Naperville Muni Showing $13.2 Million Shortfall
Naperville’s municipal power provider has a $13.2 million shortfall, officials said. Since 2011, according to records, Naperville’s energy costs have exceeded projections every year, and by as much as 16% during fiscal 2014.
Much of the overrun can be traced to the utility’s membership in the Illinois Municipal Electric Agency and the assumed costs from the problem-plagued Prairie State Energy Campus. IMEA owns 15% of the project, which is expected to cost $4 billion and has experienced 25% in construction-cost overruns. Naperville and other IMEA members are paying a share of the overruns each month.
Former Naperville Councilman Bob Fieseler said the project’s costs add about $5 to every monthly residential electric bill.
More: Chicago Tribune (registration required)
INDIANA
Consumer Advocate Comes out Against Vectren’s Energy Efficiency Plan
The Utility Consumer Counselor is opposing Vectren’s proposal to boost rates to pay for its energy efficiency program, saying it would result in higher customer charges than are necessary.
UCC spokesman Anthony Swinger said Vectren already makes enough to fund the program without charging customers. Vectren proposed charging $1.10/month for residential customers to fund the program. Vectren said the program encourages energy conservation and affects the company’s bottom line.
More: Associated Press
LOUISIANA
Low Energy Prices to Sap State’s Economic Growth
Low energy prices will stunt the state’s economy over the next two years, although massive industrial projects will help drive job gains in the Baton Rouge and Lake Charles areas, according to an economic forecast released last week.
“Louisiana Economic Outlook: 2016 and 2017” projects that the state will add 15,400 jobs in 2016 and 19,600 in 2017. “Normally these numbers would be a lot better except for what’s going on in the oil patch,” said economist Loren Scott, co-author of the report.
The economic forecast also says new federal ozone rules could raise electricity rates so much that Baton Rouge may not be able to compete for new industry. Scott said the narrowing gap between the price of natural gas in the U.S. versus Europe and Asia may also slow industrial growth.
More: The Advocate
MARYLAND
Gov. Hogan Shaking Up Energy Administration
Environmentalists fear Gov. Larry Hogan’s administration is retreating from the previous Democratic administration’s support of renewable energy and energy efficiency after he shook up the state’s Energy Administration last week by firing two senior managers and moving the agency’s headquarters from Annapolis to Baltimore. The Republican also stated his opposition to raising rates to pay for energy efficiency efforts.
“The administration’s apparent hostility toward nationally recognized energy efficiency programs in this state is deeply troubling,” said Mike Tidwell, executive director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network. “The No. 1 way to lower ratepayers’ bills is to invest in efficiency.”
A Hogan spokesman brushed off the concerns. “The governor and the director are 100% committed to continuing the great work the agency does,” spokesman Doug Mayer said. “This administration is against raising fees.”
More: The Baltimore Sun
PSC Appoints 2 to Staff Positions
The Public Service Commission has promoted Dan Hurley to director of the energy analysis and planning division and hired Tori Leonard as director of communications.
Hurley will oversee the agency’s energy efficiency and conservation programs, smart grid implementation and the state’s new renewable energy portfolio standard. Leonard will manage communications, media relations and social media.
Hurley, who joined the PSC in 2006 as a regulatory economist, has been an assistant director in the department since 2009. Leonard was the public relations manager at Rosborough Communications, working with the firm’s transportation clients.
More: Maryland Public Service Commission
MASSACHUSETTS
Energy Secretary: Pilgrim’s Loss Means Time to Look at Hydro
Entergy’s decision to shut down its Pilgrim nuclear generating station will leave the state looking for other ways to meet federal and state clean energy goals, and Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Matthew Beaton said Canadian hydropower could help.
The loss of Pilgrim is significant, he said. “It’s a big step back in meeting our Global Warming Solutions [Act] targets because it was over 80% of the clean energy we had to help us towards our clean energy goals,” Beaten said, “making it all the more important to see the other policy solutions we are pursuing actually happen.”
He said it may be possible to import hydropower from Quebec, an option explored by Gov. Charlie Baker.
More: Boston Herald
MICHIGAN
25 Coal Plants Set to Retire by 2020
Power producers are set to retire 25 coal-fired plants in the state by 2020, citing aging equipment and increasing environmental restrictions.
Coal currently provides more than 50% of the state’s electricity supply. Industry experts expect the state to replace the lost coal power by importing power through the regional grid and from new construction of gas-fired and renewable sources.
Under the Clean Power Plan, Michigan must reduce carbon emissions by 39% from 2012 levels by 2030. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the state is on course to reach a 17% reduction by 2020. In September 2016, officials will be asked to hand over a plan detailing how the state will comply with the new regulations.
More: Detroit Free Press
State is on Track to Meet Energy Mandates
The state is on target to meet mandates set in 2008 to generate about 10% of its energy from renewable sources.
Gov. Rick Snyder outlined a renewable energy plan in March, encouraging the state to meet up to 40% of its power demand through “energy waste reduction, increased use of natural gas and renewable energy sources.”
According to the Public Service Commission, almost half of the state’s renewable energy comes from wind, 17% from landfill gas and solid waste and about 10% from hydroelectric. Solar power represents less than 1%.
More: Detroit Free Press
MISSOURI
AG Koster says State will Join CPP Lawsuit
Attorney General Chris Koster, who is running for governor, says he will join more than a dozen other states in suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to challenge rules imposing targets on states to reduce carbon emissions.
The state’s utilities, including Ameren Missouri, had urged Koster to join the mostly Republican-led states fighting the rules. Koster, the only Democrat in the state’s governor’s race, has sued EPA over other recent regulations, including the controversial “Waters of the United States” rule strongly opposed by large agricultural interests.
Koster made the announcement during a speech at a meeting of rural electric cooperative members in Branson. He argued that the state’s businesses rely on lower-cost energy and that costs would rise under EPA’s rules, which would force the state to shift its heavy reliance on coal power to renewables and natural gas.
More: St Louis Post-Dispatch
MONTANA
PSC Cuts NorthWestern’s Ability to Raise Rates to Make Up for EE
The Public Service Commission voted 5-0 to rescind a mechanism that had allowed NorthWestern Energy to raise rates to make up for demand lost because of energy efficiency programs. Commissioner Roger Koopman called the Lost Revenue Adjustment Mechanism “one of the worst ideas policymakers have ever come up with.”
Commissioner Kirk Bushman said, “It just doesn’t make sense for public policy to allow an electric company to encourage their customers to save money on their monthly bill by conserving energy, and then turn around and increase electricity rates on everybody to recover that lost revenue.”
The PSC ruling will reduce NorthWestern’s collections from state customers by about $12.7 million next year. The policy was put into effect in 2005 to compensate NorthWestern for reduced sales attributed to state mandated energy conservation programs.
More: Associated Press
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Committee Seeks Evaluation Revisions
A legislative committee instructed the Site Evaluation Committee, the state body responsible for issuing certificates to energy facilities, to revise key sections of its proposed rules for new projects such as the Northern Pass transmission line and the Kinder Morgan natural gas pipeline.
The legislators worked for three years with stakeholders to develop the new rules, which are opposed by energy industry and business representatives and generally supported by the environmental community.
But it’s still unclear if the Site Evaluation Committee will impose the new rules on the Northern Pass transmission project or the Kinder Morgan Northeast Energy Direct pipeline along the state’s southern boundary, according to Pamela Monroe, the committee’s administrator. Both projects have attracted opposition.
More: New Hampshire Union Leader
NEW JERSEY
Offshore Wind Power Firm Regroups to Win Project
Fishermen’s Energy, a firm that wants to put five windmills about 3 miles off the coast of Atlantic City, will cut ties with its Chinese turbine partner and revamp its plan after learning that the state Supreme Court won’t hear its appeal of regulators’ numerous rejections.
Instead of using turbines from the Xiangtan Electric Manufacturing Group, whose financial condition did not meet regulators’ standards, the company will build a demonstration facility using turbines from German manufacturer Siemens.
The U.S. Department of Energy pledged up to $47 million for the project in May 2014, but the Board of Public Utilities declined to approve it, saying the project would need at least $100 million in federal subsidies to proceed. The wind farm, which developers are promoting as a pilot project, would generate an estimated 25 MW of power.
More: Associated Press
NEW MEXICO
Commission Hearing for San Juan Plant Begins
The Public Regulation Commission last week began a protracted hearing on the future of the coal-fired San Juan Generating Station. The hearing, which could last up to two weeks, will examine an agreement that plant co-owner and operator Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM) signed in August with environmental groups, the Attorney General’s office and the commission’s staff. The agreement would shut down two of the plant’s four generating units.
The agreement provides for a new PRC review of San Juan in 2018 to determine whether the remaining two units should be shut down after 2022, when the current partnership among plant co-owners expires and PNM’s coal supply contract ends. PNM also agreed to lower ratepayer costs for nuclear energy to replace lost coal generation and to support more renewable energy development.
New Energy Economy, an environmental pressure group, is opposed to the agreement and advocates the immediate closure of more San Juan units and the procurement of more solar and wind generation.
More: Albuquerque Journal
NEW YORK
Long Island Solar Energy Booming
Installations of new residential and commercial solar systems on Long Island in 2015 are set to eclipse sales of the previous eight years combined.
The market has been driven by falling system prices, an influx of aggressive national leasing companies, generous state and federal subsidies, and frustration with Long Island’s high electricity rates that are set to rise again next year, experts say.
The growth of solar is “staggering,” said Carlo Lanza, chairman of the Long Island Solar Energy Industry Association, a business group. Local solar employment has almost doubled in two years, to at least 2,500 workers, the group estimates. “What we always dreamed of seeing happen here is coming to fruition,” Lanza said.
More: Newsday
NORTH CAROLINA
Duke Disputes ‘Tenacious’ Solar Opponent Label
An environmental group says Duke Energy’s gains in solar energy come at the expense of competing producers who want to participate in the solar revolution.
Duke says it has helped elevate the state to become the nation’s No. 4 producer of solar power and is installing photovoltaic facilities in a number of other states. But an advocacy group says Duke has worked with lawmakers to try to reduce subsidies for competing private solar projects.
Environment North Carolina, in a report titled “Blocking the Sun,” charges that Duke’s support of solar “only extends … to solar panels the utility owns and that deliver profits to its balance sheet.” A Duke spokesman dismissed the report as a “rehash of a lot of previous anti-utility reports and news accounts.”
More: Charlotte Business Journal; Duke Energy
NORTH DAKOTA
PSC Reports the Use of Renewables Rising
Public Service Commission Chairman Julie Fedorchak reported last week that more than 16% of the retail electricity sold in the state in 2014 came from renewable sources (2.6 million MWh out of 16 million MWh).
The state exported more than half of the 36 million MWh of electricity it produced in 2014, which included about 27 million MWh of coal-fired energy and 8.8 million MWh of renewable energy, mostly wind power. Fedorchak said the state’s carbon dioxide emissions have dropped by more than 15% since 2002.
The PSC filed comments opposing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed Clean Power Plan, saying the rule is uneconomic, uses unrealistic assumptions and violates the Federal Power Act that gives states decision-making authority over their power supply.
More: North Dakota Public Service Commission
VIRGINIA
Rare Salamander Could Derail Pipeline Route
The $5 billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline could be held up by 5 inches — the length of the Cow Knob salamander, which inhabits a protected area of the George Washington National Forest, in the path of the proposed project.
The salamander and its rocky, forested habitat are protected under a federal pact struck in 1994 aimed at maintaining the amphibian’s numbers so that it wouldn’t wind up on the endangered species list.
Currently, 5.5 miles of the 564-mile pipeline would run through the creatures’ home. Lead project partner Dominion Resources said it is evaluating its options and plans to meet with forest officials to discuss how the sensitive habitat could be avoided.
More: Culpeper Star Exponent
WEST VIRGINIA
State to Woo Shale-Related Businesses
The state has joined Pennsylvania and Ohio in an agreement to work together to attract shale-related industry to the region, home to the most productive natural gas basins in the country, the Marcellus and Utica shales.
The effort was announced at a summit last week aimed at promoting cross-state efforts to woo manufacturers and petrochemical plants. The forum featured speakers who outlined focus areas such as interstate pipeline siting, public projects to store natural gas liquids and workforce training.
The states plan to bring together government, industry and economic development voices for more discussion.
More: TribLive