not believe that the proposed efficiency standards and the analyses cited to support them meet EPCA’s requirement that efficiency upgrades be technologically feasible or economically justified,” Waterhouse wrote. “More importantly, the proposed efficiency standards would worsen already critical distribution transformer supply shortages.”

 In commenting on the NOPR, APPA urged DOE to reconsider the NOPR or delay the implementation until the transformer supply base is strengthened enough to increase supply, reduce costs, and increase the number of component suppliers.

Over the last two years, the electric sector has been calling attention to a growing supply chain crisis that has hampered its ability to meet the demand for maintenance and growth of the electrical grid.

Through its participation in the Electric Sector Coordinating Council, APPA interacted with DOE to identify several underlying causes of why production levels of distribution transformers were not meeting demand. Those causes include the lack of an available or adequately trained labor force and adequate materials necessary to immediately increase production.

APPA surveys show that 80 percent of public power utilities have lower inventories of distribution transformers now than they did in 2018 and 30 percent reported a high risk they could run out of stock in a month.

Average lead times to purchase new distribution transformers have grown 429 percent, from three months in 2018 to an excess of 12 months or more today. Manufacturers have stated that a lack of skilled labor and materials are the cause of supply shortages.

Shortages of distribution transformers have caused public power utilities to defer or cancel one in five infrastructure projects that would require more resources than available.

“Additional electric capacity is needed to power new residential and commercial developments, new manufacturing facilities, and support a rapidly expanding electric vehicle fleet,” wrote Waterhouse.

Ohio’s Bryan Municipal Utilities to Store Natural Gas for Emergency Generation, Peak Shaving

September 12, 2023

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
September 12, 2023

Ohio public power utility Bryan Municipal Utilities has entered into an agreement to store natural gas for emergency generation and peak shaving purposes.

The agreement is with The Ohio Gas Company, “our local but privately owned gas utility company,” noted Derek Schultz, Director of Utilities for Bryan Municipal Utilities.

The agreement calls for purchasing the commodity this month and having it placed in storage for the months of December 2023 through February 2024 when the demand for natural gas is at its peak. It also allows any unused gas to be rolled over to the summer peaking season, Schultz said.  

“Because of Winter Storm Elliott and the effects that has had on the ability to secure and purchase natural gas this agreement ensures that capacity is available for the City of Bryan’s emergency generation and peak shaving needs,” he said in an email.

“Protecting annual transmission and capacity savings from the City’s behind the meter generation was the driving factor in our decision,” he said.

When asked how long Bryan Municipal Utilities has been thinking about the move to store natural gas, Schultz said it started to think about the move recently, “as we learned about capacity being purchased much earlier than previous years.”

NERC Emphasizes Need to Address Faults in Inverter-Based Resources

September 11, 2023

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
September 11, 2023

The North American Electric Reliability Corp. is reiterating the need for owners and manufacturers to address latent solar power system faults in the wake of a widespread loss of solar generation in southwestern Utah this spring.

During the morning of April 10, 2023, nine solar photovoltaic facilities failed to ride through a normally cleared fault on a 345-kilovolt transmission circuit, resulting in an unexpected loss of 921 megawatts of generation, which is categorized as a Category 1 event in the NERC Event Analysis Process.

The event was “the first major widespread solar loss to occur in the Western Interconnection outside of California,” NERC said in its 2023 Southwest Utah Disturbance report.

While no generation tripped because of the transmission outage, supervisory control and data acquisition data shows that aggregate solar photovoltaic output in the PacfiCorp-East region in southwestern Utah dropped “significantly,” according to the NERC report.

The abnormal response from multiple solar photovoltaic facilities was caused by the protection and controls within each facility responding to the bulk power system fault in an unreliable manner.

The disturbance occurred at 08:51 a.m. Pacific time, right about the time when aggregate solar photovoltaic output reached its peak for the day. Synchronous generation, wind, and solar photovoltaic resources comprised 42 percent, 31 percent, and 26 percent of total generation prior to the disturbance, respectively, NERC said.

No notable changes in net load quantities attributable to distributed energy resource tripping were observed nor were there any abnormal performance issues identified with the wind and synchronous generation fleet in the PacifiCorp-East area, NERC said.

Nonetheless, the magnitude of the solar reduction, greater than 900 MW, was “significant” as a large percentage of aggregate generation, over 57 percent of the PacifiCorp-East solar photovoltaic fleet output, was unexpectedly lost, NERC said, adding that is “the most concerning attribute of this event, particularly with growing levels of solar PV in the PACE footprint and neighboring areas.”

NERC noted that PacifiCorp-East has received about 45 gigawatts of interconnection requests for its 2022 cluster studies and is planning to connect an additional 3.8 GW of generation, including 1.6 GW of solar, in the next three years. Peak load in the PacifiCorp-East region is about 13 GW.

In the report, NERC reiterated “the strong need for inverter-based resource performance issues to be addressed by Generator Owners (GOs) in a timely manner.”

“GOs are often not addressing performance issues that latently exist within the existing fleet,” the report said. “All of the causes of abnormal performance in this event have been previously documented by NERC in past reports; however, actions were not taken either by the GOs or by the inverter original equipment manufacturers (OEM) to mitigate these known risks.”

NERC said its Project 2023-026 is addressing the reliability risk by “requiring analysis and mitigation of unexpected or unwarranted protection and control operations from inverter-based resources following the identification of such a performance issue.”

The NERC report also reiterated the need for “a comprehensive ride-through standard in lieu of NERC PRC- 024-3,” adding that “Project 2020-027 is currently addressing this risk issue by replacing PRC-024-3 with a performance-based ride-through standard that ensures generators remain connected to the [bulk power system] during system disturbances.”

NERC said the project “remains a top priority” to address “persistent inverter-based resource performance issues and the elevated risk” to the bulk power system reliability posed with “the rapidly changing resource mix.”

Kansas Municipal Energy Agency Helps City Expand Substation

September 7, 2023

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
September 7, 2023

The Kansas Municipal Energy Agency is helping the City of Lindsborg, Kansas, to expand the city’s existing substation with the addition of the second transformer. 

KMEA reported the news in its most recent Utility Connection newsletter.

In 2022 the City of Lindsborg’s city council authorized the purchase of the current transformer at the substation from Evergy and add a new 10 MVA transformer.   

The goal for this project was to control redundancy and reliability for the city as the current transformer ages, KMEA noted.

“A key factor in the decision to purchase the old transformer was the peak load on the old transformer was reaching the limit of their 7/10 MVA transformer which serves the city,” KMEA said in the newsletter.

The 10 MVA transformer was installed at the substation on August 18 with operation date expected later this fall. 

By adding the second transformer, the city will have the ability to split the load between the two transformers, KMEA noted. It will also allow for maintenance on either transformer without having to take an outage or bring in temporary substations or generation.

Company Closes on Debt Financing for CMEEC Microgrid-Ready Project

September 5, 2023

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
September 5, 2023

FuelCell Energy recently closed on a project debt financing transaction with Liberty Bank and Amalgamated Bank as senior lenders and the Connecticut Green Bank as subordinated lender for the company’s Connecticut Municipal Electric Energy Cooperative fuel cell microgrid-ready project.

The project, which is still under construction, will be located at the Naval Submarine Base New London, located in Groton, Connecticut.

Liberty Bank and Amalgamated Bank’s senior commitment totals $12 million with a seven-year term and Connecticut Green Bank’s commitment totals $8 million with a 20-year term.

CMEEC is a political subdivision of the State of Connecticut created in 1976.

It is a non-profit municipal joint action electric supply agency that provides the power supply requirements, at wholesale, of six municipal electric utilities with retail electric service territories in Connecticut as well as for other customers who purchase power at wholesale.

Its municipal electric utility members are Bozrah Light & Power, Jewett City Department of Public Utilities, Groton Utilities, Norwich Public Utilities, South Norwalk Electric and Water, and The Third Taxing District of Norwalk Electric Division.