Delmarva Sets Date for Solar Power Auction
Delmarva Power & Light Co. will accept applications for a Solar Renewable Energy Credit (SREC) Spot Market Auction through July 7. SRECs let renewable energy producers sell credits to Delmarva to help it meet its renewable mandates set by the state. Delmarva intends to buy 2,000 to 6,000 SRECs to help it meet its 2013-2014 renewable portfolio standards set by the state.
More: Renewables Biz;Delaware SREC Program
PSC Urges Cuts in Delmarva Reliability Plan
Public Service Commission staff said Delmarva Power & Light Co.’s planned reliability investments may shoot too high and suggested the company scale back some of the projects.
Delmarva proposed spending $397 million over the next five years upgrading its system and replacing aging infrastructure. But in a recently released report, PSC staff said they found that much of the Delmarva distribution system “is relatively young in terms of asset life” and that the company hadn’t shown “that its customers are dissatisfied with the current level of system reliability.”
The staff thinks Delmarva should limit its five-year investment plan to $200 million “until a more detailed annual review process can be completed.”
More: The News Journal
ILLINOIS
Integrys Energy Costs Higher than ComEd’s
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s deal with Integrys Energy Services to provide electricity to city homes and businesses could end up costing more than if customers had stayed with Commonwealth Edison, according Crain’s Chicago Business. A credit on ComEd bills for the months of June and July will lower electricity costs to less than 7.1 cents per kilowatt-hour. Prices negotiated for the 720,000 residences and businesses under Emanuel’s deal vary depending upon consumption. Under the Integrys plan, apartment dwellers would pay 8 cents per kilowatt-hour. The average homeowner would pay 9 cents in June and 7.8 cents in July. But the city has said that it could renegotiate terms if power prices turned out to be higher than ComEd’s.
More: Crain’s Chicago Business
Quinn, Clean Energy Trust Start $4.6 Million Renewable Fund
The Clean Energy Trust and Gov. Pat Quinn last week announced the creation of a revolving equity fund to stimulate investment in clean energy businesses in the state. “Illinois is a national leader in embracing green energy through innovation, and this fund will help us do even more,” Quinn said. The state Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity is putting up $2.3 million from federal funds, and the Clean Energy Trust is matching that.
The new fund will award convertible notes ranging from $100,000 to $500,000 to startups working on renewable energy, energy efficiency, smart grids or other energy-related projects. Any returns from the resulting projects will be re-invested into additional businesses. A panel of judges will listen to project pitches and award the grants.
More: The Chicago Tribune
MARYLAND
Bowie Gets Grant to Cut Energy Consumption
The Bowie City Council accepted a $92,000 grant from the Maryland Energy Administration on June 16 to help the city cut energy consumption and to develop a renewable energy policy. The award, part of the Maryland Smart Energy Community program, will help the city develop policies for a 15% cut in energy consumption within five years and meet a goal of using 20% renewable energy for government-owned buildings by 2022.
More: Capital Gazette
MICHIGAN
Chesapeake Energy Facing Racketeering Charges
The state attorney general filed felony racketeering charges last week against Chesapeake Energy Corp. related to what the state says was a fraudulent land lease scheme. Attorney General Bill Schuette said Chesapeake’s leasing agents entered into gas leases with landowners, and then backed out of the leases by falsely claiming that mortgages on the properties were a legitimate basis for cancellation.
Chesapeake, the second-largest natural gas producer in the U.S., allegedly entered into the gas leases in order to keep other gas producers from obtaining drilling rights during the state’s recent fracking boom. Chesapeake spokesman Gordon Pennoyer said all charges facing the company are “baseless allegations” and pledged to battle them in court.
In March, Schuette accused Chesapeake and rival Encana Corp of colluding to keep oil and gas lease prices artificially low in Michigan during the oil and gas rush in its Collingwood Shale region in 2010.
More: Reuters
NEW JERSEY
New Tax Structure Sends Benefits to Companies
The Board of Public Utilities is considering a change in tax policy that would align the state with most others, to the benefit of utilities. The issue concerns utility holding companies that file consolidated taxes not only for their utilities but also for other unregulated subsidiaries.
Consolidated income tax returns allow members of the company to take advantage of tax losses incurred by other businesses owned by the parent. Under current practice, customers received 100% less certain adjustments, making New Jersey one of only four states that allow losses to be returned to ratepayers.
Under the proposed change, 75% of any savings from consolidated filings would be returned to the companies, with only 25% going to ratepayers. Rate Counsel Director Stefanie Brand, however, is concerned with the proposed change in tax laws. “You want to share more with ratepayers, not less,” she said. “It could be where it’s going to get down to where ratepayers get very little, or nothing.”
More: NJSpotlight
NORTH CAROLINA
Duke Residential Customers to Pay More for Renewables
Duke Energy Progress wants to charge residential customers more for solar and other renewable energy than it would charge business customers, the company told the state Utilities Commission last week. Residential customers currently pay 20 cents per month for renewable energy – primarily from solar farms – but Duke wants to push that up to 83 cents per month beginning in December. The charge goes toward subsidies to independent power producers to cover the higher cost of that type of energy that Duke must buy under state-mandated standards.
While the cost to residential customers would go up under Duke’s plan, the cost to businesses would drop from $8.08 a month to $6.11 a month and from $29.68 a month to $24.56 a month for industrial customers. The cost changes are tied to annual caps set by state law. The annual caps for business and industrial customers stay the same for 2015, but the cap for residential customers will rise from $12 a year to $34 a year.
More: News & Observer
OHIO
AEP Starts Offering Natural Gas in Ohio
AEP Energy, American Electric Power’s competitive electric service provider, announced last week that it will begin offering natural gas in the state. AEP joins several other competitive natural gas suppliers in the Columbia Gas of Ohio service territory. “By offering natural gas together with electricity, AEP Energy now can provide Ohio residents with a full-service energy solution,” said Scott Slisher, an AEP executive.
More: Columbus Business First
OSU, Babcock & Wilcox Building Clean Coal Plant
Ohio State University and the engineering firm of Babcock & Wilcox are working together to develop a coal-fired power plant that incorporates carbon-capture technology. Funded by a $2.5 million federal grant, the team is planning to use a chemical process to capture carbon dioxide waste during the combustion process. The university’s College of Engineering has already constructed a pilot plant, which generates about 25 kW of thermal energy. It has already run for 680 hours. The planned unit will produce 550 MW.
More: Crain’s
PENNSYLVANIA
PUC’s Powelson Elected MACRUC President
Public Utility Commission Chairman Robert F. Powelson was sworn in as president of the Mid-Atlantic Conference of Regulatory Utilities Commissioners last week. “I’m thrilled to expand my role with MACRUC and continue to work toward advancement and uniformity of public utility regulation throughout the Mid-Atlantic region,” Powelson said. Powelson was appointed to the PUC in 2008 by then-Gov. Edward G. Rendell. He also is a member of the Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission and is former president of the Chester County Chamber of Business & Industry.
More: PUC
VIRGINIA
Candidate: Eliminate EPA Rules; Approve Keystone XL Pipeline
A former GOP strategist who is facing Sen. Mark Warner in November’s Senate election has proposed an energy plan that would eliminate the recent EPA emissions rules, allow more offshore oil and gas leases and push through the Keystone XL Pipeline, all in the name in economic growth. “Virginia should be a model for the rest of the nation in promoting ‘all-of-the-above’ energy policies,” GOP candidate Ed Gillespie said last week. “Technologies that have enabled the shale gas boom have unleashed enormous possibilities for the future, and the nation is positioned to become energy-independent for the first time ever. All that is lacking is national leadership.”
More: The Daily Progress