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November 12, 2024

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Western RTO Group Floats Independence Plan for EDAM, WEIM

Backers of an initiative to create an independent Western RTO that builds on CAISO’s markets have floated a plan to untangle the snag that’s hung up past efforts to “regionalize” the ISO: a lack of independent governance. 

The plan is set out in West-Wide Governance Pathways Initiative’s highly anticipated straw proposal, which the group’s Launch Committee released April 10 along with an accompanying stakeholder guidance document and legal analysis. The latter was performed by law firm Perkins Coie, which the committee retained to examine state and federal legal issues. 

It describes a “stepwise” approach for transitioning the oversight authority for CAISO’s Western Energy Imbalance Market (WEIM) and Extended Day-Ahead Market (EDAM) from an ISO board appointed by California’s governor to an independent entity representing stakeholders from across the Western Interconnection.  

Effecting that transition has been the key objective of the Pathways Initiative, which utility commissioners from five Western states launched last July just as EDAM began to face mounting competition for participants from SPP’s Markets+ day-ahead offering. (See West Entered Pivotal Period for RTO Development in 2023.) 

“This package presents the Launch Committee’s evaluation of options to achieve the original goal of the Pathways Initiative: the creation of a new, independently governed entity capable of offering an expansive suite of West-wide wholesale electricity market functions across the largest possible footprint,” the committee said in a statement accompanying release of the documents. 

The proposal envisions three steps for progressively meeting that goal, but the plan released April 10 deals only with the first two steps, leaving the third for a future time once the effort has initial objectives. 

Option 0

Step 1 of the proposal calls for making the existing WEIM/EDAM Governing Body as independent as possible “within the current CAISO structure in a way that presents little or no” risk to inciting challenges to the change based on California law. 

The action represents “Option 0” among the governance options the Launch Committee laid out during its December stakeholder update call and is expected to be workable without making changes to the California statute governing the ISO. (See Western RTO Initiative Outlines Governance Options.) 

The step would entail giving the WEIM’s Governing Body “primary authority” over market-related matters in areas where it currently shares “joint authority” with the ISO’s Board of Governors, with disagreements being “channeled” into the existing dispute resolution process outlined in the WEIM charter, which falls under the CAISO tariff. 

Step 1 also would include modifying the current dispute resolution process to allow CAISO to make a “dual filing” of both bodies’ proposals with FERC — “with no stated preference” — in the instances of unresolved disagreements over market rules, similar to the “jump ball” process between ISO-NE and NEPOOL in New England.  

This step additionally would revise the WEIM charter to account for consumer and state interests in the market’s decision-making process. 

“This step also contemplates a continued advisory role for a Body of State Regulators (BOSR) in WEIM GB and CAISO BoG decision-making, and an active role in representing state interests, when necessary, in any ‘dual filing’ before FERC” the proposal says. 

Under the plan, Step 1 would be triggered once EDAM implementation agreements have been executed by a “set of geographically diverse” WEIM entities outside CAISO representing load “equal to or greater than 70% of the CAISO balancing authority area (BAA) annual load for 2022.” 

“Assuming all the entities who have expressed an intent to join EDAM as of April 10, 2024, execute implementation agreements, only one additional utility representing at least 10,000 GWh of load and located in the Southwest would be required to trigger the Step 1 governance transition” the proposal says. 

The proposal says: “Step 1 is just the first step toward the full realization of the regulators’ vision of energy markets with governance independent of any single state, participant or class of participants,” representing “a near-term incremental increase in independent governance that show commitment” to that vision. It also notes that Perkins Coie concluded the step could be completed within the scope to California law, but that FERC approval likely would be required. 

RO, Not RTO

Step 2 in the straw proposal seeks to achieve the Pathways Initiative’s “primary goal” by “creating a durable governance structure with a fully independent board that has sole authority to determine the market rules for EDAM and WEIM, building incrementally on the movement toward greater independence in Step 1.”  

The key action in the step is establishment of a new “regional organization” (RO) separate from CAISO that would become successor to the WEIM’s Governing Body.  

“The Launch Committee envisions that the RO would begin with a relatively modest size, consisting of a board of directors and a small initial dedicated staff and legal counsel (internal or external),” the proposal says. “The board itself would meet FERC’s standards for independent governance of an RTO, including the absence of any financial conflicts of interest related to the energy markets and market participants.”  

Step 2 would require winning passage of California legislation “to narrow the corporate scope of the CAISO and allow a complete transfer of some of its existing management responsibilities, while preserving the CAISO’s balancing authority responsibility” — the last being a key requirement for the support of California labor groups. (See Former Opponents Shift Position on CAISO ‘Regionalization’.) 

The step also would see a much-reduced role for the WEIM Governing Body, with the group’s “primary authority” over WEIM/EDAM decision-making (established in Step 1) being transitioned to the “sole authority” of the new RO, “while possibly continuing some form of shared authority for a limited number of tariff provisions,” the proposal says. The step also contains the potential for Western stakeholders to use the RO as the governing entity for new services beyond the WEIM and EDAM, such as reliability coordination, resource adequacy, transmission “functions” and consolidation of balancing authorities. 

The Launch Committee expects the WEIM’s BOSR, or “similar successor organization, would continue to have a significant role in reviewing and opining on policy proposals and actions of the RO to protect all affected consumers.” 

The committee also realizes the launch of the RO could be an appropriate time to “re-evaluate” how the WEIM and EDAM engage with participants, raising the potential for more stakeholder-driven processes. 

“The Launch Committee continues to evaluate how best to structure the stakeholder process for providing input into the RO’s consideration of market rules and any other matters under its authority. We expect the RO to be responsible for overseeing the stakeholder process associated with developing regional market rules,” the proposal says. 

“Some elements of creating the RO and the overall Step 2 proposal can be implemented sooner than others, and this may argue for beginning implementation prior to consideration of further legislation in California. And regardless of further legislative change in California, the creation of an RO with the attributes described here may prove attractive on its own merits as a locus for future regional market initiatives,” according to the proposal. 

‘Clear Line of Sight’

The straw proposal only briefly touches on Step 3, which would be the development of a full RTO, the design for which “goes beyond” the Launch Committee’s scope of work, although the proposal notes steps 1 and 2 were developed “with a clear line of sight” to the services of an RTO, for which membership would be voluntary. 

“One guiding principle for the Launch Committee was to ensure that a governance structure could evolve to allow market participants to voluntarily participate in a regional transmission organization (RTO), but not to mandate that any entity join an RTO,” the committee said. 

The Launch Committee expects to issue a final proposal for Step 1 and a revised proposal for the more complex Step 2 in early June, concluding Phase 1 of the committee’s work.  

Phase 2, expected to run through early fall, would include implementing Step 1 and further refining Step 2. That would be followed by Phase 3, which would “finalize” implementation of Step 1 and complete the design and proposed timeline for implementing Step 2. 

The Launch Committee will discuss the straw proposal during its next update call April 19. 

‘Pragmatic Effort’

The straw proposal earned support from several energy companies and groups in the West, including many participating in the Pathways Initiative effort. 

“The Pathways Initiative is a pragmatic effort to ensure any new market entrant will reap the benefits of joining a West-wide market,” Vijay Satyal, deputy director of regional markets and transmission at Western Resource Advocates, said in a statement. “The process has been inclusive and transparent, with a focus on identifying requirements for independent governance to facilitate the largest possible market footprint in order to maximize consumer and public interest benefits.” 

“This proposal marks a pivotal moment in our pursuit of a cleaner, more efficient energy future for the Western region,” said Kelsie Gomanie, Western markets advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “As stakeholders rally behind a more expansive market, the vision of a grid with lower costs, lower emissions and stronger reliability becomes clearer and closer.” 

“Montana has already gained $74 million in benefits in less than three years of our utility’s participation in the EIM,” said Anne Hedges, co-director of the Montana Environmental Information Center. “The Pathways Initiative poses the best opportunity to grow those benefits, ensure reliability and help decrease the upward trend in customers’ rapidly rising electricity bills.” 

“The proposal will build on the success of EIM and EDAM, preserve state authority over energy policy goals and offer a path to additional market services, capitalizing on the reliability and cost savings benefits of sharing resources across the largest possible footprint,” Advanced Energy United Managing Director Leah Rubin Shen said in a statement. 

“We are very excited about the momentum happening in the West toward expanding CAISO’s successful EIM and building on top of that to have a day-ahead market,” said Mona Tierney-Lloyd, head of regulatory and policy at Enel North America. “Having a market structure in the West that covers the large footprint of the West is really important.”  

“The fewer seams there are across the West, the fewer barriers in the market,” said Varner Seaman, director of legislative and regulatory affairs at Pattern Energy Group. “Intuitively, a market that is inclusive of California makes the most economic sense, but ultimately, whatever market will get the best economic outcome for consumers is the right choice. Every state has an interest in how we can work better together.” 

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NERC Makes Case for Recertification in Performance Assessment

In its draft ERO Performance Assessment posted for comment April 9, NERC aimed to convince FERC to renew its certification as the Electric Reliability Organization on the strength of its record over the last five years demonstrating “notable successes … and [setting] the stage for continuing to advance reliability, resilience and security [for] nearly 400 million people in North America.” 

NERC will seek comments on the draft via email through April 30 and plans to file the completed assessment with the commission this summer, the ERO said in an email; the draft is dated July 19, 2024. It covers the five years from Jan. 1, 2019, through Dec. 31, 2023, reviewing what NERC views as its accomplishments during the assessment period under four focus areas: 

    • energy: addressing challenges arising from the changing resource mix, providing sufficient energy and essential reliability services, improving system performance during extreme weather and adding transfer capability; 
    • security: addressing cyber and physical security risks; 
    • agility: becoming nimbler in risk identification and standards development; and 
    • sustainability: investing in automation, eliminating single points of failure, and strengthening the ERO Enterprise’s long-term stability and success. 

FERC currently requires NERC to submit performance assessments every five years, but it has proposed shortening the assessment time frame to three years to identify performance issues in a timelier fashion, which the ERO opposed when the commission suggested it in 2021 (RM21-12). (See ERO Enterprise Resists FERC’s Assessment Proposal.) The draft suggests that FERC terminate that proceeding, given the ERO’s performance over the last five years. 

The draft depicts NERC as an active and dynamic organization, leading or participating in a wide range of efforts to promote electric reliability and “create value for stakeholders across [its] risk identification, mitigation and standards development process.” 

Internal Efforts Highlighted

NERC’s internal development is a significant focus of the document, with the ERO highlighting its ongoing efforts to modernize and streamline its committee structure. 

Among the accomplishments in this area is the creation of the Reliability and Security Technical Committee, which the ERO organized in 2020 through the combination of several existing technical committees to serve “as a proactive forum for aggregating ideas, leveraging industry expertise and prioritizing deliverables to target potential risks.” 

In addition, NERC pointed to the introduction of the Regulatory Oversight Committee. The ROC replaced the ERO’s Compliance Committee last year to give the Board of Trustees “committee-level oversight of standards development [and] enhanced oversight of NERC’s core regulatory processes along the entire continuum of activities.” 

Along with these internal modifications, NERC’s report held up its work on standards as a key pillar of its reliability work. While the standards introduced over the last five years are part of this (NERC observed that it has introduced multiple standards on cybersecurity, cold weather, and operations and planning since the last assessment), the organization’s efforts to improve the development process also received a lot of attention in the document. 

COVID Caused ‘Unprecedented Challenges’

The ERO “faced unprecedented challenges between 2019 and 2023” because of the COVID-19 pandemic, NERC said, most notably the sudden requirement to shift all its standards work to virtual meetings in 2020. 

This change meant NERC first had to slow its standards development work and ask FERC to defer implementation dates for standards coming into effect. 

Then, as the pandemic’s impacts subsided, the ERO “significantly increased the number, pace and intensity of standards development projects” in an effort both to get back on track and to address “increasing challenges to [grid] reliability,” including the changing resource mix, the increasing frequency of extreme weather and rapidly developing security threats. 

NERC acknowledged that the back-to-back slowdown and acceleration of standards work has caused “considerable pressure” for the ERO and its stakeholders. It pledged further efforts to enhance the development process over the next several years. 

The ERO also highlighted its efforts to advance the Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center (E-ISAC) as a forum for utilities, vendors, and other public- and private-sector partners to share updates on cyber and physical security threats. For example, the E-ISAC joined the Department of Energy’s Energy Threat Analysis Center pilot in 2022 to provide “industry context to U.S. government partners” and share information across the energy sector. The E-ISAC also provided regular security bulletins during the transition to remote work because of COVID-19. 

Finally, NERC mentioned its work on improving its own infrastructure “to ensure that it continues as a durable body of knowledge even during unprecedented external events.” These efforts include introducing new technologies to streamline enforcement activities, such as the Align tool and ERO Secure Evidence Locker. The ERO also established the Centralized Organization Registration ERO System project to “move all registration functions to a single, secure and consolidated system.” 

“NERC’s recent investments to enhance its sustainability support overall ERO Enterprise organizational sustainability even during unprecedented external events like the global pandemic,” NERC said. “That the ERO Enterprise achieved the enhancements to reliability and its processes described herein despite an intervening global pandemic demonstrates the resilience and coordination by the ERO Enterprise, commission, state and provincial governmental authorities, and stakeholders in support of reliability.” 

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Senate Energy Subcommittee Examines Cybersecurity Shortfalls at Dams

Most dams in the U.S. lack adequate cybersecurity protections, and FERC’s resources are too limited to develop them, senators heard in acommittee meeting April 10. 

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee’s Water and Power Subcommittee, laid out the facts that FERC told his staff. 

“Today, the subcommittee is being told by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which licenses 2,500 dams, that the dams responsible for well over half of the nonfederal power generation have not received a cybersecurity audit,” Wyden said. “And currently, there is no plan to complete these missing audits anytime soon.” 

The commission lacks the ability to complete those audits over the next decade because it has only four cybersecurity experts to oversee those thousands of dams, he added. Its rules have not been updated since 2016, and they are largely focused on “checking boxes,” Wyden said.

“FERC doesn’t have the resources it needs to be an effective regulator,” Wyden said. “This is a problem for the Congress to address. Now it’s time for Congress to step up. The seriousness of cyber threats to critical infrastructure has been clear for years.” 

Ideally, Congress would pass cybersecurity legislation universally covering the issue, but that is not within the ENR Committee’s purview, Wyden said. But it can address the shortfalls FERC has regarding hydroelectric dams. 

Hydropower dams are in nearly every state and on every major river system nationwide, with 100 GW overall and 57 GW owned by nonfederal parties including utilities, private companies, tribes and state governments, said Terry Turpin, director of FERC’s Office of Energy Projects. They are covered by NERC cybersecurity standards in effect since the end of 2018, and FERC staff audits dams when possible. 

“By the end of fiscal year 2024, staff of the security branch will have performed 271 physical security inspections and completed cybersecurity audits covering the owner-operators responsible for 37% of the installed nonfederal hydropower capacity,” Turpin said. “By the end of fiscal year ’25, we will have completed audits covering 70% of that installed generation capacity.” 

Fewer than 400 of the nation’s thousands of dams provide 90% of the country’s hydropower, but 87% of the fleet is over 30 years old with equipment that has exceeded its expected service life, said Virginia Wright, manager of Idaho National Laboratory’s Cyber-informed Engineering program. 

“Many of the remaining small- and medium-sized facilities are operated by entities with few resources to invest in vulnerability analysis and threat detection,” Wright said. “But they all face the same threat landscape.” 

Congress has allocated $753 million to improve existing hydroelectric facilities, but that means greater use of digital automation, which only will increase the digital risks the sector faces, she added. 

Wright agreed the federal government needs to step up its efforts but said that is not enough. Organizations also need to adopt cyber-informed engineering (CIE). 

“Cyber-informed engineering can be used to engineer out adversary opportunities and engineer in protections from sabotage in both existing and newly upgraded infrastructure,” Wright said. “While the federal government can provide financial resources and the expertise of the National Laboratories with their ready stockpile of capabilities, defending against ‘everything, everywhere, all at once’ will require everyone — both federal and nonfederal — to join forces.” 

CIE is a good concept that overlays with the Edison Electric Institute’s resilience goals, said Scott Aaronson, the organization’s senior vice president of security and preparedness. 

“There’s two ways you deter an adversary. The first is that the attack doesn’t have the intended impact,” Aaronson said. “So, an adversary attacks using cyber means, and we still maintain operations. The other way that you deter is that an attack has a consequence, which is the purview of our armed forces and intelligence community.” 

While the utility industry does not have any direct role in the latter deterrent, the military and intelligence rely on the grid like the rest of society, so ensuring the grid is resilient against cyberattacks is vital to preserving that capability, he added. 

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NEPOOL Markets Committee Briefs: April 9-10, 2024

ISO-NE continued work on resource capacity accreditation (RCA) changes at the Markets Committee on April 9 and 10, outlining how changes to the overall resource mix could affect the reliability value of different resource types.  

Dane Schiro of ISO-NE detailed additional results related to the RCA impact analysis. ISO-NE in February presented the analysis’ initial results, which showed how the RCA changes would affect the amount of accredited capacity for different resource types. (See NEPOOL Markets Committee Briefs: Feb. 6, 2024.) 

Building on the impact analysis, ISO-NE conducted sensitivity analyses looking at the effects of three scenarios changing the resource profile: the addition of renewables, the replacement of oil capacity with renewables and the replacement of coal capacity with renewables. 

The RTO in March presented the first phase of these analyses to the MC, focusing on how the scenarios would affect overall system reliability. (See NEPOOL Markets Committee Briefs: March 13, 2024.) At the April MC, Schiro outlined how the scenarios would affect the seasonal reliability benefits of different resource types.  

While the reliability contributions of resources including gas, oil and hydro remained consistent throughout the scenarios, wind, solar and energy storage varied significantly. 

For energy storage, reliability value increased in the summer in every scenario, with the greatest increase shown when renewables replaced oil resources, the scenario with the greatest reliance on renewables.  

Schiro noted that the value of energy storage is “closely related” to the duration of reliability risk events, increasing as the events get shorter. The addition of renewables in the summer reduced the length of risk periods by delaying the onset of the risks, Schiro said.  

In contrast, replacing coal and oil with renewables hurt the value of energy storage in winter because the duration of reliability risk events generally increased in these scenarios.  

The analysis also showed scenarios with greater renewable penetration hurt the value of wind resources. Wind resources typically all have high output at similar times, reducing the likelihood that periods of high wind generation face reliability risks, Schiro said. Therefore, the modeling found that adding wind capacity would produce diminishing reliability benefits.  

The modeling showed a similar reduction to the reliability benefits of solar resources as solar generation increased, Schiro added.  

Accreditation Calculation Updates

ISO-NE also provided additional details on its plans to calculate the accredited capacity of demand resources. For active demand capacity resources (ADCRs), the RTO will construct a “seasonal energy profile that represents their historical hourly availability over the last three years’ real-time offer data in the energy market.” 

ISO-NE then will use this profile to assess ADCRs’ performance during periods with reliability risks. Unlike passive demand resources (PDRs), ADCRs will have an annual opportunity to challenge their energy profile.  

The accreditation values of PDR resources will be based on “a single, common system-wide profile (different for each month) that represents the demand reduction associated with a given hour,” and will use reconstitution data from the previous five years, Christopher Parent of ISO-NE said.  

For energy storage resources, duration and round-trip efficiency will be the key factors in accreditation, Parent said. Market participants with energy storage resources will have one opportunity to challenge these values.  

Stakeholder Proposals

Tom Kaslow of FirstLight expressed concern that ISO-NE’s accreditation proposal may overvalue gas resources that lack firm fuel contracts.  

Kaslow said ISO-NE should consider increasing the daily operating hours requirement from 12 hours to 16 for gas resources. This would increase the amount of firm gas a resource would need to procure to receive its maximum possible accreditation value, and would reduce the value of nonfirm gas, Kaslow said.  

Meanwhile, Ben Griffiths of LS Power proposed changes to how ISO-NE is proposing to model resource outages. Griffiths argued that relying solely on historical data to estimate future outage rates could cause prolonged outages from abnormal equipment failures to have outsized impacts on individual resources’ accreditation values. 

“Resources can have equipment-related outages of extended duration that, once resolved, should not be expected to occur again,” Griffiths said. “In these instances, historic performance is a poor predictor of future performance. … Nevertheless, the ISO’s current proposal will include that outage for three to five years.” 

To prevent these distortions, Griffiths said a resource that deals with an extended, abnormal outage “should be able to challenge its default value and propose a substitute that better reflects expected output.” 

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ERCOT to Host Summit on Grid Transformation

ERCOT has attracted a full house for its first Innovation Summit, featuring thought leaders in energy research and innovation exploring “solutions that use innovation to impact grid transformation.” 

The grid operator says in-person attendance has been filled for the May 21 event in Austin, Texas. However, streaming is available. 

ERCOT CEO Pablo Vegas said the summit is necessary to address the grid’s rapid transformation and changes to the resource mix, decentralization of generation, electrification, emerging prosumers and digitization. 

“The summit is an opportunity for stakeholders from Texas and around the country to collectively discuss these transformation opportunities and challenges,” he said in a news release. 

Panel discussions will feature industry executives and subject matter experts on essential reliability services, demand flexibility, uncertainty management, energy storage resources, transmission planning and technology trends. The summit is open to ERCOT market participants, vendors, grid operators, academia and research labs interested in understanding how the transformation is shaping the grid’s future, the ISO said. 

“The summit will be an invaluable opportunity for stakeholders wanting to immerse in discussion, network with industry peers and brainstorm solutions for using innovation to impact transformation,” said Venkat Tirupati, ERCOT’s vice president of DevOps and grid transformation. 

More Time on CPS Shutdowns

ERCOT said April 10 it needs additional time to conduct its reliability analysis of CPS Energy’s planned retirement of three aging gas-fired units in 2025. 

The grid operator’s protocols require it to complete a reliability assessment when an entity notifies staff that it intends to shut down a resource. Market participants had until April 3 to submit comments on the utility’s proposal. 

The San Antonio municipality notified ERCOT in March that it intended to “indefinitely suspend operations” of three steam turbines at its V.H. Braunig facility. The units have a combined summer seasonal net maximum sustainable rating of 859 MW. (See CPS Energy Plans to Retire 859 MW of Gas Resources.)

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Scandal-ridden Former PUCO Chair Sam Randazzo Found Dead

Former Public Utilities Commission of Ohio Chair Sam Randazzo, who faced multiple criminal counts for taking millions of dollars in bribes from FirstEnergy, died by suicide April 9, according to multiple news reports. 

The Franklin County, Ohio, coroner’s office said Randazzo, 74, was found dead just before noon Central Time in a Columbus warehouse he owned, the Columbus Dispatch reported.  

Local NBC news affiliate WCMH said the coroner confirmed the death was by suicide. WCMH said the building where the former PUCO chair was found was owned by Sustainability Funding Alliance of Ohio, a Randazzo-owned consulting firm cited as a shell company in court documents in state charges filed against him. 

Randazzo became caught up in one of Ohio’s biggest political scandals in history after the FBI raided his home in November 2020, prompting his resignation from the commission shortly after. In July of that year, FirstEnergy had entered a deferred prosecution agreement in which it admitted to bribing Randazzo and former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder. Householder is serving 20 years in federal prison. 

Randazzo avoided prosecution for years but was indicted on federal bribery charges in November. (See Former Ohio PUC Chair Charged with Bribery.) 

According to that indictment, before assuming the top role at PUCO in 2019, Randazzo solicited $4.3 million in bribes from former FirstEnergy CEO Charles Jones and Michael Dowling, the company’s former senior vice president of external affairs, in exchange for helping the company win a $1 billion bailout for its financially distressed nuclear plants.   

Randazzo allegedly arranged the payment after meeting with the two executives at his home in December 2018. The executives then lobbied for his appointment to the commission. The indictment included messages between the executives and Randazzo. 

The federal indictment also alleged Randazzo embezzled at least $1 million from an industry group representing large industrial energy users in Ohio through Sustainability Funding Alliance of Ohio going as far back as 2010. 

Randazzo was indicted a second time in February by the state of Ohio, along with Jones and Rowling. The indictment covered 27 charges, including bribery, engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity and money laundering, WCMH reported.  

If convicted, Randazzo faced a potential 20-year prison sentence. 

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DC Circuit Rejects Challenge to California Car Emissions Waiver

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on April 9 rejected a challenge from Republican state attorneys general and others against California’s ability to set its own regulations on automobile emissions under the Clean Air Act (22-1081). 

The three-judge panel threw out arguments that EPA’s decision reinstating stricter requirement was against the law, finding that the petitioners lacked standing to bring up such arguments. But the panel did address their argument that EPA violated the constitutional requirement that the federal government treat states equally in terms of their sovereign authority, rejecting it on the merits. 

States generally have broad discretion in regulating emissions under the CAA, but when it comes to standards for new automobiles, that is generally not the case. The law allows the EPA administrator to grant exemption to states that passed their own emissions controls before March 30, 1966, if the state standards are at least as protective of public health and welfare as the federal rules. 

California is the only state that has taken advantage of that, and EPA has to approve the waiver as long as the state standards are not arbitrary and capricious and do not require extraordinary conditions. 

“The federal regulations continue to act as the floor for emissions regulations, but California can seek to enact its own, more stringent regulatory program above those federal requirements,” the court said. 

California was the only state to have enacted its own standards when the CAA was enacted in 1967, and its air quality and pollution issues would not have been addressed by the laxer federal standards proposed back then. 

“At the same time, automobile manufacturers were growing concerned that other states might begin regulating automobile emissions, subjecting them to a patchwork of regulatory obligations and significantly increasing manufacturing costs,” the court said. “Congress enacted Sections 209(a) and (b) to balance the fears of automobile manufacturers, California’s need for bespoke regulation and the federal interest in allowing California to test new emissions regulations.” 

California still has more problems with air pollution than most of the country, being home to seven of the 10 worst areas for ozone pollution and six of the 10 worst areas for particulate matter. Those conditions are worsened by climate change, which also impacts the large agricultural business in California, its water supply and wildfire susceptibility. 

The Golden State first tried to get a waiver to cover greenhouse gas emissions in 2005; it was updated in 2012 when the state sought to promulgate a new set of regulations called the Advanced Clean Car Program. That included a requirement that 15% of manufacturers’ fleets be electric cars by model year 2025. 

EPA initially granted the waiver in 2013, then rescinded it under the Trump administration. The agency reversed itself in 2022 under President Joe Biden. 

The state attorneys general put forward an argument that EPA could not grant California the waiver because the 15th Amendment prohibits Congress from using its Commerce Clause power in a way that withdraws sovereignty from some states, but not others. The same argument has been brought up in two other circuit courts, which also rejected it. 

EPA, and several Democratic state attorneys general who joined in the defense, argued that the petitioners were not trying to increase their own sovereign authority, but instead limit California’s authority.  

While the D.C. Circuit noted that the Supreme Court has accepted that kind of “leveling down” remedy when states have invoked the right to equal treatment, no court has ever applied the equal sovereignty principle as a limit on the Commerce Clause or other powers allocated to Congress. 

The Republican attorneys general argued that the principle bars Congress from enacting legislation under the Commerce Clause that leaves some states with more sovereign authority than others, regardless of its reasons. That might apply to the 15th Amendment, the court said, but not the Commerce Clause, which gives Congress the power to regulate commerce between states, foreign nations and tribes. 

“The fact that some constitutional clauses explicitly contain an equality-based guarantee therefore supports a negative inference — though perhaps only a mild one — that the Commerce Clause is not so constrained,” the court said. 

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Grid Operators Report Reliable Operations During Eclipse

Grid operators reported zero issues managing the bulk electric system April 8 as a total eclipse briefly shaded solar panels across ISO-NE, NYISO, MISO, SPP and ERCOT.  

MISO reported that it and its members “successfully managed” grid conditions as the solar eclipse moved through its footprint, cutting a path of totality over its offices in Little Rock, Ark., around 1:51 p.m. CT, and Carmel, Ind., at 3:06 p.m. ET.  

The grid operator said it increased its short-term, 30-minute reserves, regulation reserves and ramp requirements to manage the eclipse’s impacts. MISO said prior to the eclipse, its solar fleet was producing nearly 4 GW, which dropped to just below 300 MW during totality and returned to about 3.8 GW afterwards.  

“We accessed our increased regulation reserves to manage the rapid changes in system conditions,” MISO spokesperson Brandon Morris said in an emailed statement to RTO Insider. 

Southern Renewable Energy Association Executive Director Simon Mahan captures the eclipse in Heber Springs, Ark. | Simon Mahan

ERCOT said it operated normally through reduced solar generation. Its solar fleet slowed to about 800 MW around 1:30 p.m. CT. Fifteen minutes earlier, ERCOT recorded a 5-GW contribution from its solar fleet. By 2 p.m. CT, ERCOT’s solar production was back to 5 GW and spiked to more than 13 GW by 3 p.m. CT, supplying more than 25% of the fuel mix. ERCOT relied on a combination of natural gas, wind production and energy storage during the temporary darkness.

The ERCOT fuel mix on April 8 showed a drop in solar generation | ERCOT

ISO-NE said operations went smoothly as the moon crossed in front of the sun in New England. Preliminary estimates from the system operator indicate the eclipse led to about a 4-GW reduction in solar production, with 3 to 3.5 GW coming from behind-the-meter sources and 650 MW from grid-connected installations.

“Our preparations paid dividends. The work done ahead of time to understand how the eclipse would impact the regional power system was crucial to a smooth operating day,” said Steven Gould, ISO-NE’s director of operations.

NYISO said it maintained reliable operations while the sun’s corona was observable to crowds. Prior to the eclipse, NYISO said its front-of-meter and behind-the-meter solar resources collectively generated a little more than 3 GW. When New York went dark around 3:30 p.m. ET, solar output dwindled to just under 600 MW. By 4 p.m. ET, solar generation in NYISO had ramped back up to 1.2 GW. 

NYISO said it dispatched thermal generation and hydropower to make up for the loss of solar output. 

The Indianapolis area plunged into darkness just after 3 p.m. on April 8 | © RTO Insider LLC

Before the eclipse, SPP said it expected no significant grid impacts and a dip in grid-connected and distributed solar generation no greater than 1 GW. It said it had ample output from other types of generation available to compensate. SPP said most of its footprint experienced 50 to 75% eclipse coverage. Afterward, SPP shared photos of the “mesmerizing” event captured by its employees on X.

Jon Lamson and Tom Kleckner contributed to this report.

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Bill Would Exempt Md. Data Centers with Fossil Fuel Backup from PSC Approval

Getting bills through the Maryland General Assembly often involves compromises and tradeoffs, even with Democrats controlling the House of Delegates, the Senate and the governorship. 

So, compromises and some controversy were very much in the mix for energy bills and programs as the General Assembly raced toward the official close of its 2024 legislative session at 11:59 p.m. April 8. 

The passage of S.B. 474, aimed at allowing data centers to use fossil fuel-powered backup power, was achieved via a controversial compromise. Introduced by Senate President Bill Ferguson (D), the bill would exempt facilities, such as data centers, using fossil-fuel generation for emergency backup power from having to apply to the Maryland Public Service Commission for a certificate of public convenience and necessity (CPCN). 

The impetus for the bill was the PSC’s refusal last year to approve a CPCN for a proposed data center with 168 backup diesel generators in Frederick County, which prompted the center’s developer to pull out of the project. 

The bill had strong support from Gov. Wes Moore (D), who is seeking to draw data centers to Maryland as their development booms in Northern Virginia, but it ran into opposition from environmental groups. The Maryland League of Conservation Voters had opposed the bill and said it would include lawmakers’ votes on it in its annual legislative scorecard. 

But the LCV was mollified with an amendment that would channel 15% of the tax revenues raised from data centers in the state into a fund for clean energy projects, according to a report on Maryland Matters. Both houses of the legislature passed the bill unanimously. 

Compromise amendments also secured passage of the Distributed Renewable Integration and Vehicle Electrification (DRIVE) Act (H.B 1256), which seeks to promote “beneficial electrification” via time-of-use (TOU) rates for residential customers and bidirectional electric vehicle charging. 

TOU rates set high per-kilowatt-hour prices during times of peak demand and significantly lower prices for off-peak hours, with the goal of encouraging residential customers to shift their energy use.  

As originally introduced by Del. David Fraser-Hidalgo (D), the bill would have required default TOU rates, with an opt-out choice for residential customers, but was amended to allow Maryland’s investor-owned utilities to launch pilot, voluntary TOU programs with specific targets for customers to opt in to the rates. By July 1, 2026, the utilities would have to report to the PSC on whether TOU rates had helped defer distribution system upgrades and on the feasibility of making TOU rates the default choice for residential customers.  

The bill would also direct the PSC to establish “expedited processes for interconnecting” bidirectional EV chargers. Utilities would also be required to develop rates for compensating customers who feed power back into the grid via a bidirectional charger. 

The vote was 100-39 in the House and 47-0 in the Senate. 

A House-Senate conference committee was needed to hash out final amendments for H.B. 864, which would update the state’s energy efficiency and conservation plans ― in particular, the EmPOWER Maryland program for low-income consumers. 

The bill would require both electric and gas utilities to meet energy savings and emission-reduction targets that are in line with the state’s goals while expanding the definition of efficiency to include both demand response and electrification. It would set 2016 as the base year and require utilities to develop efficiency programs that cut emissions from retail sales 2% below the base in 2024, 2.25%/year in 2025 and 2026, and 2.5%/year beyond. 

Other provisions call on the state Department of Housing and Community Development to develop energy efficiency programs specifically for low-income residents and direct the PSC to establish a working group to examine how efficiency programs can be extended to moderate-income residents. 

H.B. 864 had strong support from environmental groups, passing 100-36 in the House and 32-12 in the Senate. 

Environmental advocates and the Maryland Energy Administration (MEA) called foul over an amendment slipped into the must-pass budget bill that would block funding for the agency to set building performance standards, as reported in Maryland Matters. 

The amendment would put a hold on funding for MEA to set a metric of building energy efficiency called energy use intensity (EUI), which expresses energy use as a function of building size and other characteristics. The amendment would delay the setting of EUIs ― and building performance standards ― until MEA completes a study on the feasibility of the state’s greenhouse gas reduction goals for the building sector, set at 20% by 2030 in the Climate Solutions Now Act (CSNA) of 2022. 

The budget bill (S.B. 360) passed April 5, 44-0 in the Senate and 124-9 in the House. 

OSW Reset, Geothermal Pilot

H.B. 1296 is aimed at boosting Maryland’s flagging offshore wind industry, which has faced the same inflation and supply chain challenges that have stalled out other offshore wind projects along the East Coast. 

The bill would direct the PSC to open a new proceeding by June 1 to re-evaluate “certain offshore wind projects” while allowing developers to resubmit their applications with revised schedules, sizes and pricing, including prices for the state’s offshore renewable energy certificates (ORECs). 

Danish offshore developer Ørsted canceled its agreement with Maryland for the 966-MW Skipjack Wind project, saying the OREC price it had previously negotiated was no longer economically viable. When it announced the cancellation in January, Ørsted said it would continue to develop the project in the hopes of getting a better deal in the future. (See Ørsted Cancels Skipjack Wind Agreement with Maryland.) 

The bill passed the House 97-36 and the Senate 34-11. 

The Working for Accessible Renewable Maryland Thermal Heat (WARMTH) Act (H.B. 397) is a first step in exploring the use of geothermal energy to replace natural gas. The bill would require gas companies with more than 75,000 customers to develop and submit to the PSC plans for pilot geothermal networks, which are closed-loop geothermal systems that tap the planet’s natural warmth to provide heat and cooling to multiple homes. 

Gas companies with fewer than 75,000 customers can — but are not required to — submit geothermal plans. After the pilot, the PSC, MEA, the Office of People’s Counsel and other stakeholders would decide whether to make the projects permanent. 

With minor amendments, the House passed the WARMTH Act by a 98-34 vote, and the Senate by 36-9. 

Green Buildings and Power

S.B. 258 was passed without major amendments. Despite the budget cuts to MEA’s work on building performance standards, the bill would raise energy savings targets for state buildings from 10% in 2029 to 20% in 2031. 

Other provisions call on the Maryland Green Building Council to update the High Performance Green Building Program to help the state meet the goal of cutting emissions 60% below 2006 levels by 2031, set in the CSNA. 

The bill would also require the state’s Department of General Services to identify state buildings that could benefit from energy performance contracts, in which third-party efficiency providers guarantee a certain level of energy and dollar savings. If the targets are not met, the provider pays a penalty. 

The vote was 37-9 in the Senate and 103-34 in the House. 

S.B. 1, sponsored by Sen. Malcolm Augustine (D), would require the state’s retail electricity providers that offer “green power” to their customers to document whether they actually are selling electricity generated by a renewable power project or the renewable energy certificates (RECs) from a project that could be located outside the state. 

To offer green power, a retail supplier must show that the electricity being provided is at least 51% from renewables or RECs or at least 1% more than the amount of clean power required under the state’s renewable portfolio standard. For 2024, the state’s RPS calls for about 37% of Maryland’s power to come from renewables, but Gov. Moore has committed the state to 100% clean power by 2031. 

Prices for green power would be set through a yearly proceeding before the PSC, and retailers would have to have visible disclosures on their websites explaining that the purchase of a REC did not necessarily mean renewable energy also had been purchased. 

The green power provisions are part of a larger bill focused on regulation of retail power suppliers. S.B. 1 passed 32-15 in the Senate and 96-39 in the House. 

H.B. 990 updates provisions in the 2016 Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act and the CSNA exempting the state’s manufacturing sector from complying with any state GHG-reduction goals. Cement manufacturing would be taken out of the definition of manufacturing — meaning cement manufacturers in the state would have to comply with GHG-reduction targets. 

Manufacturers that are producing renewable energy components or other technology that reduces greenhouse gas emissions would be exempted, as would companies producing alternative materials that reduce emissions. 

The bill passed in the House 103-34 and in the Senate 31-12. 

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Stakeholders Seek Clarity on CAISO Interconnection Process Plan

Stakeholders still are seeking clarity on details in CAISO’s plan to streamline its interconnection process after the ISO released its final proposal to address the issue after 10 intensive months. 

“I know it’s been a long haul and has felt a little bit like an endurance sport for a little while, and we’re not done,” Danielle Mills, CAISO principal of infrastructure policy development, said during an Interconnection Process Enhancements working group meeting April 4. “But we’re getting to a point where we’re ready to propose this set of reforms as the final proposal.” 

The 2023 Interconnection Process Enhancements final proposal is designed to deal with the “unprecedented volume” of interconnection requests the ISO received last year by reducing the number it will have to study. It will complement — but not replace — the ISO’s compliance filing for FERC Order 2023, which requires transmission providers to revise their interconnection rules. 

CAISO released the plan March 28, one day before it received FERC approval to close this year’s interconnection request window to allow it more time to study Cluster 15 applications. (See CAISO Can Close 2024 Interconnection Window, FERC Rules.) 

But stakeholders participating in the April 4 meeting sought clarity over a few key aspects of the proposal before it goes to a vote by the ISO’s Board of Governors, particularly around the plan’s “zonal approach” and the scoring criteria used to rank interconnection requests.  

Zonal Approach

A key feature of the CAISO proposal is its zonal approach, which prioritizes the interconnection of resources seeking to use available transmission capacity in areas where planned capacity additions were approved in the ISO’s 2022/23 transmission plan as determined by state and local regulatory authority resource planning portfolios.  

Zones are defined by available capacity based on constraints and the California Public Utilities Commission’s resource planning portfolio. A zone with at least 50 MW of available transmission capacity is identified as a Transmission Plan Deliverability (TPD) zone, while a zone with zero available capacity is called a “Merchant option” zone, indicating it could be available for interconnection by merchant projects. 

CAISO is defining zones based on available and planned capacity from the previous year’s transmission plan base portfolio, using the portfolio to calculate overall systemwide capacity. But some stakeholders have struggled to understand how the ISO determines available capacity and evaluates projects in each zone.  

Sushant Barave of Clearway Energy Group questioned how projects would be evaluated if an applicant is in a TPD zone but with a point of interconnection (POI) with no available capacity.  

“If a project is seeking to be studied in a zone that has available capacity, one of the tests we’re going to do is check the POI of the project to determine if it has available capacity or not,” said Bob Emmert, senior manager of interconnection resources at CAISO. “And if the answer is you’re in a TPD option zone but your POI is actually behind constraints that have no capacity to make your project deliverable, then your project will not be studied.”  

Mills emphasized that the amount of capacity identified for each zone doesn’t need to be exact.  

“This is really just a way of gauging relative LSE interest to align with their portfolios,” she said.  

Scoring Criteria

The ISO also is working on implementing scoring criteria to rank projects based on factors including project readiness, LSE interest and non-LSE — or commercial — interest.  

Stakeholders are concerned the scoring system gives an unfair advantage to projects backed by LSEs.  

Under the system, LSEs can award projects points based on a 1-to-100 scale, with the points representing the percentage of capacity the LSEs would assign to the projects, but non-LSEs can award only a maximum of 25 points. The primary reason for the difference, the ISO said, is that LSEs must meet specific resource adequacy and procurement requirements while non-LSEs have no such obligations, although they might be serving a commercial interest.  

“We’ve had a lot of stakeholder comments about different weighting factors that we should apply to the scores and how much influence the LSE or commercial interest should have on the scoring process as a whole,” Mills said. “The scoring process, and particularly the commercial interest process, is really intended to be a way of getting a ranking of projects that can processed.”  

In an interview with RTO Insider, Chris Devon, director of energy market policy at Terra-Gen, questioned if the scoring process was open and transparent given LSE influence. In particular, he highlighted that CAISO’s proposal calls for FERC-jurisdictional LSEs to outline how they would award points in their tariff. 

“I believe that it would be more appropriate to see the CAISO outline some guidelines and requirements within their tariff. But the final proposal lacks any detail on how those LSEs would need to administer those processes to award the points, other than just kind of indicating the time frame,” Devon said. “We would like to see that be more clearly defined to ensure that there is no negative impact to competition and open access.” 

Additionally, if projects aren’t local or long-lead time, such as offshore wind or geothermal energy, they will have to compete for megawatt allocation with LSEs, which are given priority, Devon said, potentially reducing competition. 

“We have seen the benefits of competition in California, where there’s a robust number of independent developers that have been able to develop projects cost-effectively in a manner that keeps cost borne by ratepayers down and kind of shares in the benefit of diversity of supply,” he said.

Margaret Miller, director of government and regulatory affairs at ENGIE North America, also expressed concern LSEs were given too much influence.

“I know there are a lot of competing interests in this category, and I appreciate what the ISO has done to try and balance the concerns here on the scoring criteria,” Miller said during the April 4 meeting. “But when I look at the scoring criteria, for project viability as a developer, I just don’t see a lot of actionable steps we can take to show our project is viable outside of LSE interest, which leads me to believe if we don’t get LSE interest we’re not going to be studied. We’re really struggling with this because I think there’s some commercially viable, good projects that just won’t get into the queue at all.” 

Emmert responded, emphasizing the role of LSE interest in ranking projects. 

“If we didn’t have a scoring mechanism, and if we got rid of this and what’s left of the scoring mechanism without a load-serving entity component, we think we’d have so many [scoring] ties that we’d have basically a process for auctions,” Emmert responded, noting that the proposed rules call for the ISO to conduct a market-clearing, sealed-bid auction for the right to be studied in a specific zone in the case of a tie in scoring points. 

“If we don’t have scoring, well, then we go to auction, and we heard pretty darn clearly that nobody wants an auction, not even the load-serving entities.” 

Stakeholders also expressed concern LSEs can pursue multiple projects, while non-LSE off-takers can submit only letters of interest for one.

“LSEs can allocate their points to any number of projects and in fact, multiple smaller projects, as long as they don’t exceed their points … but here, you’re imposing a limitation on non-LSEs,” said Susan Schneider of Phoenix Consulting. “There isn’t any apparent reason why they shouldn’t be allowed also to sponsor several smaller projects.”  

Mills said non-LSEs aren’t given priority because they fall outside the CPUC portfolio. 

“These non-LSE off-takers are not incorporated into the portfolios that we’re talking about here. We’re talking about basing a lot of this on available capacity and portfolios and where there is available transmission. The non-LSE off-takers are sort of outside that process,” Mills said. “This is an opportunity for them to participate and express any interest in going beyond those procurement needs, but it’s also not as central to the need for us to bring on resources to meet reliability needs.” 

The ISO expects to submit its Order 2023 filing in late April or early May. Starting January 2025, the ISO will begin evaluating interconnection requests based on proposed criteria.