Record RGGI Price Shows Market Works: Delaware
The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative’s latest carbon allowance auction, where prices rose by one-third after the allowance supply was tightened by 45%, shows “how market-based programs cost-effectively reduce carbon pollution, while driving investments in a clean-energy economy,” according to Collin O’Mara, secretary of the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control. The $4 clearing price in RGGI’s March 5 auction was the highest since the auction began in 2008. PJM states Delaware and Maryland are members of RGGI; New Jersey dropped out in 2011.
More: Bloomberg NEF
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
$1 Billion Undergrounding Plan Set to Start This Year
Mayor Vincent Gray signed a bill authorizing a $1 billion plan to bury feeder lines in an effort to improve reliability in the District, where many neighborhoods are often struck with weather-caused outages. The five- to seven-year program is to be funded mostly by Pepco, with some help from the District. The Pepco surcharge and an initial three-year work plan require Public Service Commission approval and the legislation must undergo the 30-day congressional review period that all D.C. laws require. Pepco said work would begin by late this year.
More: The Washington Post
ILLINOIS
Cities Struggle With Costs of Prairie State Campus
The cities of Naperville and Batavia are poised to raise electricity rates sharply because of the high costs they are saddled with for the Prairie State Energy Campus, the coal plant whose cost ballooned from $2 billion to $5 billion. The plant is selling power into a market fueled by the low price of natural gas. Some people have suggested trying to band together with other municipalities that also own shares of the plant, or having the state help deal with the cities’ burden.
In Naperville, a city councilman acknowledged the “bad news” of a rate hike but said “with a 6% increase we’re still going to beat ComEd on the residential market.” Batavia’s rate could jump as high as 16%.
More: Chicago Tribune
Report: Dereg Saved Users $37B Since ‘98 Restructure
Electricity deregulation has saved Illinois customers as much as $37 billion over 16 years, a new business-sponsored report says, putting the per-household saving at $3,600. The report said competition, retail choice and access to broader markets produced their desired effects. The Citizens Utility Board agreed that consumers have benefited but questioned whether market mechanisms should be credited, pointing out that “the law included built-in rate cuts to correct the problems of the past system,” including costs of expensive nuclear plants.
More: The Southern
91 Communities Purchase All-Renewable, Report Says
In a report that promotes the “community choice aggregation” model to further renewable energy, the World Wildlife Fund and other groups say Illinois leads by far among CCA states in choosing renewable energy. Ninety-one communities in the state are buying 100% renewable, through renewable energy credits, according to the report, “Leading From the Middle.” Of the handful of other states with community choice aggregation, Ohio has two cities, Cleveland and Cincinnati, that provide 100% renewables through RECs.
More: World Wildlife Fund
INDIANA
Edwardsport Troubles Continued Into February, Running Only at 4%
Duke Energy’s Edwardsport IGCC plant has continued to run at a small fraction of its capacity, and the company is assessing the nature of the mechanical problems to determine whether they should be charged to shareholders or ratepayers.
January’s output from the $3.5 billion, 618 MW integrated gasification combined cycle plant was only 4% of capacity, as the facility suffered numerous mechanical failures. Continuing problems, plus maintenance work, cut February production, too, but that month’s output will not be reported until the end of March.
The Citizens Action Coalition said it would file a complaint soon about the January problems. The plant, billed as an efficient way of generating electricity through coal gasification, was plagued with cost overruns. It was originally to cost $1.9 billion, but costs ballooned to $3.5 billion. In late 2012, state utility regulators capped the amount Duke could collect from ratepayers for construction at about $2.6 billion, with Duke having to cover about $900 million itself.
More: Indianapolis Business Journal
MARYLAND
Retailer Starion Slapped With Fine for Violations
The Public Service Commission levied its largest penalty to date against an electricity retailer, fining Starion Energy $350,000 for multiple violations of laws and regulations, including “slamming” customers, failing to get licensing in some jurisdictions and engaging in false marketing and sale practices, including thousands of violations of the state’s Door-to-Door Sales Act. The PSC also told Starion to let customers know they can switch to other suppliers, and to report every six months about all customer complaints. The commission said the company’s variable-rate customers saw significant increases in their costs “for reasons that were unrelated to energy prices in PJM.” It expressed concern that customers may not be fully informed about variable-rate calculations as it acknowledged that the PSC has no direct authority over Starion’s pricing policies.
The PSC said it did not revoke Starion’s license because of measures the retailer has taken to improve its consumer-protection operations.
More: PSC
Bill Would Allow Turbines, Panels on Preserved Land
Renewable energy could get a big boost from legislation that would allow wind, solar and biomass projects on property set aside as farmland, adherents say. Critics argue, however, that “We simply can’t afford … to lose a single acre of farmland.” The bill, which the governor supports, would allow renewable energy facilities on up to five acres of land whose development rights a landowner has committed to the state preservation program. Generation facilities on the land could help Maryland reach its goal of sourcing 20% of its power from renewables by 2022. And income from the facilities could help farmers stay in business, supporters say. A developer called Apex Clean Energy, for example, is aiming for a 100 MW wind project that would use some of the 5-acre parcels for turbine placement.
More: The Baltimore Sun
MICHIGAN
Metal Lodged in Palisades Vessel Is No Risk: Entergy
A 5-by-12-inch piece of metal from a broken impeller blade is stuck tightly in Entergy’s Palisades nuclear plant reactor vessel but does not appear to be a safety risk, the company said. It cannot be removed so far, and Entergy plans, at this point, to leave it in place. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is monitoring the situation at the plant, which was shut for refueling and maintenance when the metal piece was discovered. The NRC will not let the plant restart until it is satisfied with Entergy’s evaluation of the situation.
More: MLive
NEW JERSEY
Senate Bill Stirs the Pot on Renewables Mandate
Introduction of a bill to raise the state’s renewable energy requirement to 30% by 2020 has restarted debate about a renewables goal. Wind and solar advocates were disappointed when in 2011 Gov. Chris Christie retained the Board of Public Utilities’ 22.5% requirement, after Gov. Jon Corzine had proposed raising it to 30%. Now, amid some calls from renewable interests for an 80% target, the 30% target is being revived in a bill introduced by state Sen. Linda Greenstein. Her measure also calls for the BPU to set an energy efficiency portfolio standard for electricity and gas, and to require suppliers to develop “efficiency first” plans.
More: NJSpotlight
NORTH CAROLINA
Court Tosses Challenges To Duke Merger Approval
The state Court of Appeals upheld the Utilities Commission’s 2012 approval of Duke Energy’s purchase of Progress Energy. Orangeburg, S.C., and NC WARN had challenged the approval.
More: The Virginian-Pilot
Duke Ordered to Stop Ash Pond Water Pollution
Duke Energy was considering its response to a ruling last week by a Wake County Superior Court judge that the company must stop groundwater pollution from its coal ash storage sites immediately. The decision reversed one by the North Carolina Environmental Management Commission.
In other action following the Feb. 2 ash spill from Duke’s Dan River plant, the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources said it would inspect all of Duke’s ash ponds this week and told the company to provide engineering and emergency-action plans, with maps showing flood impacts if the ponds’ dikes fail. A 2009 state law did not require utilities to provide such information, but the state says it now believes the data is necessary.
More: Reuters; The Charlotte Observer
OHIO
PUC Staff: Let AEP Collect 62% of 2012 Storm Costs
Staff of the Public Utilities Commission recommended that American Electric Power be allowed to recover $57.5 million, or 62%, of the costs for restoring its system after the derecho and other storms struck in the summer of 2012. Large-customer groups have agreed to a recovery package with AEP, but Ohio Consumers Counsel, which represents residential users, has not signed on. A PUC decision is likely in late spring.
More: Columbus Business First
Free Flow Power Pursues Hydro Projects on Muskingum
Free Flow Power’s proposal to install 23 MW of nameplate capacity in run-of-river hydropower facilities at six existing dams on the Muskingum River continues to generate anxiety among some residents. A plant at the Lowell dam would hurt Buell Island property values, recreation, ecology and more, some say. Free Flow has been meeting with residents, as well as with the Ohio Historic Preservation Office, and comments are being taken at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission until March 15. FERC is to produce an environmental assessment by December.
Free Flow says it is in advanced development on similar projects totaling about 175 MW at existing dams on the Monongahela, Ohio, Allegheny and White rivers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Indiana.
More: Marietta Times; Free Flow Power
PENNSYLVANIA
Retailer IDT Giving $2M Back to Customers
Retail supplier IDT Energy will refund about $2 million to customers who have complained about extraordinarily high energy bills in this winter’s extreme cold snaps, when wholesale power prices caused some retailers’ costs to spike. The company received 10 times the bill complaints that it had experienced before, just as the Public Utility Commission received more bill complaints since the end of February than in all of last year. IDT will undertake the rebates and other forms of credit voluntarily, it said.
More: Pittsburgh Business Times
WEST VIRGINIA
AEP Units Ask 4.4% Hike, Transfer of Mitchell Share
American Electric Power utilities in the state are seeking a 4.4% rate increase to cover their annual expanded net energy cost. Appalachian Power and Wheeling Power asked the Public Service Commission for a $68 million increase in the net energy cost to account for the difference between the amount currently being collected and projected spending through the next annual filing period. The utilities also asked for authority to transfer half-ownership in the 1,600 MW Mitchell plant to Wheeling Power from AEP Generation Resources by June 30. They also propose to establish energy conservation measures.
AEP had wanted to transfer half of Mitchell to Appalachian Power, but the Virginia Corporation Commission blocked the move last year.
More: The State Journal
