Dominion Resources announced Monday that it is buying the Utah-based natural gas distributor Questar for $4.4 billion in cash in a deal aimed at expanding its gas business into the West.
Dominion said it expects to complete the acquisition by the end of the year. The company also said it would be assuming Questar’s approximately $1.31 billion in long- and short-term debt.
Like Duke Energy, which announced in October it would purchase Piedmont Natural Gas, Dominion expects the value of natural gas to increase as more and more states switch to the fuel for electric generation in order to meet state and federal emissions mandates.
It is Dominion’s latest big natural gas play. The company is one of the majority owners of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline project, a $5 billion, 550-mile pipeline that would bring natural gas from the shale fields in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio to markets and terminals in Virginia and North Carolina. It also has invested $3.8 billion to convert its liquefied natural gas import terminal at Cove Point, Md., on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay into an export facility.
More: Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
GPI Names Bilek to Govt. Affairs and Communications
Amanda Bilek, who has held various positions at the Great Plains Institute since 2008, will become the director of government affairs and communications for the energy think tank.
“I look forward to the challenge of ensuring that our government affairs and communications efforts enhance the impact of our programs,” she said.
“Amanda’s extensive legislative and policy experience coupled with her management and communications skills make her a perfect fit for this new role,” said GPI President Rolf Nordstrom.
More: Great Plains Institute
Invenergy Cuts Deal to Sell Wind Energy to Google
Invenergy announced it has signed a deal with Google to provide the Internet giant with 225 MW of wind energy. Craig Gordon, Invenergy’s vice president of sales and marketing, said the power will be generated at the company’s proposed wind facility near Lubbock, Texas, and will be transmitted through SPP to Google’s energy-hungry data centers.
“They are always looking to partner up with folks like us to green up their energy supply,” Gordon said. “Their needs are growing by leaps and bounds every year, and as a result their energy needs are growing by leaps and bounds every year.” A price was not disclosed.
The agreement is part of a plan Google announced in December to partner with six companies in the U.S., Sweden and Chile to obtain 842 MW of clean energy.
More: Chicago Tribune
Duke Starts Coal Ash Removal from Riverbend Steam Station
Duke Energy began loading coal ash from its retired Riverbend Steam Station in Gaston County, N.C., using a rail spur it had built for the purpose. The company said each train can carry as much coal ash as 420 dump trucks, alleviating some of the community’s traffic concerns.
Riverbend, on the Catawba River, was retired in 2013, but the coal ash dump there is one of four high-priority sites that have to be cleaned up by 2019. Duke says it will clean up all its coal ash sites by 2029.
More: WSOC TV
Montana Co-ops May Be Facing $5B Bill to Comply with CPP
Montana’s electric cooperatives will likely share in a $5 billion bill to comply with the federal Clean Power Plan, officials said recently.
The $5 billion is what Basin Electric Power Cooperative, an SPP member, estimates it will need to cut greenhouse gases from its coal-fired power plants while also adding wind farms and gas-fired generators as replacement energy sources.
More: Billings Gazette
Basin Electric Growth Rate Projected to Drop to 1.4% Annually
Basin Electric Power Cooperative forecasts new load will increase 1,350 MW over the next 20 years, 739 MW lower than its forecast last year.
The forecast projects a 1.4% annual growth rate across Basin’s membership, down from the previous year’s estimate of 2.5 to 2.9% annually. The cancelled Keystone XL pipeline and oil price fluctuations account for much of the difference.
The load forecast show Basin Electric’s service area growing at twice the rate of the rest of the U.S., even with oil prices at 12-year lows.
More: Basin Electric Power Cooperative
PNM Opens 3rd Solar Facility This Year, Adding 9.5 MW
Public Service Company of New Mexico opened a 9.5-MW solar facility south of Santa Fe, its 15th in the state.
The 40,000-panel solar center is part of the utility’s much debated and critiqued energy portfolio, 15% of which is required by the state to be derived from renewable sources.
In December, the state Public Regulation Commission approved PNM’s plan to close two of four coal-burning units at the aging San Juan Generating Station and replace that power with energy from nuclear and natural gas plants, additional coal power and some solar energy.
More: The Santa Fe New Mexican
Nonprofit Says PNM Broke Law with 64-MW Palo Verde Purchase
An advocacy group is fighting a requested rate increase by Public Service Company of New Mexico, which it says quietly purchased a 64-MW share of the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station in Arizona for $163.3 million without getting prior approval from state regulators. PNM previously had leased the capacity from the nuclear plant.
The nonprofit New Energy Economy filed a motion Jan. 20 with the state Public Regulation Commission, along with Bernalillo County, to dismiss a third of the utility’s requested $123.5 million rate hike that would cover the $40 million cost of operating Palo Verde’s Unit 2 for a year, including taxes, maintenance and fuel.
The advocacy group, which has been at odds with PNM for years, said that the utility should have submitted its proposed purchase first to the state commission. PNM said it filed the request in March with FERC, and no public comments were submitted.
More: The Santa Fe New Mexican
Austin Energy Proposes Rate Cut for Most Businesses
Austin Energy has proposed cutting rates for most business customers to reduce revenue by $17.5 million a year.
Austin Energy officials publicly released their suggested rates Jan. 25 in what is shaping up to be a contentious discussion about reallocating costs among different customer classes.
The utility, which has 448,000 customers, says that residential customers as a whole are paying $53 million less than it costs to serve them, while businesses collectively are paying about $62 million more. Its new rates require City Council approval.
More: Austin American-Statesman
Akron Delves into Battery Storage with Solar Project
Smart battery builder Design Flux Technologies, a University of Akron spinoff, is building a battery-management system for a rooftop solar array being built in Akron, Ohio.
The facility will be built by Prism Solar Technology of Highland, N.Y., and will be affixed to the roof of the former B.F. Goodrich Tire plant, a 19th century building that now houses the Akron Global Business Accelerator, a business development organization. Design Flux Technologies is a resident company of the Akron Global Business Accelerator.
The city of Akron’s $173,000 investment in the solar panels and storage equipment is expected to be recovered within five years, with power cost savings estimated between $30,000 and $40,000 annually.
More: Crain’s Cleveland Business
WEC Energy to Replace Retiring CEO with Current President
WEC Energy Group announced last week that current president Allen Leverett will succeed Gale Klappa as chief executive on May 1.
Klappa, 65, is retiring and will serve as nonexecutive chairman. Leverett, 49, was recruited to WEC by Klappa in 2003 after the two worked together at Georgia Power in Atlanta.
The incoming CEO said his priorities will include the continued transition of the Integrys merger, working on upgrades as needed to WEC’s natural gas distribution infrastructure and compliance with Wisconsin’s Clean Power Plan strategy.
More: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Exelon Appoints Gioia to Board of Directors
Nancy Gioia, retired director of global connectivity, electrical and user experience for Ford Motor Co., has been appointed to Exelon’s board of directors, effective Feb. 1.
Gioia, 55, will serve on the generation oversight and finance and risk committees.
In more than 30 years at Ford, Gioia led global electrification efforts, working closely with the Edison Electric Institute and the Department of Energy.
More: Exelon
PECO: Smart Ideas Program Increasing Energy Efficiency
PECO Energy customers have received more than $500 million in energy savings, incentives and rebates in the past seven years using the Smart Ideas program, the Philadelphia utility says.
The program provides 15 ways to help residential and business customers save energy and money.
Smart Ideas is part of the company’s effort to increase energy efficiency and demand response capability under the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission’s Act 129, which requires electric utilities to increasingly reduce their customers’ energy usage through 2021.
More: PECO
FirstEnergy: Lake Shore Power Plant to be Demolished
FirstEnergy engineers say the architecturally significant, defunct Lake Shore power plant in Cleveland is too degraded to restore and will be demolished.
The coal-fired plant, which first generated power in 1911, sits on 57 acres overlooking Lake Erie.
FirstEnergy hopes to begin the $15 million demolition in late spring or early summer, and then offer the cleared site for sale. But the utility can’t proceed with demolition until the city’s Downtown/Flats Design Review Committee issues a permit.
More: The Plain Dealer
$1B Privately Funded Plant will Power 1M Ill. Homes
Competitive Power Ventures plans to open a 1,100-MW combined cycle generating facility in the Three Rivers area of Grundy County, Ill.
The $1 billion CPV Three Rivers Energy Center will consist of two General Electric turbines and one steam turbine. It will be fueled by an existing 36-inch natural gas pipeline on the 80-acre site. The site is near Exelon’s Dresden Generating Station in Goose Lake Township.
Construction is expected to start in 2018, with the facility in operation by 2021.
More: Morris Herald-News
Entergy Names 30-Year Industry Vet to Lead its Nuclear Operations
Chris Bakken will become Entergy’s executive vice president and chief nuclear officer, effective April 6. Bakken replaces Jeff Forbes, who announced his retirement last year, and will report to Leo Denault, Entergy’s chairman and chief executive.
Bakken will be responsible for oversight of New Orleans-based Entergy’s 10 nuclear units at eight sites, which have nearly 10,000 MW of capacity. He will also be responsible for the company’s management services to the Cooper Nuclear Station for the Nebraska Public Power District.
Bakken’s career began in 1982 as a test engineer at Duquesne Light in Pittsburgh. He was most recently executive director for EDF Energy’s nuclear new build group and has also worked for American Electric Power, Public Service Enterprise Group and British Energy.
More: Entergy