Entergy Gets PSC Approval for 20-Year PPA with NextEra Solar
The Public Service Commission has approved Entergy Arkansas’ request to enter into a 20-year power purchase agreement with NextEra Energy, which is building an 81-MW solar plant near Stuttgart. The facility, which will cover more than 400 acres, will be the largest solar project in the state.
Environmentalists applauded. “The Sierra Club is excited to welcome this large, home-grown, clean energy project to Arkansas,” said Glen Hooks, director of Sierra Club of Arkansas. “As Entergy is moving toward clean energy, they have also proposed shutting down one of its largest dirty coal-fired plants.”
The new solar production will reduce Entergy’s carbon footprint. “Both nuclear and solar provide emissions-free power and a natural hedge for energy price fluctuations due to uncertain environmental regulations and natural gas volatility,” Entergy Arkansas President and CEO Hugh McDonald said at the project’s announcement in the spring. The project is expected to be completed in 2019.
More: Sierra Club; Law360 (subscription required)
DELAWARE
Delmarva Customers to Save on Natural Gas
Delmarva Power and Light says its customers are getting a break on natural gas costs for the fifth straight year. Under new rates taking effect Nov. 1, the average residential customer will save nearly $17/month, it said.
According to the Energy Information Administration, the residential cost of natural gas in the state hasn’t been this low since 2004.
More: Delaware Public Media
INDIANA
Watchdog Group Says Utilities Scaling Back Energy Efficiency Standards
The Citizens Action Coalition says that utilities are scaling back their energy saving and energy efficiency programs in response to the state’s more relaxed conservation standards.
The state’s energy efficiency standard was replaced by Senate Bill 412, which calls for utilities to establish their own energy efficiency and demand-side management programs rather than meet strict state targets. CAC says the plans for Duke Energy Indiana and Northern Indiana Public Service Co. have set substantially lower targets. It says NIPSCO’s target has dropped from 339 GWh of energy savings to 114 GWh.
“Our fears are coming true or being confirmed,” CAC Executive Director Kerwin Olson said. “The legislation allows the utility companies to establish their own goals. It puts the utilities in the driver’s seat in terms of how much energy efficiency they’re going to do.”
More: Midwest Energy News
KANSAS
KCC Approves Westar Energy $78 Million Rate Hike
The Corporation Commission has approved a 4% rate hike for Westar Energy that will increase a typical monthly residential electrical bill by $5 to $7.
The Topeka utility fashioned an agreement with KCC staff, many of its largest industrial customers and the Citizens’ Utility Ratepayers Board. Last week, the commission voted unanimously to approve it.
The increase will generate an additional $78 million a year for Westar. The consumer board acknowledged that Westar was entitled to make customers pay for power plant upgrades to meet environmental mandates.
More: Associated Press
MANITOBA
Manitoba Hydro Unveils Minnesota Tx Line Route
Manitoba Hydro has revealed the planned route for a proposed $350 million transmission line that will link it to the Wisconsin Public Service Corp. grid. The line would run from northwest of Winnipeg to the Manitoba-Minnesota border.
Called the Manitoba-Minnesota Transmission Project, it is part of a deal in which Manitoba Hydro is selling 308 MW of hydro power capacity to WPSC.
More: CBC News
MARYLAND
Baltimore Customers Might Get Hit with Higher Rates
Baltimore’s Board of Estimates has more than tripled the rate for using city-owned underground conduit. The system’s largest user, Baltimore Gas & Electric, says it will try to pass those costs on to customers in higher rates.
Beginning Nov. 1, companies will have to pay an annual usage charge of $3.33/foot, up from 98 cents. BGE has said it will try to raise residential rates by $7 or $8 per month, and from $15 to $3,350 for businesses, depending on how much electricity they use.
The Baltimore Department of Transportation said the rate increase was necessary to repair the crumbling system, which was built in the early 1900s.
More: Baltimore Business Journal
Solar Co-ops a Growing Choice for Residents
A growing number of residents are joining solar cooperatives, which allow them to save money by buying rooftop solar systems in bulk.
Central Maryland is home to at least nine such groups, and 150 homeowners from the Baltimore area joined Retrofit Baltimore’s first co-op, leading it to open a second round of requests from residents in the City of Baltimore and Baltimore, Arundel and Howard counties.
According to the Community Power Network, which builds solar energy projects, a 9-kW system that normally would cost a homeowner about $31,000 can be purchased by a co-op for $13,000.
More: ABC2
BGE Natural Gas Leak Suspected in House Explosion
A suburban resident and a Baltimore Gas & Electric worker responding to a reported gas leak were injured after a house exploded and five other houses burned in Howard County on Wednesday.
The utility worker, who was responding to a suspected gas leak in an unoccupied house in Columbia, ordered the evacuation of surrounding homes moments before the vacant home exploded. The BGE employee was treated for minor burns and released. Fire officials said a resident of one of the damaged homes suffered respiratory problems and was taken to a nearby hospital.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Ira Gershman, who lives in an adjacent house. “It was like a bomb.” The cause of the explosion is under investigation.
More: The Baltimore Sun
MASSACHUSETTS
Attorney General Blasts DPU for Approving Pipelines too Quickly
State Attorney General Maura Healey is criticizing the Department of Public Utilities for approving three contracts for the Northeast Energy Direct pipeline “without knowing all the facts.”
In a letter to FERC, Healey complained that the agency approved requests by Boston Gas, Columbia Gas and Berkshire Gas for long-term capacity on the 188-mile pipeline without considering “the interrelationship of gas and electric markets” and conducting a “factual analysis of future demand.”
Meanwhile, advocacy group Northeast Energy Solutions has asked the Supreme Judicial Court to set aside a DPU order denying the organization’s ability to intervene as a full participant in hearings over the project. The group said the state agency failed to conduct a “fair and comprehensive” hearing. It joins the Pipeline Awareness Network of New England and the Conservation Law Foundation in taking legal action against the DPU.
Kinder Morgan subsidiary Tennessee Gas Pipeline wants to build the pipeline, which would run from Wright, N.Y., to Dracut, Mass. It is undergoing FERC review.
More: MassLive, Berkshire Eagle
MICHIGAN
3-Year Fracking Study Completed
A three-year look at fracking in the state shows that the public isn’t wholly convinced the practice is a good one.
Researchers from the University of Michigan say the oil and natural gas industry, and lawmakers and regulators, have a large job on their hands to convince voters to allow the practice to continue. There is a movement to ban fracking because of environmental and health concerns.
Officials from the Department of Environmental Quality said they will review the report and use it to help make decisions going forward.
More: Associated Press
Senators Want to Ban Oil Shipments on Great Lakes
The state’s U.S. senators, expressing concern about oil pipeline spills, have proposed legislation that would ban all crude oil transport vessels on the Great Lakes and would increase scrutiny of existing underwater pipelines.
Sens. Gary Peters and Debbie Stabenow, both Democrats, introduced the Pipeline Improvement and Preventing Spills Act, citing concern over the operation of the 62-year-old Enbridge pipeline under Lake Michigan, the site of a 2010 oil spill.
“This common-sense legislation will help us prevent an oil spill in the Great Lakes, whether it’s a tanker accident or a pipeline leak in the Straits of Mackinac,” Peters said. In addition to banning tanker transport on the Great Lakes, it would also designate the Great Lakes a “high consequence” area, calling for increased federal review and safety requirements for existing pipelines.
More: MLive
MINNESOTA
Utilities Try to Keep up with EV Owners’ Charging Needs
The number of electric vehicles in the state has more than doubled to 3,200 in recent years, and local communities are trying to figure out how to serve and capitalize on the growing market.
Governments are following retailers’ lead and locating electric vehicle charging stations at public facilities such as libraries, regional parks and transit stations, triggering a debate about how much to charge car owners to plug in.
“A lot of private agencies and local governments are struggling with that right now,” said Taud Hoopingarner, Dakota County’s operations management director. “The jury’s still out on what the appropriate rate is.”
More: Minneapolis Star Tribune
MISSOURI
Regulators Say New Data Gives Ameren Time to Model SO2
State regulators say they can’t tell if Ameren Missouri’s Labadie coal plant is violating air pollution standards and gave the utility more time to measure air quality before deciding whether to take action.
The Department of Natural Resources disclosed new data gathered by Ameren that caused the department to second-guess its models, which had suggested the plant was violating sulfur dioxide limits. Because of the discrepancy between Ameren’s data and state models, the department recommended calling the area “unclassifiable,” meaning that data might need to be collected for years before determining if the area is in violation of federal rules.
The Air Conservation Commission unanimously adopted DNR’s recommendation at its Sept. 24 meeting.
More: St. Louis Post-Dispatch
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Lower Electricity Prices this Winter
Electric distribution companies have started setting their winter energy service rates, and the first company out of the gate, Liberty Utilities, has proposed a residential rate of 9.2 cents/kWh from Nov. 1 to July 31, a 40% reduction from last winter’s rate of 15.4 cents.
Liberty serves about 6% of the retail customers in the state, mostly in the Salem-Derry area and Upper Valley. The lower rate means a Liberty residential customer using an average of 500 kWh in November will pay $46, compared to $77 in November of last year.
Eversource Energy, which serves 75% of the state’s residential customers, had the lowest rate of the state’s three regulated utilities last winter, at 10.56 cents/kWh.
More: New Hampshire Union Leader
Slowdown Urged for Eversource Plant Sale
The staff of the Public Utilities Commission says that the divestiture of Eversource Energy’s power plants would cost ratepayers money and should be put off for at least five years. An agreement earlier this year resolved several issues that have been pending between the PUC’s Electric Division and the state’s largest utility, such as who pays for $425 million worth of upgrades to the Eversource coal-fired plant in Bow. But changing conditions in the electricity market led the technical staff to suggest the projected savings have been overstated.
“We find that the customer savings as anticipated by Eversource and the settling parties are by no means clear and that the sale of Eversource generation assets at this time may actually burden ratepayers to a greater degree than maintaining the status quo,” according to an analysis by the PUC staff.
More: New Hampshire Union Leader
NORTH DAKOTA
Regulators Give Energy Industry 10 More Months to Cut Flaring
Recognizing that economic pressures have made it difficult to meet a strict deadline on capturing natural gas that is flaring from wells, regulators and the governor have given the energy industry another 10 months to cut their gas emissions from wellheads and other parts of the drilling and collecting apparatus by 85%.
Industry officials had argued that widespread adoption of the infrastructure needed to capture the escaping gas was almost impossible to complete by the original deadline. The new deadline is Nov. 1, 2016.
More: Reuters
OHIO
AEP Building 3.6-MW Solar Plant for Clyde
AEP Energy is building a 3.6-MW solar plant and has secured a 20-year agreement to sell the output to the municipal power system of Clyde.
The American Electric Power subsidiary said the Clyde Solar Energy Center will generate enough power to supply 550 residences. The plant, which will be built on 20 acres of city-owned land, is scheduled to be completed by the first half of 2016.
“The City of Clyde has been pursuing this zero emission project since 2011,” city officials said. “This is another major step toward that goal.”
More: AEP
PENNSYLVANIA
Bill Would Give Lancaster Farmers a Break
State Rep. David Zimmerman has proposed a bill that would prevent the Public Utility Commission from limiting how much power derived from methane systems could be sold to offset the cost of such systems.
The move stemmed from a debate over whether a state net-metering law requiring utilities to purchase excess power generated by small-scale wind and solar units is fair to the agricultural companies and their customers.
Utilities have complained that paying retail price for wholesale power will drive up the price of electricity. Energy companies also say that getting the power distributed onto the grid shifts costs from one consumer class to another. About 97% of the state’s net metering facilities are solar.
More: Lancaster Online
TEXAS
Austin City Council in Fight over Purchasing 600 MW of Solar
The Austin City Council is debating how Austin Energy will pay for 600 MW of solar power by 2017, nearly triple the amount of solar energy currently in the utility’s solar portfolio.
Austin Energy recommends that it should buy 200 to 300 MW of solar power this year through a power purchase agreement with a West Texas solar farm developer. That agreement could cost between $22.5 million and $33.2 million per year for a period between 15 to 25 years, and is paid for through a fuel charge on its customer’s bills.
After it adds 600 MW, Austin Energy would generate more of its power from the sun than any other utility in the state. The utility is set to generate 55% of its power from renewable sources by 2025.