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November 15, 2024

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USDA Unlocks $3B+ for Rural Electrification Projects

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Oct. 25 it will issue more than $3 billion to support clean electricity development at seven rural electric cooperatives from South Carolina to Colorado.

The announcement marks “the largest investment in rural electrification since President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Rural Electrification Act into law in 1936,” according to a press release from the agency.

The funds are available through the USDA’s Empowering Rural America (ERA) program, which aims to create jobs and lower electricity costs in nine states. (See USDA Program Offers $7.3B to 16 Rural Cooperatives.)

“Since day one of his administration, President Biden has remained committed to ensuring rural communities are directly benefiting from a clean energy economy,” USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack said at a Westminster, Colo. press conference. “Through today’s announcement, USDA is delivering on this commitment with critical funding from the president’s historic Inflation Reduction Act. These projects will strengthen America’s energy security while increasing access to affordable and reliable clean energy for people across the nation.”

Nearly $2.5 billion is being allocated to Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association to accelerate clean energy projects. Tri-State, which provides wholesale electricity to 41 member cooperatives, plans to use the new ERA funds to purchase 1,040 MW of renewable energy and more than 200 MW of energy storage, as well as to refinance 1,100 MW of previously and newly announced coal-fired generation retirements.

USDA expects the investment to provide multiple benefits, including reducing electricity rates for cooperative customers by 10% by 2034, amassing $430 million in rural consumer benefits over 10 years, reducing carbon emissions by nearly 5.8 million tons annually and creating more than 2,000 jobs.

6 Cooperatives Selected for ERA Funds

Nearly $1 billion in ERA funds will flow to six cooperatives, which will leverage investments of $6.4 billion for 1.75 GW of clean energy for rural communities across the country.

The six co-ops all serve rural communities and include Connexus Energy, which operates in Minnesota and South Dakota, Central Electric Power Cooperative in South Carolina, Poudre Valley Rural Electric Association in Colorado, Nebraska Electric Generation, Rayburn Electric Cooperative in Texas and Yampa Valley Electric Association in Colorado.

The investment is expected to help reduce and avoid at least 6.4 million tons of greenhouse gases annually, USDA said.

Farmer Benefit Plan

The USDA also announced a new Farmer Benefit Plan, which serves as a roadmap for rural electric cooperatives and farmers to raise opportunities for clean energy and collaborate on a community benefit plan. Based on new ERA applications received so far, co-ops are collaborating with 154 local community groups, including 50 farm organizations, to explore local priorities.

Tri-State also is participating in that initiative and will develop a plan aiming to reduce electricity costs for farmers who take part in a smart irrigation program. The goal of the program is to lower pumping load at times of peak demand, which could help reduce future energy demand and offset the need to build new transmission and generation, saving co-op members from future costs.

Tri-State also plans to work with farmers to execute additional energy programs to encourage the most efficient use of electricity and water and will provide free technical support to enable participation.

Including the Oct. 25 announcements, the USDA has unlocked more than $8.3 billion in funding as part of the new ERA program, an investment the agency expects will result in more than $13 billion in financed grants and loans. The plan advances the Biden Administration’s Justice40 initiative, which requires 40% of benefits from federal climate, clean energy and affordable and sustainable housing initiatives to flow to disadvantaged communities. USDA estimates one in five Americans will benefit from the newly announced investments. (See USDA Announces $10.7B for Rural Clean Energy Projects.)

“All across America, rural electric cooperatives play an important role in delivering reliable sources of energy to rural communities. Under President Biden and Vice President Harris’ leadership, we are making significant investments to ensure that those communities are receiving clean, carbon-free energy — which will reduce the pollution in our air and water, create good-paying jobs, and lower families’ home energy costs,” White House National Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi said.

“By helping rural cooperatives upgrade infrastructure and invest in newer, lower cost clean electricity projects, these investments will benefit rural families and businesses who for too long have faced disproportionately high energy costs due to the challenges of providing electricity in remote communities,” he said.

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ACEG Report Checks in on Regional Planning After Order 1920

Most of the FERC-jurisdictional ISO/RTOs have made progress on transmission planning practices in response to Order 1920, Americans for a Clean Energy Grid said in an Oct. 24 report.

The report, “2024 State of Regional Transmission Planning: An Interim Transmission Planning and Development Report Card” was meant to follow an ACEG report in 2023 that graded grid operators’ rules. (See Transmission Report Card Grades MISO ‘B,’ Southeast ‘F’.)

“We find that across the country, several regions have initiated steps to reform their long-term regional transmission planning processes,” the report said. “Many of those reforms are promising improvements. However, despite the promise, many of these reforms are also in early stages of implementation and it is not clear what the final outcome will be or how it will impact actual transmission development.”

Compliance with Order 1920 is required by June 2025, though the report noted this could change as FERC acts on rehearing. FERC gave entities an extra 30 days after issuing a substantive rehearing order for Order 2023 on interconnection reforms. It is also uncertain whether all transmission planning regions around the country will comply with Order 1920 because of court challenges, though parties generally comply with orders even as they are being considered by courts.

“Two regions, the Southwest Power Pool (SPP) and the California Independent System Operator (CAISO), are pursuing reforms to more fully integrate or harmonize transmission planning and generation interconnection processes, which is encouraged but not required by Order No. 1920,” the report said.

SPP expects to send FERC its Consolidated Planning Process reforms in coordination with its Order 1920 compliance filing.

“The intent of the CPP is to fully integrate SPP’s interconnection and transmission planning process,” the report said. “The CPP has the potential to be a significant improvement, and the first of its kind in the country, but the process is still in its early stages, and it is not yet clear what the outcome will be.”

SPP has also improved its load and resource forecasting, including the incorporation of extreme weather scenarios.

CAISO received one of the highest grades in the original report, a B, with the new report noting it is the only organized market that has consistently done proactive long-term, scenario-based planning for a decade. The state’s energy and climate goals require major investments in the coming decades with CAISO’s latest 20-year transmission outlook calling for $45.8 billion to $63.2 billion in transmission investment to interconnect 165 GW of additional supply.

It has continued to build on that with its 2023-2024 Transmission Plan, which was the result of close coordination between the ISO and state agencies like the PUC and Energy Commission. It recommended 26 projects with a cost estimate of $6 billion.

“The plan builds on the previously established zonal approach, where specific resource zones and related transmission upgrades are identified,” the report said. “This coordinated process between CAISO, CPUC, and CEC and the resulting identification of resource zones helps better synchronize transmission planning, the interconnection process, and the CPUC’s Integrated Resource Planning process and resource procurement by Load Serving Entities.”

New York continues to make investments in transmission with more than $20 billion planned through NYISO and state initiatives. Shortly after the last report, the state’s utilities started the Coordinated Grid Planning Process (CGPP), a long-term, scenario-based process to better integrate their local planning processes with NYISO’s regional efforts.

“There is still work to be done to better integrate NYISO’s reliability, economic, and public policy planning as well as opportunities to optimize NYISO and the New York Public Service Commission (NYPSC) processes, and it is not yet clear how much of that can be accomplished through the CGPP,” the report said.

ISO-NE and PJM are both taking steps to develop and implement improved long-term regional transmission planning.

“ISO-NE is further along with its process,” the report said. “The region conducted a state-led, proactive, multi-value transmission study to evaluate transmission needs in 2050 required to meet state law and received tariff approval from FERC for its long-term transmission planning rules that enable the states to move forward with transmission investments in connection with the study.”

The states signaled their intent recently to focus new transmission development on unlocking generation in Maine and New Hampshire and to strengthen transfer capacity along the North-South interface. ISO-NE has also initiated the state engagement period that Order 1920 sets up to give state regulators a chance to come up with a cost allocation proposal.

PJM proposed reforms to its long-term regional transmission planning process, which would have included the development of three scenarios and more proactive generation forecasts, but those have been delayed as stakeholders decided the RTO should focus on complying with Order 1920. The reforms were a noted improvement in the new report for PJM, after it got a low grade in the initial version.

In the interim, PJM has seen needs for new transmission grow as load growth is driving new needs, with annual energy use now predicted to rise nearly 40% by 2039 and summer peak by 42 GW, or almost 30%.

MISO got one of the best grades in the previous report – a B – for its transmission planning process that was largely in line with Order 1920 already, but it has asked FERC for a one-year extension on compliance.

Still, the region has stayed the course with its long-range transmission planning (LRTP) initiative and other planning rules.

“For its second tranche, MISO has proposed a $21.8 billion portfolio of 1,800 miles of 765-kV backbone transmission lines and 1,800 miles of 345-kV lines to support the development of the backbone transmission lines,” ACEG said.

One lingering concern with MISO is its lack of a planning process in “MISO South,” which is largely Entergy’s territory, said the report.

ERCOT is the one domestic organized market FERC does not oversee, and in the 2023 report card it had low grades for transmission planning as it had not done much proactive planning in recent years.

“The region needs to improve its high-capacity transmission planning as it is facing some of the most significant load growth in the country and extreme weather will continue to stress a system that is islanded from its neighbors,” the report said. “This combination of load growth and extreme weather spurred legislation requiring reforms to transmission planning by the Public Utilities Commission of Texas (PUCT) and ERCOT.”

The processes are still in development, and it will take a few years to determine if they lead to major improvements in Texas transmission planning.

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ISO-NE Announces Pause of Order 1920 Compliance Discussions

ISO-NE is pausing its discussions with stakeholders on Order 1920 compliance due to uncertainty from outstanding rehearing requests, legal challenges and recent indications of potential updates to the order from FERC commissioners, the RTO told stakeholders at the NEPOOL Transmission Committee on Oct. 24.

The RTO said it has not decided whether to file for an extension of the order’s June 2025 compliance deadline, but said it remains “committed to a thoughtful and deliberate stakeholder process.”

“This decision was also made in response to significant demand for staff time in the area of system planning, particularly the implementation of the region’s new longer-term transmission planning (LTTP) process,” said ISO-NE spokesperson Matt Kakley. “Given the uncertainty surrounding Order No. 1920, we believe it is more prudent to have staff focus efforts on the implementation of LTTP while the rehearing and appeals processes play out.”

Both Order 1920 and ISO-NE’s LTTP, which FERC approved in July, are focused on promoting long-term transmission planning. While Order 1920 requires transmission operators to plan over a 20-year horizon and develop default cost-allocation methods, LTTP gives more deference to the states, allowing them to determine when to pursue a solicitation, which needs they should target and whether to proceed with a project selected by ISO-NE. (See FERC Approves New Pathway for New England Transmission Projects.)

The states recently announced their plans to focus the first LTTP solicitation on increasing New England’s north-south transmission capacity and unlocking renewables in northern Maine. (See New England States Seeking Increase of North-South Tx Capacity and “NESCOE Seeks Feedback on LTTP Solicitation Structure,” ISO-NE Planning Advisory Committee Briefs: Oct. 23, 2024.)

ISO-NE’s pause drew mixed reactions from stakeholders. While some encouraged the RTO to push ahead as much as possible with compliance, others agreed with the need to wait for more certainty on the order.

“This landmark rule requires considerable effort and coordination to comply, but its benefits — including cost savings and increased grid resilience — will outweigh any initial challenges. We strongly urge ISO-NE to follow the lead of other grid regions like PJM, capitalize on the progress already made and comply with Order 1920 to meet clean energy goals and maintain grid reliability,” said Claire Lang-Ree of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Alex Lawton of Advanced Energy United expressed concern that the pause could lead to a compressed stakeholder engagement window but noted an extension would help to ease these concerns. He added that a silver lining to the pause appears to be the ability of the RTO to devote more resources to the LTTP process.

“Deferring compliance allows the ISO to focus exclusively on leveraging LTTP and executing a successful procurement, and also stretches the amount of time it can continue using LTTP unaltered, given the central role states play,” Lawton said.

Earlier in October, MISO announced plans to request a yearlong extension of its Order 1920 compliance, saying “much work and assessment is still needed to show compliance.” (See MISO to Request Year Deferral on FERC Order 1920.)

ISO-NE said it will keep stakeholders updated on its thought processes and will update the public when it plans to resume work on compliance.

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Weather-security Connections Highlighted at GridSecCon

MINNEAPOLIS — Attendees at this week’s GridSecCon security conference may not have expected discussions of extreme weather at an event normally dedicated to cyber and physical risks to grid reliability. But presenters at the conference, hosted by the Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center (E-ISAC) and the Midwest Reliability Organization, emphasized that securing the grid will require understanding the impacts of the changing climate. 

The topic was introduced early by Sunny Wescott, chief meteorologist for the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Wescott’s keynote address provided “a wide array of different climatological hazards” to the security and reliability of the electric grid and warned against assuming an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” attitude by judging future weather events against those the grid has already endured. 

“If you take a sledgehammer and you hit a concrete wall, I would hope that your concrete wall can withstand that first sledgehammer hit,” Wescott said. “Does that mean that that wall is structurally still as sound as it was … prior to being hit? Likely not. … If you pick up a bigger and bigger sledgehammer, over time, you are doing enough damage that you will eventually break through.” 

The meteorologist painted a sobering picture, prompting NERC CEO Jim Robb to later joke that he might “track down her parents and ask what they were thinking when they named her Sunny.” 

Wescott’s address went beyond the well-known threats posed by the “sledgehammers” of increased storm activity, flooding, drought and wildfire. She also pointed out several dangers more familiar to the GridSecCom attendees, noting that in the aftermath of a major disaster, as crews work to restore power and rebuild damaged equipment in the affected areas, opportunistic actors could try to take advantage of the chaos.  

“When you have a community go without power for a prolonged period of time … you’re moving backup generators, [the threat actors] are following them, and they’re trying to get them on the back end of you hooking them up,” Wescott said. “This has become an increasing threat for small business owners, as well as most of our critical sites. Even our telecom groups are reporting this as an issue.” 

Another concern for CISA is threat actors posing as recovery crews and looking for items to steal. 

“They’ll show up and they’ll rip apart parts of your roof, or they’ll gain access to different materials. And then they’ll leave, and you haven’t checked their credentials because the power is out; you didn’t have connection,” she said. “This is an additional threat as we go forward. It’s not just the mis-, dis- [and] malinformation of scams. It’s all of the additional threats that come from society being impacted by these weather events as well.” 

Not all the difficulties Wescott highlighted were security-related. She also pointed to damage the changing climate can do to the bodies of recovery crews, mentioning responders who suffered burns just from the air on extremely hot days, and the speed with which dehydration can set in when crews are working in drought conditions, along with many other health conditions exacerbated by severe heat and humidity. 

Attack Multiplier

Wescott’s theme was picked up in a later presentation by Travis Moran, senior reliability and security advisor at SERC Reliability. Speaking on “Weather as an Attack Multiplier,” Moran reminded attendees that the strategic use of bad weather “goes back to the days of Napoleon” and continues today as Ukraine’s electric industry prepares for another winter in a war that has “damaged over 40% of their generation and transmission capability.” 

The fact that the U.S. is not actively engaged in war with any of its cyber adversaries, such as Iran, North Korea, Russia and China, does not mean utilities can rest easy, Moran emphasized. He pointed out that the increasing use of internet-connected technology on the grid, and the spread of cyberwarfare capabilities to even smaller threat actors, mean the threat landscape continues to grow and evolve. 

“This is [not just] a part of military doctrine anymore. This is part of adversarial doctrine all the way down to violent extremists,” Moran said. “If I attack you during a particular time of heat, for example, or a particular time of cold, I get to exacerbate the effects. Whatever your twisted modality is, it kind of highlights what you’re planning on doing, an impact you want it to have.” 

He urged utilities to examine their worst-case scenarios and then imagine how a well-timed cyberattack could make things worse, using the damage from Hurricane Helene as an example. 

“You look at western North Carolina right now, and the psychological impact of not having power for weeks is really wearing at these folks,” Moran said. “But had you known that that event was coming beforehand, and you attacked that infrastructure before that weather event, the multiplication of this in terms of the suffering and psychological impact would have been huge.” 

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NJ To Install 167 Heavy Truck Chargers with $250M Federal Grant

A $250 million federal grant to the Clean Corridor Project that will install 167 medium- and heavy-duty truck charging ports on the New Jersey Turnpike is expected to help alleviate concerns about range. 

Federal and state officials gathered at a press conference Oct. 23 at the Vince Lombardi Service Area on the New Jersey Turnpike just outside New York City. They hailed the grant as a major turning point in cutting heavy truck emissions, especially around overburdened communities through which the highway runs. 

State officials said they hope installation of the chargers will quell concerns that the trucking sector, which has been slow to transition from diesel trucks to EVs, has about whether there are enough charging stations to make EV trucks a reliable alternative to diesel. 

Trucks and buses account for only 4% of vehicles on the road but generate nearly 25% of transportation sector greenhouse gases (GHGs), said Shawn M. LaTourette, commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). Making the charging infrastructure available along a key regional artery, he said, would “catalyze the deployment of zero-emission freight trucks in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic region and beyond.”   

“Demonstration is everything,” he said in an interview with NetZero Insider, adding that changing the “the type of car we drive, or the type of truck that we move goods with … can be a little scary to folks.”  

The installation of the chargers, he said, can play an important role in “building that comfort” with EV trucks. 

Aravind Kailas, advanced technology policy director for Volvo Group North America, said the federal government’s investment, while just part of what ultimately will be needed, is a good first step. 

“This is a big event because it sends a signal across the state and across this corridor that there is a focus on the need for charging infrastructure and that the government is putting money where its mouth is,” he said. 

Truck Purchase Incentivization

New Jersey is the leader of the Clean Corridor Coalition, which received the funds from the U.S. EPA Climate Pollution Reduction Grant (CPRG) program in July. The funding originated in the Inflation Reduction Act.  

The funding will enable New Jersey, along with Connecticut, Delaware and Maryland, to not only install charging sites but also provide support services to establish a skilled workforce and mount a community engagement campaign to help inform the planning process. 

The four states together will install 450 charging ports at 24 sites, with 148 chargers of 150 kW in power, 164 chargers of 350 kW and 130 chargers of 1,000 kW. 

New Jersey’s funding will pay for 55 chargers of 150 kW, 61 chargers of 350 kW and 51 chargers of 1,000 kW. 

The coalition expects to begin “engagement regarding site selection and project design” in January 2025, according to its website. The coalition then will issue a request for information in June to get stakeholder input on program design and each state will put out a request for proposals to build stations in their district. The project expects to award projects in April 2026. 

Heavy Truck Emissions

The conference took place in front of the first — and only — electric truck owned by Hermann Services, a trucking company based in South Brunswick, N.J. Speakers at the press conference, along with LaTourette, included EPA Regional Administrator Lisa F. Garcia, and Congressmen Frank Pallone (D) and Robert Menendez (D). 

Transportation generates 40% of the state’s GHGs, but electric trucks account for a minuscule portion of the 500,000 trucks registered in the state, according to the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU). Of the 184,700 heavy-duty trucks, Class 4 to 8, registered in New Jersey in August, 143 were EVs, including 32 that are Class 8 trucks, according to the DEP. There are 97 registered EV buses in the state and 4,496 Class 2b and 3 EVs, the smallest size of trucks.   

Yet truckers in New Jersey, like those in other states, have been slow to adopt electric trucks, saying they are expensive, few models are available and the added weight of the battery reduces the amount of cargo the truck can carry. Range fear also is key, though a study of the Port of New York and New Jersey published in February 2023 found that electric trucks on the market at that time could handle 20% of the trips serving the port because the average route was only 140 miles. (See NREL Report Sees Role for Electric Trucks at Port of NY-NJ.) 

“There’s this old age question of, what happens if I buy an electric vehicle, where am I going to charge it? How far will I be able to go?” said Garcia, of the charger initiative. “The hope is that, slowly, this incentivizes more purchases of those heavy-duty vehicles … [and] that truckers and other industries understand where they can charge, where the infrastructure will be.” 

Grid Upgrades

Jeff Hermann, CEO of Hermann Services, said the company received the truck, a Freightliner eCascadia, in 2022 and since March has used it to deliver products for a single client, cosmetics manufacturers L’Oreal, around New Jersey. The 470-hp truck has a range of 250 miles. 

Hermann said the truck has proved itself enough that next year he expects to buy 15 more, each of which will cost $500,000. Of that amount, the DEP will contribute $300,000 to help reduce the cost to closer to the $150,000 cost of a diesel truck, he said. The DEP also can award an additional $30,000 if the EV replaces a diesel truck currently in use, he said.  

Hermann has installed one truck charger at its depot and expects to install four more to handle the 15 new trucks, costing about $750,000 for all the charging infrastructure, the CEO said. 

With that setup, the highway chargers likely won’t benefit his company too much, because the truck mainly delivers locally, he said. But the planned chargers should help “the industry to be able to feel more comfortable — that they don’t have to invest in their own charging stations at their own facilities; they can use public facilities.” 

Regulatory Change

The press conference took place a week after a press conference held by environmental groups and others to promote the passage of a bill in the New Jersey Legislature, S258. The bill would require the state to allocate $300 million for grid modernization and upgrades. The money would provide grants to electric public utilities, which would be used to offset electricity rate increases caused by the implementation of the modernization plan. 

Speaking at the earlier press conference, Kailas, of Volvo, said the grid upgrade is essential to support charging infrastructure for heavy-duty vehicles, which have far greater electricity needs than regular EVs.  

Kailas also attended the Oct. 23 press conference, where he said Volvo has nine electric Class 8 trucks operating in four or five fleets in New Jersey. Because they are significantly more expensive than diesel trucks, the trucking sector will need significant government subsidies to boost the number of EV trucks on the road, as well as regulatory help to ensure infrastructure projects can move ahead in a timely fashion. 

“It’s one thing to throw money at the problem,” Kailas said. “But you really need the permitting laws, the utility to prioritize these types of projects and bring power. Otherwise, you put funding in, and the project takes many years, and then the trucks cannot be deployed because they don’t have chargers and they have to live off of off-grid solutions.” 

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Outgoing MISO President Moeller Puts out Call for More Humanity in Industry

MADISON, Wis. — As he prepares to exit MISO, President and longtime employee Clair Moeller delivered parting advice, telling industry players to remember the human aspect in energy.

Moeller is set to retire from MISO at the end of 2024; the Organization of MISO States invited him for a final address at its annual meeting Oct. 24. (See Longtime MISO President and COO Moeller to Retire.)

Moeller said a spirit of collaboration will be crucial. He said MISO’s first, $10 billion long-range transmission plan (LRTP) approved in 2022 encapsulated that cooperation.

“Nobody tried to stop it from happening. And that was magic,” Moeller said. “Our society has really learned how to keep stuff from happening.”

Moeller said even when members’ goals don’t run parallel, they can intersect.

“That intersection of interest can get the ball moving forward. We don’t all have to agree. We don’t all have to have the same carbon goals,” he said.

Moeller said the entire industry can use some grace and basic decency as it navigates a bumpy transition.

“We’re working hard on this resource adequacy stuff. It’s wrong. But it’s less wrong than it used to be. And it’ll be less wrong in the future,” he said.

Moeller said MISO, for instance, was too slow to adopt a marginal capacity credit for solar resources based on their contributions. He said if MISO had gotten its vision for solar capacity accreditation in front of stakeholders sooner, the region might boast three times the amount of solar.

Moeller said he was visiting San Antonio in early 2021 when Winter Storm Uri walloped Texas and devastated ERCOT’s grid. He said he was struck when he drove into a Walmart supercenter to find only a bag of Bugles left in the food section.

“We’re three days from chaos. So, this resource adequacy thing is very important,” he said.

Moeller urged the MISO community to have the “grace and openness” to accept feedback and be realistic about the risks that MISO, utilities and states are trying to plan against. He said he often asks staff at MISO which mistake they want to make.

“Because you will be wrong: Which way do you want to be wrong? Do you want to be wrong because you built the thing two years too soon or because you built the thing five years too late?” he asked rhetorically.

Moeller said what he likes about the past five years of brutal winter events is that “everyone has had a turn in the barrel” and has been saved by more far-reaching transmission and a neighbor’s willingness to help.

“Everyone has bailed each other out,” he said approvingly.

Moeller said the LRTP’s goal of pushing energy east will help MISO be of service more often while being able to leverage PJM’s supply.

But he warned that transmission alone won’t keep MISO adequate as the industry moves through the energy transition in an era of growing load.

“The problem that is upon us, we don’t understand mathematically or personally, the risk that we’re taking as we shift the fleet,” Moeller said. He said the industry never has traded old technology for new technology without leaving a significant subset of the old online.

Moeller said in the past, operators needed only to worry about “load forecast and what machines were going to break.” Now, he noted that MISO relies on several probabilistic forecasts to get through an operating day and can find itself calling on operating reserves for a sudden drop in wind output.

He said MISO cannot navigate the energy transition by disregarding load growth, or by ignoring environmental goals and building fossil plants to meet it.

“The risk of not making the transition is not acceptable, either,” he said. “We have a lot of policy goals, and it’s important to have deadlines, but pay attention. Don’t try to reach them regardless of the outcome.”

Moeller invoked the blackout of 2003 as the catalyst for knocking on MISO’s door for a job after spending 25 years at Xcel Energy. He said he was betting at the time the RTO would become ground zero for the “fun work” of working through the aftermath to a more reliable system.

He said his trajectory to MISO was a far cry from his father’s career as a lineman in Iowa. Moeller said his father in 1951 was hand-digging holes for poles that would bring electricity to farming communities for the first time.

“I spent most of my career worrying about reliability and not reliability. People bet their lives and their livelihoods on us getting this right,” Moeller said.

Moeller received a standing ovation from OMS members, regulatory staff and stakeholders attending the meeting.

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Pathways Backers Express Confidence on Calif. Legislation

SAN DIEGO — Key backers of the West-Wide Governance Pathways Initiative told state energy officials Oct. 24 they’re confident California lawmakers next year will pass a bill needed to relax state oversight on CAISO’s markets and establish the “regional organization” (RO) envisioned by the initiative. 

“I think we’re feeling pretty optimistic, given the coalition that we have through the [Pathways] Launch Committee,” committee Co-Chair Kathleen Staks, executive director of Western Freedom, said during a panel discussion at the fall joint meeting of the Committee on Regional Electric Power Cooperation and Western Interconnection Regional Advisory Body (CREPC-WIRAB).   

That coalition includes labor, public power entities and environmental groups, Staks said, each of which opposed previous efforts to pass legislation to bring independent governance to CAISO. She noted that Pathways supporters in California have begun discussions with legislative staff who likely would contribute to crafting the bill, which would implement the group’s “Step 2” proposal. (See Pathways Initiative Releases ‘Step 2’ Proposal for Western ‘RO’.) 

Launch Committee member Jim Shetler, general manager of the Balancing Authority of Northern California, recounted a meeting supporters had three months ago with a senior legislative staffer.  

“He sat down and he looked across the table and said, ‘This is different. You guys are normally in opposition to each other on this issue. You’re together, pulling for the same thing.’ And I think that’s one of the key differences that we look at where we’re going,” Shetler said. 

Wyoming Commissioner Mary Throne asked Staks and Shetler whether Pathways has any “contingency planning” if the legislature either rejects the bill or “modifies it to such an extent that it doesn’t achieve the objectives that you’re seeking.” 

“We can create a new organization today, but for us to be able to get the take advantage of the market constructs that the CAISO currently operates and to use the CAISO markets and keep those going, we have to have this legislation that enables the CAISO to move those services over [to the RO], so it’s a critical part of the process,” Staks said. 

Shetler offered a blunter assessment. 

“I won’t sugarcoat it: The legislation is absolutely necessary for us to move forward,” he said. “We need that in order to make this happen. If it doesn’t pass or if legislation is created that makes the proposal non-workable, we will have to regroup.” 

“I think we’re feeling cautiously optimistic about our chances to get this done the way it needs to get done,” Staks said. 

‘Hope and Intent’

Arizona Corporation Commissioner and panel moderator Kevin Thompson asked whether the bill will be a rehash of a previous bill attempting to “regionalize” CAISO or be something different. 

Shetler said the bill’s language will depend on the content of a final Step 2 proposal, which he said is 99% complete. 

“We want to see that final proposal to make sure we understand what the legislation should look like. My anticipation is probably by very early next year, we will have language drafted,” he said. 

Shetler noted the California Assembly and Senate will begin their next sessions in January, with bills to be submitted in the early part of the year. After reviews by the policy and fiscal committees in the house of origin, the bill would move to floor of that house for a vote, then transferred to the other house for the “same routine.” 

Shetler said it’s the “hope and intent” of Pathways supporters that, by August or September of 2025, they will have a final bill that “can be voted on and that can be signed by the governor.” 

“My hope and sincere belief is about this time next year, we’ll have a piece of legislation that will allow us to move forward,” he said. 

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AEP Ohio Proposes Revised Data Center Tariff

AEP Ohio has submitted a settlement agreement that would provide a buffer on the cost risks of building infrastructure to serve future data centers that may not use as much electricity as they initially propose. 

The move is a potential resolution of AEP Ohio’s May 13 filing with the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (24-0508-EL-ATA). It requested a groundbreaking tariff that would require developers to pay for 90 to 95% of the projected energy demand of their proposed data center or crypto currency mine in its first decade of operation — even if they use less. (See AEP Ohio Asks PUCO for Data Center-specific Tariffs.) 

Other stipulations were included to further insulate the utility and its ratepayers from the potential costs of building infrastructure for demand that did not materialize. 

Amazon, Google and other tech firms criticized this proposal, and on Oct. 10, they submitted a joint recommendation of their own to PUCO. 

That counterproposal would have dropped the minimum payment to a range of 75 to 85%. AEP Ohio said the offer contained problematic details and omitted important consumer protections. 

On Oct. 23, AEP Ohio submitted the settlement agreement, in which it was joined by PUCO staff, the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel, the Ohio Energy Group, Ohio Partners for Affordable Energy and Walmart. 

The agreement contains some compromises from the original request, including a decrease of the minimum payment to 85% of the anticipated demand. 

It would require PUCO approval. 

In a prepared statement, AEP Ohio President Marc Reitter said, “The agreement insulates our other customers — including residents, small businesses, manufacturers and other industries — from the impact of the necessary infrastructure improvements. Our goal throughout this process has been to provide customers with protections while keeping Ohio an attractive place to run and grow a business. This proposal provides that balance and was developed with PUCO staff and consumer advocates.” 

AEP Ohio is facing the same squeeze many in the industry face with the simultaneous rise of energy-intense data facilities, attempts to revitalize American manufacturing and the drive to electrify swaths of the economy: Building generation, transmission and distribution to accommodate all these demands will be an expensive and time-consuming process. 

AEP Ohio in its initial request May 13 said its peak demand in Central Ohio is about 4 GW, and before instituting a data center moratorium, it had signed binding service agreements for 5 GW of new data center load to come online by 2030. Meanwhile, more than 50 customers have submitted requests to reserve more than 30 GW of new or increased load at about 90 sites, it said. 

AEP Ohio wants to cut the risk of building infrastructure to serve this demand with a requirement that those proposing the demand help pay for the infrastructure. 

The settlement agreement submitted Oct. 23 also requires data centers to prove they are financially viable and able to meet these requirements, and to pay an exit fee if they cancel their project or are unable to meet the obligations of their contracts.  

It creates a sliding scale to allow small- to midsized facilities greater flexibility. Contracts would run for eight years, plus a ramp-up period of up to four years. 

Reitter said, “We welcome the incredible investment large data centers are making in Ohio. Our agreement strikes a balance between the costly investments required for high-powered cloud and AI needs and protections for AEP Ohio’s other customers.” 

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ISO-NE Planning Advisory Committee Briefs: Oct. 23, 2024

NESCOE Seeks Feedback on LTTP Solicitation Structure

The New England States Committee on Electricity (NESCOE) remains “open to various ways to structure the scope” of the first transmission solicitation of the new longer-term transmission planning (LTTP) process, NESCOE’s Sheila Keane said Oct. 23.

NESCOE recently announced the states’ intention to focus the first LTTP solicitation on increasing the region’s north-south transmission capacity, with a particular focus on unlocking renewables in northern Maine. (See New England States Seeking Increase of North-South Tx Capacity.)

Keane asked for stakeholder feedback on how to structure the solicitation, adding that the states are trying to balance the need for strong minimum requirements for proposals while also leaving enough room for a wide range of potential solutions.

Northern Maine is not currently connected to the ISO-NE grid, but Maine is planning solicitations for renewable generation and associated transmission in this part of the state. (See Long Road Still Ahead for Aroostook Transmission Project.)

Phil Bartlett, chairman of the Maine Public Utilities Commission, said the state’s request for proposals (RFP) will be “at least somewhat dependent” on the LTTP solicitation.

“As we’re thinking about our northern Maine procurement, we are watching this very closely,” Bartlett said, adding that he is “hopeful that this process will provide some of those downstream upgrades that increase the likelihood of [a state-selected] project.”

However, there remains a long road ahead before any project is selected through the LTTP process. ISO-NE indicated that it expects to issue an RFP around March, followed by an approximately six-month application window and up to a year for ISO-NE to evaluate and develop a cost-benefit analysis for all the proposals.

Keane stressed that there is a lot of work to be done before ISO-NE can issue an RFP and said NESCOE is planning to continue discussions about the RFP with stakeholders at the PAC in the coming months.

Asset Condition Projects and Updates

Dave Burnham of Eversource Energy, representing the six major New England transmission owners (NETOs), provided an update on the asset condition project process guide, which the NETOs are developing in response to concerns from the states about a lack of oversight and transparency in the development and selection of projects.

He said the NETOs now require transmission owners to consider a “base alternative” representing the “minimum solution which addresses the identified asset condition problem.”

Additional changes to the process guide include standardized grading categories for asset condition evaluations and more transparency into how the decisions are made, Burnham said.

Eversource also provided an update on its proposal to rebuild the X-178 transmission line in New Hampshire, which cuts through the White Mountain National Forest. The project has proven to be particularly controversial, receiving pushback from NESCOE and the New Hampshire Office of the Consumer Advocate, and is the subject of a lawsuit from two local property owners.

The company previously told the PAC a full rebuild of the line would be the most cost effective way to address degradation on its wood poles, while NESCOE has expressed concern that the company has not adequately justified the project, threatening action with FERC. (See New England States Raise Alarm on Eversource Asset Condition Project.)

The states ultimately have little oversight over asset condition projects – the transmission owners are responsible for assessing the condition of their lines, determining whether upgrades are needed and selecting the most cost-effective solution. The transmission owners’ spending on the lines is FERC jurisdictional under the cost-of-service model.

As the costs associated with maintaining the region’s aging grid have accelerated in recent years, this process has drawn increased scrutiny into whether the transmission owners are doing enough to minimize the price of these upgrades.

Chris Soderman of Eversource said the cost projection of the full X-178 rebuild has decreased from $384.6 million to $360.6 million since the company presented the project in June “based on bids received.”

Soderman stressed that upgrading the line in a more piecemeal fashion would ultimately increase costs for ratepayers, with the estimated price tag ranging from $467 million to $614.1 million.

Kris Pastoriza, a property owner who has sued to stop the project, said Eversource’s proposed construction methods and overly impactful and “unethical.” Pastoriza argued the photo evidence of the pole degradation provided by the company is unconvincing and called on the company to release its pole inspection reports.

Meanwhile, some stakeholders, including a representative of Wagner Forest Management and Abigail Krich of Boreas Renewables, expressed support for Eversource’s proposal to address all the asset condition needs at one time, instead of addressing the needs through multiple project phases that could cause repeated disturbances.

Representatives of the Vermont Electric Power Company (VELCO) and National Grid also presented asset condition projects to the PAC:

    • National Grid is proposing to replace all structures, reconductors and install optical ground wire (OPGW) on a line in eastern Massachusetts, with a projected cost of about $74 million.
    • The company is also proposing to spend about $9 million to refurbish a substation in Worcester, Mass.

    • VELCO outlined a project to replace 41 structures on a line in northern Vermont, with a total estimated cost of about $6 million.

Boston 2033 Solutions Study

Andrew Kniska updated the PAC on the status of the Boston 2033 Solutions Study, which aims to address issues identified in the Boston 2033 Needs Assessment, published earlier in 2024.

While the needs assessment initially found several time-sensitive overload issues, a combination of modeling error corrections and new asset condition projects have eliminated all peak load time-sensitive needs, Kniska said.

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DOE Challenge Sends New Cold Climate Heat Pumps to Market

The U.S. Department of Energy is not deterred by a slump in heat pump sales in the U.S. market. 

Winter is coming. While heat pumps sales are down, they still outstrip sales of gas furnaces. And DOE has a new generation of cold weather heat pumps field-tested and ready for market to keep homes warm and comfortable, even in subfreezing weather. 

The eight companies taking part in DOE’s Residential Cold Climate Heat Pump (CCHP) Challenge have completed rigorous laboratory and field testing on their new models, which can keep a home warm and comfortable at 5 degrees Fahrenheit (-15 degrees Celsius) or even lower, according to an Oct. 23 press release. (See DOE Partners with HVAC Industry on Cold Climate Heat Pumps.) 

One of the eight, Carrier, started manufacturing the CCHP it developed for the challenge in September and expects to start shipping to its distributors in December, said Michael Carter, associate director of outdoor product management. 

The company has a full range of CCHPs on its website, but Carter said the standards required for the DOE challenge made the company stretch. While many CCHPs lose some heating capacity as temperatures fall, operating at 40% to 70% at 5 degrees F, DOE wanted 100% capacity at that temperature, he said. 

To hit that target, the company fine-tuned its systems so the indoor and outdoor components of the heat pump “communicate seamlessly,” Carter said in a phone interview with NetZero Insider. Larger coils also were a key change, he said. “[The] more coil, the more heat you’re able to generate or trap from the outdoor system and then compress more [efficiently].” 

Both Carrier and Lennox International, another challenge participant, stressed the role of variable speed components. “Variable speed drive technology optimizes compressor and fan speed to provide the demanded capacity at any given temperature with optimized efficiency,” Ajay Iyengar, vice president of advanced technology, said in an email.  

Lennox also expects to bring its new model to market in the coming months, Iyengar said. 

The other companies participating in the challenge included Bosch, Daikin, Johnson Controls, Midea, Rheem and Trane Technologies.  

Heat pumps are seen as a core technology for cutting greenhouse gas emissions from the U.S. building stock, where space and water heating and cooling account for 40% of the country’s primary energy use, according to a DOE fact sheet. 

Ram Narayanamurthy, deputy director of DOE’s Building Technologies Office, said when the department launched the challenge in 2021, the initial goal was to get as many of the major companies in the HVAC industry as possible onboard to improve the performance of residential cold climate heat pumps. 

While the companies did not work together, “they all came out with products that they can get into the market,” Narayanamurthy said. 

Next up, DOE is going to tackle cold climate heat pumps installed on the rooftops of commercial buildings, again drawing in leading companies, including AAON, Addison, Carrier, Daikin, Johnson Controls, Lennox, LG, Rheem and Trane. 

Working with DOE and the National Laboratories, the companies will create prototypes to be tested in the lab for performance and durability, followed by field testing on rooftops owned by major corporations — like Amazon, General Motors and Ikea — according to the DOE press release. Dubbed the Commercial Building Heat Pump Accelerator, the initiative is slated to run through 2027. 

Happy with Heat Pumps

In lab testing, all the new heat pumps were capable of full operation at 5 degrees F (-15 degrees Celsius), with some operating at temperatures as low as -15 degrees F (-26 degrees C), DOE says.  

The field tests put 23 prototypes from the companies at 23 sites in northern states and Canada, according to Vrushali Mendon, a senior mechanical engineer at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and principal investigator for the tests. 

Surveys with the homeowners participating in the test found that most were satisfied with the heat pumps, Mendon said. “They did not [have] any issues with either the heat pump not being able to provide enough heat or any kind of comfort issues, any kind of noise issues.” 

For Carrier, the field tests provided critical feedback on potential problems with installing their new model in homes with older duct systems, Carter said. Older homes “may not have been built for these types of systems. … One of the lessons learned from that is that we are really targeting this product more toward the residential new construction market.” 

DOE’s push on heat pumps comes as U.S. sales have hit a slump, falling about 16% in 2023, although gaining back some ground this year, with sales up about 5.4%, according to August figures from the Air Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute.  

Various analysts have pointed to high electricity prices and high interest rates as two factors that have cooled the market, along with a lack of contractors who are well trained in installing and maintaining CCHPs.  

But Carter says Carrier has not seen any drop in sales, and Narayanamurthy says the 2023 drop could be part of normal sales cycles.  

“This is an industry where sales can go up and down,” he said. “It’s an industry that’s very driven by consumer sentiment.” 

The figures to look at are heat pump sales versus gas furnaces, and heat pumps have led the market for the past three years, he said. “I think that’s really what we are looking at, and … we expect that trend to continue.”