Southern California Gas said more wells at its Aliso Canyon underground storage facility passed safety inspections, but there is still more work to do before natural gas injections can begin. SoCalGas shut the storage facility down after a massive leak spewed methane for almost four months until it was finally capped in February.
Aliso Canyon is the largest of the four facilities owned by SoCalGas’ parent company, Sempra Energy. It has 114 wells, and each one must be tested and passed by the state Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources before the facility can be used again.
More: Reuters
NorthWestern Energy Names Government Affairs Director
David Hoffman has joined NorthWestern Energy as director of government affairs for Montana. He will work with corporate counsel John Alke and Art Noonan on the Montana government affairs team.
Hoffman served in the Montana Legislature before joining the Montana Public Service Commission in 2001. He worked with PPL Montana from 2002 through 2015.
He replaces John Fitzpatrick, who will retire at the end of the year.
More: The Montana Standard
PacifiCorp Files to End Dam Operations
PacifiCorp has filed an application with FERC to transfer its licenses to operate four hydroelectric dams in California and Oregon to the Klamath River Renewal Corp. (KRRC) — a nonprofit corporation whose purpose is to oversee removal of dams on the Klamath River (P-2082-062).
In a separate application, KRRC has asked FERC to approve the decommissioning and removal of the dams, which have a total capacity of 6 MW (P-2082-063). The organization says it will be the largest dam removal project in U.S. history.
The applications were filed pursuant to a settlement agreement earlier this year between PacifiCorp and other parties. If FERC approves the applications, KRRC will oversee dam removals beginning in 2020, while PacifiCorp continues to operate the dams until they are decommissioned.
More: Herald and News; Klamath River Renewal Corp.
Davis-Besse Plant Recovers From Unplanned Outage
First Energy’s Davis-Besse nuclear plant returned to full power last week after an unplanned outage that lasted nearly 12 days.
On Sept. 10, rainwater entered the plant’s turbine building through an unclosed roof vent during a heavy storm, damaging electrical controls and causing the generator to shut down.
The plant synchronized to the region’s electric grid last Thursday, utility spokeswoman Jennifer Young said.
More: The Associated Press
DTE Spending $1.3B For Natural Gas Assets
DTE Energy announced last week its plans to spend $1.3 billion for natural gas assets in Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
DTE will purchase from M3 Midstream all of its Appalachia Gathering System in Pennsylvania and West Virginia and 40% of Stonewall Gas Gathering in West Virginia. The company also will purchase 15% of Stonewall Gas Gathering from Vega Energy Partners.
DTE expects to complete the deals this year.
More: The Associated Press
Decade-Long CAPX2020 Project Finished
Utility officials last week celebrated the completion of the fourth of five legs of the CAPX2020 project, a 345-kV line from Hampton, Minn., to La Crosse, Wis.
The completed sections now span 725 miles across Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin. The final project in eastern South Dakota is scheduled for completion next year.
The project — the largest new transmission development in the Upper Midwest in 40 years — is a collaboration among municipal, cooperative and investor-owned utilities. “It has been unprecedented for 11 utilities of quite varying types to be able to come together under a common purpose and then stay together,” said Teresa Mogensen, senior vice president of transmission at Xcel Energy. “Working in cooperation, we were able to do much more together than any one of us could have done individually alone.”
More: WPR News; Star Tribune; CapX2020
PSEG Proposes NJ Data Control Center
Public Service Enterprise Group is seeking to build a 74,950-square-foot data center in Bridgewater, N.J., to manage its electric and gas distribution operations.
The proposed center would serve as a backup to PSEG’s Newark, N.J., facility and would be located next to a substation built after Superstorm Sandy.
Local officials will review PSEG’s proposal on Oct. 6.
More: NJ Advance Media
Competitor Sues SolarCity For Trade Secret Theft
SolarCity is being sued by a competitor who claims the company stole trade secrets pertaining to the development of high-efficiency shingled solar panels.
Cogenra Sola and its majority shareholder, Khosla Ventures, filed suit last week alleging the trade secret theft occurred after a series of meetings between the two companies in 2010 and 2014.
SolarCity issued a statement saying it is “confident the court ultimately will reject Cogenra’s claims, which are factually and legally baseless.” SolarCity said Cogenra filed its lawsuit after SolarCity discovered earlier in September that a former employee took “highly valuable trade secrets” to SunPower, which acquired Cogenra law year. SolarCity said it filed its own suit against its former employee and SunPower.
More: The Buffalo News
Duke Acquisition to Aid Transition to Natural Gas
Duke Energy has closed its $4.9 billion purchase of Piedmont Natural Gas, which the utility said is central to its transition from coal- to gas-fired generation.
Since 2008, Duke has reduced coal’s share of its generation from about 60% percent to about one-third.
Duke CEO Lynn Good is preparing for the day when coal is no longer part of Duke’s business model. “I think we’ll still be operating coal in 2030,” Good said. “Whether we will be in 2040 I think is a question, or in 2050,” she said.
More: Bloomberg
PSEG Quietly Enters Retail Energy Business
Public Service Enterprise Group is creating a retail energy business to sell electricity and gas to commercial and industrial customers.
The new unit, called PSEG Energy Solutions, will provide a hedge to PSEG Power, which owns more than 18,000 MW of capacity.
“We remain interested in retail for our defensive purposes — managing basis risk — and not as a significant growth opportunity by any stretch of the imagination,” CEO Ralph Izzo said.
More: NJ Spotlight
SunPower Uses Drones To Construct Power Plants
Solar cell manufacturer SunPower will use drones and software when it starts construction of new “Oasis” power plants in North America and China during the next several weeks.
The drones will fly over a site to collect data, which the software will use to recommend the best design options.
“Oasis can take advantage of unused irregularly shaped areas and slopes up to 10 degrees to generate up to 60% more energy than conventional technology installed at the same site,” CEO Tom Werner said in a press announcement.
More: ZDNet
EnerNOC Reducing Staff by 15%
EnerNOC is cutting its global staff by about 15%, shedding more than 200 jobs primarily from its energy software business.
The company is seeking to focus its software business on sectors that are best equipped to use its energy management software, such as manufacturing and commercial real estate.
“We’re still committed to [the software] business, but what we need to do is reduce our cost structure significantly in light of where the market is today,” CEO Tim Healy said. “We’ve overbuilt a little bit. We need to recognize that fact.”
More: The Boston Globe
OGE Energy OKs 10% Dividend Hike
OGE Energy has approved a 10% dividend increase effective with the fourth quarter of 2016.
The increase from $0.275/share to $0.3025 equates to $1.21/share annually.
“We are pleased to reaffirm our commitment to a 10% dividend growth annually through 2019,” CEO Sean Trauschke said. “We realize many of our shareholders count on our dividend for income and we are proud to be one of a select group of utilities that has never reduced our dividend since going public in 1947. That is 69 years of consecutive dividend payments.”
More: OGE Energy
Crestwood to Build, Operate Permian Gas-Gathering System
Crestwood Energy Partners announced last week that it had entered an agreement with SWEPI to build a $180 million natural gas-gathering system in Texas’ Permian Basin.
SWEPI agreed to provide 100,000 acres and gathering rights in Loving, Ward and Reeves counties in Texas. Crestwood will own and operate the system, which is projected to be in service by July 2017. Shell, SWEPI’s parent company, has the option of buying a 50% equity in the system by September 2017.
DTE to Build Natural Gas-Fired Power Plant
DTE Energy last week announced plans to build a natural gas-fired power plant in China Township, Mich., near the Belle River.
The new plant will be adjacent to the St. Clair Power Plant, a coal-fired facility that DTE intends to close by 2023. The announcement came in a meeting with St. Clair County officials, who expressed relief that tax revenue would not be lost because of the closure.
The company said it may build several natural gas plants worth between $1 billion and $1.5 billion by 2023, but a spokesman said the St. Clair plant, with a capacity of about 1 GW, is the only one that has been sited so far.
More: The Times Herald
FERC Claws Back Reactive Power Payments on Talen Generators
FERC last week approved a settlement reducing Talen Energy’s reactive service payments for its generators in the PPL zone of PJM for May through December 2016 by more than $654,000 (ER16-277). The settlement ends a Section 206 proceeding the commission ordered in March to determine whether the reactive power rates were just and reasonable due to the “degradation” of the units’ reactive capability compared to the original values used to calculate the proposed rates in 1997.
But in a separate docket, the commission opened a new Section 206 case to determine the reactive rates going forward under Riverstone Holdings’ proposed acquisition of Talen (EL16-116).