Talen Energy, the merchant generation company formed by spinning off much of PPL’s generating assets and combining it with those of Riverstone Holdings, began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on June 2. The company issued shares at $20 but ended its first day at the $18.50 mark.
Trading under the symbol TLN, Talen has only hovered around $19/share through its first two weeks of trading and experienced a dip on Thursday and Friday to close out last week, finishing at $18.13/share. The company is now one of the country’s largest merchant generators, with about 15,000 MW in its fleet. Most of the assets are in PJM, along with some in ERCOT. To allay concerns from competitors, the company agreed to divest about 1,300 MW in PJM in a settlement with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
More: TheStreet
Amazon Turning to Solar to Power Its Data Centers
Amazon.com announced that it is partnering with Community Energy Inc. to build an 80-MW solar farm in Virginia to help power its data centers in the state.
The $200 million solar farm, to be built on the Eastern Shore’s Accomack County, will be called Amazon Solar Farm U.S. East and should be operating by October 2016. When completed, the 250,000-panel solar farm will increase the state’s solar capacity by a factor of five. Virginia currently ranks 30th in the U.S. for solar capacity.
Amazon says it eventually wants to use renewable energy to power all its data centers.
More: Richmond Times Dispatch
DTE to Drop Renewable Energy Surcharge, Reducing Rates $15M Annually
DTE Electric has proposed dropping a 43-cent/month customer surcharge that pays for renewable energy.
Under changes in the utility’s renewable energy plan filed early this month with the Michigan Public Service Commission, DTE said the request would reduce electric rates by a total of $15 million a year. DTE also said it will be in compliance with Michigan’s renewable portfolio standard requiring electric utilities to supply 10% of their power from renewable sources.
Parent DTE Energy has a 1,000-MW renewable portfolio that it acquired from Michigan developers. DTE began assessing the renewable surcharge in 2009. Last year it reduced the charge to 43 cents from $3.
Meanwhile, DTE said it will explore the potential of a voluntary pilot program for customers who want to pay for more than 10% of their electricity from renewables.
More: FierceEnergy
Xcel Tones down Texas Rate Request
Xcel Energy’s Southwestern Public Service last week scaled back its rate-increase request in Texas by nearly $23 million.
SPS last year filed for an annual revenue increase of $64.8 million, or 6.7%. On June 10, SPS revised its request to $42 million, or 4.4%. A number of interveners have been pressuring regulators for a rate decrease and in May the Public Utility Commission of Texas staff recommended a decrease of $2.6 million.
SPS is also seeking a waiver of PUCT’s post-test year adjustment rule, which would allow the company to include $392 million additional capital investment for the July-December 2014 period.
More: Xcel Energy
Duke Ordered to Stop Groundwater Contamination from Coal Ash Site
North Carolina environmental regulators ordered Duke Energy to stop one of its retired coal-fired power plant sites from polluting groundwater after tests showed heavy metals in nearby drinking water wells. The contamination, including boron, was found in three wells near the retired Sutton Steam Plant near Wilmington, N.C. Boron is an indicator of coal ash contamination.
The state gave Duke until July 9 to stop the spread of the contamination at the Sutton site. If it can’t, it could face further fines than the $25 million the state has already assessed the company in relation to leaching from the plant’s coal ash basin. Duke is appealing the fine. The company also recently reached a $102 million settlement with federal regulators concerning coal ash spills relating to the January 2014 spill at the Dan River.
North Carolina has hired a private law firm to assist it in its ongoing cases against Duke. “It is evident that Duke Energy is choosing to spend its virtually limitless legal resources to fight fines for clearly documented groundwater contamination stemming from its coal ash impoundments near the Sutton plant,” said Sam Hayes, general counsel for the state environmental department.
More: Associated Press
Fallout Grows Following Accusations Dynegy Manipulated MISO Auction
At least 16 stakeholders have filed notices at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to intervene in a request by a consumer group and the Illinois Attorney General for an investigation into whether Dynegy illegally manipulated MISO’s Planning Resource Auction last April.
The Illinois AG and the group Public Citizen Inc. point to a nine-fold price increase resulted in Zone 4, which includes much of downstate Illinois. (See Public Citizen to FERC: Investigate Dynegy Role.) Among those filing to intervene at FERC is the Illinois Citizens Utility Board, a public advocacy group that this week claimed that electric bills for downstate Illinois customers rose more than 10%.
Dynegy says it followed all the auction rules and the results were verified by an independent monitor.
More: Post-Dispatch
Opponents to Exelon’s Medway Generating Plant Air Concerns at Meeting
Exelon Generation’s plan to build a two-unit, 195-MW generating station in the Boston suburb of West Medway drew opponents last week at a public information meeting.
Exelon plans to build the natural gas-fired units on the existing 94-acre site of the West Medway Generating Station, a three-unit, oil-fired 117-MW peaking station built by Boston Edison following the 1965 East Coast blackout. The oil-fired units only run about 100 hours a year, but the new gas-fired generators would operate about 14 hours a day.
Several residents said they were concerned about the plant’s needs for cooling water. According to the company, the units would need 97,000 to 197,000 gallons of cooling water each day. This would come at a time, said resident Brian Adams, when he and his neighbors “are told every day that we can’t water our lawns.”
More: Milford Daily News
Invenergy’s Proposed Jessup Plant Opponents Meet with Gov. Wolf
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf listened to the concerns of a small group of residents who are worried about Invenergy’s plans to build a 1,500-MW combined-cycle natural-gas plant in the Northeastern town of Jessup.
Four members of Citizens for a Healthy Jessup said the plant is being pushed through the siting and permitting process too quickly. They also expressed concerns that the plans for the plant seem to change. Wolf didn’t offer his own position on the plant.
Invenergy announced the project last November and said the site’s proximity to both the new Susquehanna-Roseland transmission line and shale gas supplies made it an attractive location. It was originally proposed to be a 1,300-MW facility. If built, it would be the state’s second-largest natural gas-fired plant, after PPL’s 1,722-MW Martins Creek plant in Northampton County.
More: Times-Tribune
Dominion Questions Zoning Ordinance’s Effect on Proposed Virginia Wind Energy Facility
Dominion Virginia Power is concerned that a proposed local zoning ordinance would create roadblocks to its proposed wind energy facility near Bluefield, Va. Dominion wants to build an industrial-sized wind farm on 2,600 acres it purchased near East River Mountain in 2009.
Opponents say the wind-turbine towers would ruin the view. Dominion, in a letter to Tazewell County officials, said that a recent proposed zoning ordinance change that would limit industrial expansion in the area, coupled with an existing tall structure ordinance, “significantly deters wind development” in the area.
County officials think the zoning issue could spell the end of the project. “This ordinance in my opinion is a death blow to that project,” said Charles Stacy, a member of the board of supervisors in Tazewell County’s Eastern District.
More: Bluefield Daily Telegraph
Options Limited for County Opposed to Dominion Tx Line Proposal
Orange County, Va., is considering making an attempt to block a proposed 230-kV transmission line between two rural areas near Culpeper, but the county attorney says little can be done to stop it.
Dominion Virginia Power has proposed running the line between Remington and Pratt, but local opponents fear the line would detract from the area’s scenic beauty. The alliance asked Orange County officials to see if there was a way to block the project.
County Attorney Tom Lacheney said last week that a review of existing laws and ordinances seems to indicate that Dominion will probably be successful in its attempts to build the line.
More: Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star
Duke Energy to Introduce ‘Swine Waste’ Gas into Plants’ Fuel Stream
Duke Energy has applied to the North Carolina Utilities Commission to buy gas produced from Midwestern swine farms for two of its North Carolina plants in order to comply with a state biofuel mandate.
Duke and other power producers say there are insufficient in-state supplies of gas produced from swine waste to comply with a state law, which mandates that 0.07% of energy be derived from pig manure. The mandate steps up to 0.2% by 2020.
The fuel would come from hog farms in Missouri and Oklahoma, where manure and other waste is deposited in a digester, which then collects the gas. The fuel would be used at Duke’s Dan River combined-cycle plant near Eden and its Buck combined-cycle plant near Salisbury.
More: Charlotte Business Journal
Eight Utilities Joining Together to Form Emergency Equipment Stockpile
Eight U.S. utility companies are forming a consortium called Grid Assurance to stockpile large transformers, circuit breakers and other special equipment so they are available for emergencies. The venture will help the companies to more economically meet a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission mandate to have vital backup equipment available.
“Restoration of the transmission grid can be hampered by long lead times required to design, build and deliver” such equipment, one of the companies, American Electric Power, said in a statement. “Subscribers can call on equipment when they experience … physical attacks, electromagnetic pulses, solar storms, cyberattacks, earthquakes and severe weather events,” it said. The equipment would be stored at warehouses throughout the country.
In addition to AEP, the other companies in the program are Berkshire Hathaway Energy, Duke Energy, Edison International, Eversource Energy, Exelon, Great Plains Energy and Southern Co.
More: Columbus Dispatch