Market Monitor Report: RGGI Prices Increasing
The Independent Market Monitor for the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative found no evidence of anti-competitive conduct in the CO2 allowance secondary market, according to its “Report on the Secondary Market for RGGI CO2 Allowances: Second Quarter 2015.”
Potomac Economics found the average CO2 allowance futures price was $5.53, 2% higher than in the first quarter and 19% higher than in the second quarter of 2014. Prices ranged between $5.30 and $5.60 from April until Auction 28 in early June, and then prices increased steadily during June and reached $5.80 at the end of the quarter.
The report addresses the period from April to June 2015. It is based on data reported to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Intercontinental Exchange, as well as other data.
More: Potomac Economics
INDIANA
Consumer Agency Objects to IPL’s Payments to Parent
The Office of Utility Consumer Counselor has asked regulators to deny Indianapolis Power & Light’s 5.6% rate hike request that would generate $68 million more per year, saying IPL deserves only a fraction of that — just $6 million more a year.
The state agency representing consumers alleges the utility has given lip service to asset management while sending $507 million in dividends to parent AES between 2010 and 2014. Since 2010 there have been 14 fires or explosions of IPL equipment, including some events that launched manhole covers into the air in crowded downtown Indianapolis.
The consumer advocate told the Utility Regulatory Commission it doesn’t think IPL has done enough to improve maintenance of its system. IPL countered that it has made numerous upgrades, including locks to keep manhole covers earthbound. IPL has not had a rate case since 1995.
More: Indianapolis Star
IOWA
Local Officials Shoot Down Black Hawk County Wind Project
The Black Hawk County Board of Adjustment last week rejected a proposed wind farm, citing residents’ concerns about health, decreased property values and dangers to wildlife.
An attorney for the project’s developers, Optimum Renewables, said there was no evidence that industrial turbines could endanger people or wildlife and said the harm to eagles and birds was exaggerated.
More: Associated Press
Co-op Rolls over on Solar Fee After Customers Complain
Pella Cooperative Electric is withdrawing its plan to charge customers with solar panels an extra $57.50/month after the plan touched off a firestorm of complaints. Pella notified the state Utilities Board that it was withdrawing the tariff it had filed earlier this year.
All Pella residential customers currently pay a $27.50 fixed monthly fee, and the co-op had wanted to increase that fee to $85 for solar customers. Pella maintained the fee was a fair way to assign costs of operating its system to users. “We have decided to withdraw the proposed increase on the facility charge for members who own or lease distributed generation until such time that we can better educate our members and the community as to the fair and equitable recovery of fixed costs,” it said.
Solar customers rejoiced. “It kinda made my day,” hog farmer Bryce Engbers said. He added he would have taken the solar arrays off his barns rather than pay the increased fee.
More: MidWest Energy News
LOUISIANA
PSC Approves Merger of 2 Entergy Subsidiaries
By a 4-1 vote, the Public Service Commission approved a merger of Entergy Louisiana and Entergy Gulf States Louisiana. Company officials said the merger of the Entergy subsidiaries will result in up to $140 million in consumer benefits over the next nine years, including $107 million in bill credits.
The lone dissent was Commissioner Foster Campbell, who said he thought it unfair that residents and customers in the northern part of Louisiana will now be charged to help repair equipment damaged by storms that hit the southern Gulf Coast side of the state included in the Entergy Gulf States service territory.
Entergy Louisiana has about 700,000 customers. Entergy Gulf States Louisiana has about 400,000 electric and 93,000 gas customers.
More: The News Star
MINNESOTA
Xcel Energy Dragging Feet on Community Solar
Despite prodding from the state Commerce Department, Xcel Energy has approved just one community solar garden project, which has not yet been built.
The state issued a 2013 mandate to encourage development of community solar. Utility companies need to review and approve each proposed solar facility, and Xcel is currently reviewing 1,100 solar facilities.
Sunrise Energy Ventures, a Minnetonka-based solar developer, complained to state regulators about Xcel’s delay in approving its proposal. SunShare, another community solar developer, and Sunrise each have submitted plans to build 100 MW of solar gardens that collectively would serve more than 30,000 Xcel customers.
More: Star Tribune
NEW JERSEY
Borough Introduces Ordinance Banning Unregulated Pipelines
The Borough Council of Bloomingdale has introduced an ordinance that would prohibit unregulated pipelines from being built or operated in the borough, a move to discourage the Pilgrim Pipeline from locating within municipal boundaries.
The borough and its residents have been actively fighting construction of the proposed Pilgrim Pipeline, a dual, 178-mile petroleum pipeline that would carry crude oil from a rail terminal in Albany, N.Y., southward to a refinery in Linden, N.J., and refined products back to Albany. The pipeline would replace Hudson River barges, which now move most of those products.
As a petroleum pipeline, the Pilgrim project is not subject to approval by FERC.
More: The Record
OHIO
State Reports Record Oil and Gas Production
Shale wells in the state produced record amounts of oil and natural gas in the second quarter of this year, the state Department of Natural Resources reported last week.
The state reported that more than 10 million barrels of oil and 405 billion cubic feet of natural gas were produced. During the same period in 2014, wells produced about 4.4 million barrels of oil and 156 billion cubic feet of natural gas.
More: WKYC
PENNSYLVANIA
Clean Air Council Suing Sunoco over Eminent Domain Use
The environmental group Clean Air Council is suing the developers of a planned 350-mile natural gas liquids pipeline in the state in an attempt to block it from invoking eminent domain to gain access to properties owned by uncooperative landowners.
The group argues that Sunoco Logistics Partners, developers of the planned Mariner East 2 pipeline, is not a public utility corporation and cannot invoke eminent domain. But the Public Utility Commission has ruled that the partnership’s subsidiary, Sunoco Pipeline, is a public utility, which Sunoco maintains gives it the authority to acquire easements through eminent domain.
More: StateImpact