PORTLAND, Maine — ISO-NE on Thursday continued its decade-long tradition of taking its show on the road — this time to Maine — to hear from the region’s residents and share with them the latest activities at the RTO.

Last week’s Consumer Liaison Group (CLG) meeting drew about 100 participants and featured state energy officials, environmental advocates and the energy analytics manager for a leading university.

CLG Coordinating Committee Chair Rebecca Tepper, chief of the Energy and Telecommunications Division at the Massachusetts attorney general’s office, said December’s meeting in Boston will mark the 10th anniversary of the group.

Here is some of what we heard.

As Goes Maine

Dan Burgess, director of Maine Gov. Janet Mills’ Energy Office, talked about a number of legislative measures that marked the first half-year of Mills’ first term.

Describing the energy challenges facing the state, Burgess noted that more than 70% of Mainers are dependent on fuel oil to heat their homes and that they drive 1,000 miles more per year than the national average, with transportation accounting for 54% of emissions.

He said a state bill (LD 1679) to establish the Maine Climate Council saw “broad bipartisan support” in the legislature and that an act to reform Maine’s renewable portfolio standard (LD 1494) was a particular success.

“For years, Maine lagged behind the five other [New England] states in RPS targets, flatlining at 10%, but now tops the chart with an RPS goal of 80% by 2035,” Burgess said. The ultimate goal is 100% of electricity to be generated from renewable resources by 2050.

Among the other bills in the state mentioned by Burgess:

• LD 1844 directs the Public Utilities Commission to evaluate the ownership of the state’s power delivery systems, with the first report-back due in March 2020.
• LD 1231 funds energy-efficiency programs through a fee on the sale of unregulated heating fuels.
• LD 1711 promotes solar energy projects and distributed generation resources.
• LD 1766 boosts the heat pump market to save residents money and reduce energy consumption.

Michael Stoddard, executive director of Efficiency Maine Trust, presented an overview of his agency’s work on energy efficiency, including how the state will spend $8 million from the Volkswagen settlement for both electric vehicle rebates and charging infrastructure.

Energy Security and More

Anne George, ISO-NE’s vice president for external affairs and corporate communications, spoke on several topics, including work on the RTO’s Energy Security Improvements (ESI) initiative and the RTO’s preparations for Forward Capacity Auction 14, scheduled for February 2020.

FERC last month granted a six-month extension for the RTO to file its long-term energy security plan, giving the grid operator until April 15, 2020, to complete additional scenario analysis and fully develop the conceptual framework for market power mitigation, she said. (See FERC Extends ISO-NE Fuel Security Filing Deadline.)

She listed off replacement energy reserves, generation contingency reserves and energy imbalance reserves as the three new market options, and she said that stakeholders also are considering a multiday-ahead market and a seasonal forward market.

“We have been focused on these energy options, which are really geared towards preparing the ISO and the region to operate the system … and move those ahead into the day-ahead energy market,” George said.

She also mentioned the RTO’s public meeting scheduled for Thursday in Boston to discuss its Regional System Plan (RSP), which focuses on moving forward as the electric grid evolves to adapt to a changing resource mix. (See New England Officials Speak on Grid Transformation.)

Emissions Reporting

ISO-NE will be asking FERC to approve an operating budget for next year of $174.2 million, about 3% higher than this year, or approximately $1.02/month per consumer in the region, she said.

Preparatory work for FCA 14 is on schedule and the RTO anticipates a November filing with FERC of its auction-related determinations and calculations.

Asked about delays in the federal permitting of offshore wind projects, particularly the 1,200-MW Vineyard Wind project off Martha’s Vineyard, George said that “a potential delay in any of these resources could affect the energy security of the region. But that’s something that we see several years out, and hopefully the studies continue to move forward and those resources start to get developed.”

“It’s a matter of making sure that our markets are providing the right incentives, these resources are getting developed, and then we’re into a system where we don’t see this being a reliability risk,” George said.

Michael Macrae, energy analytics manager at Harvard University, joined the event via telephone and spoke on improving the RTO’s emissions reporting, especially marginal emissions rates.

“I work for Harvard University, and many of the various roles that I’ve played there have done a lot of carbon accounting for how Harvard thinks about its operational strategy for our carbon-neutrality goals,” Macrae said. “In doing so, one of the core, fundamental pieces of that is understanding what do the power system emissions look like.”

After “diving way deep down in the weeds” of the RTO’s data, Macrae said he found two problems, the first of which is that energy imports are excluded from its system greenhouse gas emissions accounting.

“Problem No. 2 is more nuanced, in that ISO-NE overestimates the contribution of marginal units in small, local export-constrained areas,” he said.

Macrae said the RTO could manage the first challenge by incorporating emissions associated with energy imported from New York and Canada. And it could address the second by adopting its Internal Market Monitor’s methodology for reporting marginal emissions based on a unit’s contribution to system load.

Carbon Pricing

Jordan Stutt, carbon programs director at the Acadia Center, presented on the environmental advocacy group’s thinking on regional efforts to price carbon, noting that “we are seeing a better effort to not just track, but to account for carbon emissions.”

Through the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, Stutt said, 16.4% of New England CO2 emissions are subject to a carbon price.

“When we consider that the RGGI price is $5.77/metric ton, and the social cost of carbon is $50/metric ton, you can see that we only account for 1.9% of the cost of CO2 emissions in New England,” Stutt said.

He highlighted the Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI), a regional collaboration of 12 Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states and D.C. that aims to improve transportation, develop clean energy and reduce carbon emissions from the transportation sector.

“We’re hopeful that by the end of the year, there will be a memorandum of understanding, possibly a model rule that tells what that program will look like,” Stutt said.

NYISO and PJM are looking to incorporate the full cost of carbon emissions into their wholesale energy markets, he said, with New York’s plan expected to be presented to FERC later this year, he said.

“In six New England states, at least one carbon pricing bill was filed in 2019 in each of those states, and those bills have a variety of content, coverage and support,” Stutt said.

“Some of those are just study bills at this point, others are full-fledged policies. Some are economy-wide, while others would exempt certain sectors,” he said.

Stutt noted that the Massachusetts bill (H.1726) filed by state Rep. Jen Benson exempts the electric sector, while a Rhode Island bill (S.0417) nets out the cost of RGGI allowances “similar to the NYISO carbon pricing plan.”

– Michael Kuser