EPA’s proposed Clean Power Plan was the subject of several panels at last week’s winter meetings of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) in Washington. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy also talked about the plan in remarks to hundreds of attendees during NARUC’s general session Tuesday.
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The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it was pleased with the way Entergy employees handled a shutdown of Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station during a blizzard in January, but it is continuing a review of the incident.
“We hope there are lessons learned that get incorporated for all future significant storms, because this has been twice in recent years where severe winter weather has resulted in a loss of offsite power and the plant having to shut down,” NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said.
Equipment issues caused the plant to remain shut down for 12 days following January’s blizzard. The NRC plans to release a final report of its review 45 days after it completes an inspection.
More: CapeCod.com
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will take over the environmental review of the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository because the Department of Energy won’t, according to Chairman Stephen Burns.
The NRC has found that the project could be built and operated safely, but construction can’t begin until the environmental review is complete. Burns said the agency has funds available to cover the costs of preparing a supplemental environmental impact statement.
More: E&E Publishing
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is holding two public hearings this week in New Jersey on the proposed $1.2 billion PennEast natural gas line. The 114-mile pipeline would run from Northeastern Pennsylvania across the Delaware River to New Jersey and would deliver gas from the Marcellus Shale region to East Coast markets.
Opposition has grown since the pipeline was announced in October. “There is a concern that one new pipeline can become a pipeline corridor,” said Paul Pogorzelski, Hopewell Township Administrator. The township has filed letters of opposition with FERC.
One hearing is scheduled for Wednesday in Ewing, N.J., and another Thursday in Hunterdon County.
More: NJ.com
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved the final Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Aguirre Offshore GasPort Project in Puerto Rico. The floating plant would convert liquefied natural gas that arrives by ships into usable gas for Puerto Rican customers.
FERC concluded that the project would result in minimal environmental impact, mostly during construction, and that the completed LNG terminal would help improve the environment through decreased barge traffic in the area.
The environmental review took three years. Excelerate Energy is developing the project in cooperation with the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority.
More: Green Tech Media
A Department of Energy inspector general’s report shows that the department spent $21 million over 16 months on social events at conferences. The report shows that the expenses were racked up during 300 conferences between April 2013 and September 2014.
“We found that attendance at some conferences included associated social events,” according to the report. “For example, [Energy Department documents] showed department-sponsored conferences that included a casino night, Super Bowl party, golf tournament, banquet on a dinner cruise boat, dinner at the NASCAR Hall of Fame and a tour and dinner at an aquarium.”
More: Washington Times
Three New Jersey lawmakers obtained a promise from the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to hold a public meeting before the Obama administration opens up parts of the Atlantic Ocean to oil and gas drilling.
Though the areas that the agency has proposed for oil exploration are located hundreds of miles south of New Jersey, Sens. Robert Menendez and Cory Booker and Rep. Frank Pallone sent a letter to the White House expressing their concerns with potential spills on New Jersey’s shore. They asked for a public comment session to be held before any final permits were granted.
BOEM last week promised to hold a public meeting. Booker called it an “important first step in helping the Obama administration understand the severity of the environmental and economic risks to New Jersey if oil and gas drilling in the Atlantic Ocean’s fragile ecosystem is permitted.”
More: Press of Atlantic City
Compiled by Ted Caddell
By Chris O’Malley
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission denied MISO’s request for a rehearing of the commission’s July order that said the RTO could no longer allocate broadly within the American Transmission Co. pricing zone the costs of keeping open three power plants in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
MISO must now file a new study method to identify entities that benefit directly from the three plants operating under system support resource agreements (SSRs) and allocate costs of the agreements directly to them, the commission ordered on Feb. 19 (EL14-34-001).
The SSR plants at issue are Presque Isle, White Pine and Escanaba.
A few days before FERC’s order, however, Presque Isle owner We Energies asked MISO to seek the termination of SSR payments. We Energies acted after iron ore mining company Cliffs Natural Resources committed to remaining a customer of the aging 400-MW coal-fired plant near Marquette.
FERC’s order is a win for the Wisconsin Public Service Commission, which filed a complaint last year alleging that MISO improperly allocated SSR costs on a pro rata basis to all load-serving entities in the ATC footprint.
The PSC argued that 92% of the projected $52.2 million in annual fixed costs under the original Presque Isle SSR agreement would be allocated to load-serving entities in Wisconsin even though they would receive only 42% of the benefits from the plant’s continued operation.
FERC’s Feb. 19 order also rejected MISO’s request to revise cost allocation of the three SSR plants to reflect new, local balancing authorities established recently in the ATC pricing zone.
In a related order, FERC also dismissed as moot complaints that objected to the LBA and its cost allocation implications for the three SSR plants (ER14-103).
The Michigan Public Service Commission had alleged that Wisconsin Electric manipulated SSR cost allocation by splitting its LBA in half, with one portion encompassing Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, to increase Michigan’s allocation of SSR costs tenfold.
Michigan residential and commercial electric customers, along with numerous government agencies, flooded FERC with complaints about the effects the SSR allocation would have in the Upper Peninsula.
But FERC said the Michigan complaint was moot, as “we direct MISO to devise a new approach that will identify benefitting LSEs without relying on LBA boundaries.”
FERC said it would address refund requirements in a future order involving MISO’s new study methodology.
By Ted Caddell
In a bid to win D.C.’s approval of its takeover of Pepco Holdings Inc., Exelon last week more than doubled the amount of customer credits it is offering to $33.75 million from $14 million.
The offer to increase the “Customer Investment Fund” came on the heels of its success in New Jersey, where Exelon received full approval from the Board of Public Utilities, and Delaware, where it reached a settlement with the staff of the Public Service Commission and other parties.
Those advances didn’t come cheap, though. The company originally offered $29 million in customer credits and other incentives to New Jersey customers but later upped that to $62 million. Their offer to Delaware started out at $17 million in direct customer credits, but the latest settlement offer — still to be acted on by the PSC — is $49 million in credits along with other incentives.
Despite its improved offer, Exelon hasn’t won the support of D.C.’s customer advocate.
“The ‘pot sweetener’ is a factor that needs to be evaluated along with other factors in the case to determine if the proposal meets the public interest standard,” People’s Counsel Sandra Mattavous-Frye told RTO Insider. “By no means does this new proposal to increase the CIF end the matter.”
The company also enhanced its commitment to increasing reliability, vowing to meet or exceed the D.C. PSC’s existing standards “without increasing Pepco’s forecasted reliability spending.” If Pepco does not achieve the reliability performance target, it would be subject to penalties of up to $5.6 million annually, the company said.
Mattavous-Frye said that Exelon had failed to address reliability concerns earlier.
“Reliability has been a focus for [the Office of the People’s Counsel] for the past 10 to 12 years,” she said Friday. Exelon’s “new reliability commitment is vastly different than their position from the beginning of the case that they could not meet the reliability standard,” she said. “Therefore, OPC is carefully evaluating the details that support this new commitment to ensure it is viable.”
Exelon CEO Chris Crane said the latest offer shows that the company is paying attention to the needs of the District. “We’ve listened to the feedback of stakeholders in the District of Columbia and have substantially enhanced our proposed package,” he said in a statement.
The negotiations with state regulators are taking a toll on Exelon’s timetable for approval.
Initially, Exelon said that it anticipated closing the acquisition in the second quarter. Exelon spokesman Paul Adams said last week that it now appears the deal may not be consummated until the third quarter.
The D.C. PSC is scheduled to hold evidentiary hearings from March 30 through April 8, which would mean a decision in late July or early August, Mattavous-Frye said. She said talks between parties continue but, “at this point, it is not clear if a settlement will be reached in this case.”
In addition to D.C., Exelon still must win support from regulators in Maryland.
Adams said the company is prepared to up its offer to there too.
“During the hearings before the commission in Maryland, Exelon CEO Chris Crane made clear that Exelon would accept, as a final resolution of the matter in Maryland, a settlement on terms equivalent to the settlement in New Jersey” prorated for the number of customers, Adams said.
“The settlement in Delaware is equivalent to the New Jersey settlement, and both are equivalent to what we have offered in D.C.,” Adams said. He did not say when a new offer to Maryland would be presented.
Exelon’s initial offer of customer credits for Maryland was $40 million. The state’s PSC staff has recommended $167 million in credits.
The state’s Office of People’s Counsel has urged the PSC to turn down the deal as it stands, calling the benefits Exelon is offering “either non-existent or woefully deficient.”
Generators would be permitted to sell frequency response services at market-based rates under a rule proposed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last week.
FERC’s notice of proposed rulemaking (RM15-2) was issued in response to a reliability standard the commission approved in January 2014 requiring balancing authorities to maintain minimum frequency-response obligations (BAL-003-1). (See FERC OKs Rules on Geomagnetic Disturbances, Frequency Response.)
“While most balancing authorities should be able to meet the new reliability standard using their own resources, some may nevertheless be interested in purchasing primary frequency response service from others if doing so would be economically beneficial,” the commission wrote, concluding “there could be interest in the near future in voluntary purchases of a primary frequency response product.”
FERC would allow entities with market-based rate authority for energy and capacity to also sell frequency response at market-based rates.
The NOPR applies to generators providing primary frequency response — the ability to automatically change their output within seconds when the grid’s frequency strays above or below 60 Hz.
It is distinguished from regulation — also known as secondary frequency response — which involves manual or automated dispatch from a centralized control system.
The requirements of the reliability standard will be phased in over a year beginning April 1. The commission expects to finalize the rule after a 60-day comment period.
By Ted Caddell
Public Service Enterprise Group reported fourth-quarter net income of $476 million ($0.94/share), more than double the $200 million ($0.39/share) for the same quarter in 2013. The company posted net income of $1.518 billion ($2.99/share) for 2014, compared to $1.243 billion ($2.45/share) a year earlier.
CEO Ralph Izzo attributed the increased earnings to its investments in its regulated business, Public Service Electric & Gas. “As a result of an extended capital program, earnings from our regulated company grew to represent 52% of our consolidated operating earnings, as PSE&G’s investment in transmission has grown to represent 39% of its $11.4 billon rate base.”
Izzo highlighted several aspects of the investment in the regulated business, much of it in response to the pounding New Jersey, and PSE&G in particular, took during Hurricane Sandy. “We received approval to invest $1.2 billion in Energy Strong, a program that will improve the resiliency of our electric and gas distribution systems,” he said during a conference call.
The company is updating and replacing about 250 miles of its natural gas lines, as well as making upgrades to its electric transmission network. “We completed construction of two, 230-kV transmission lines during the year, as well as the New Jersey portion of the 500-kV Susquehanna-Roseland line,” he said.
Izzo acknowledged that PSEG Power’s bid to build a new 475-MW combined-cycle plant in Connecticut didn’t clear ISO-NE’s recent capacity auction, but he said “we haven’t abandoned this work and we’ll invest when the markets support its development.” (See Exelon, LS Power Join CPV in Adding New England Capacity.)
Calpine is building a 345-MW, gas-fired combined-cycle unit at the site of its 375-MW Mankato plant in Minnesota to meet the rising demand of Xcel Energy’s Northern States Power-Minnesota utility.
The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission approved a 20-year power purchase agreement between Calpine and Northern States Power. The new unit is expected to start operations by mid-2018.
More: Energy Central
A Navigant Research report said the market for smart grid technology will expand to $29 billion a year by 2020.
“The smart grid continues to mature, and communications technologies are also evolving in response,” said Navigant Senior Research Analyst Richelle Elberg. “Whereas five years ago vendors and utilities were consumed with simply enabling grid communications, today they are focused on technology that is anticipated to enable a truly integrated system that links existing legacy technology with new technology from a variety of vendors.”
The report also predicted that as smart grid technology is implemented, security needs will rise as well.
More: Transmission & Distribution World
A PECO Energy customer is waiting — somewhat impatiently — for a refund after his wife accidentally overpaid the couple’s electric bill by more than $33,000.
Steve Onufrey, 71, of suburban Philadelphia, said his wife misplaced a decimal point when paying their $339.38 bill online, and paid the utility company $33,938 instead. Luckily, he had that much in the account because of a real estate transaction. He said it took him about a week to convince the company to issue a refund.
PECO Spokesman Ben Armstrong said the company is sending a paper check in the mail, as part of standard refund practice to prevent fraud.
More: NBC 10
NextEra Energy, which is completing its $4.3 billion purchase of Hawaiian Electric, is planning to build a 120-MW wind farm on state land on Maui.
The planned facility will be on about 500 acres on the southern slopes of Haleakala, and be built, owned and operated by NextEra Energy Resources.
The NextEra project is the latest wind-generation facility to sprout in Hawaii. Boston-based First Wind operates four wind farms on Maui and Oahu with a capacity of about 120 MW, and Sempra U.S. Gas & Power owns a 21-MW wind facility on Maui. Champlin Hawaii Holdings is in the planning stages of a 24-MW wind farm on Oahu.
More: Pacific Business News
Dynegy CEO Bob Flexon spent an hour with Ohio Gov. John Kasich recently to argue against a competitor’s plan to seek guaranteed income for some of its coal-fired plants.
Flexon told Columbus Business First that a proposal by rival AEP to seek long-term power purchase agreements for plants it says cannot compete would stifle incentives to build more efficient merchant generation plants in the region, at the expense of system reliability.
“When you want to create subsidies for a plant, you go into the huddle and pull out a playbook and have three plays: the reliability play, the jobs play and the local community play,” Flexon said. Merchant generator Dynegy is near closing on a $2.8 billion deal to buy 11 Duke Energy plants in the region, including nine in Ohio.
More: Columbus Business First
Tom Raga, who has headed up Dayton Power and Light’s communications and government relations departments since 2010, was named the company’s new president and CEO. He replaces Derek Porter, who held the position since 2013.
“Tom brings the business experience and proven leadership skills with a clear strategic vision to the role of president and CEO,” said Ken Zagzebski, president of AES’ U.S. strategic business unit, in a statement. AES is the parent company of DPL.
More: Dayton Daily News
Robert C. Braun, PSEG Nuclear’s chief operating officer, has been named chief nuclear officer, replacing Thomas P. Joyce, who is retiring in March after 40 years in the industry.
Braun has been chief operating officer for 10 years and has 30 years of experience in nuclear operations. PSEG Nuclear operates the nuclear complex on Artificial Island in New Jersey.
More: NJ.com
The Illinois Pollution Control Board has ruled that environmental organizations can pursue a lawsuit against NRG Energy that alleges the Princeton, N.J., company has done nothing to keep harmful chemicals from coal ash dumps at four power plants it bought last year from Midwest Generation.
“The decision by the Illinois Pollution Control Board to allow an expanded lawsuit and investigation into NRG’s coal ash disposal methods brings us one step closer to making sure local communities and bodies of water around these plants are adequately protected,” said Holly Bender of the Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign.
Environmentalists allege that ash dumps at the Waukegan, Joliet, Romeoville and Pekin plants are leaking into the ground and into water supplies.
More: Progress Illinois
Ameren Missouri has filed for a $264 million rate increase with the Missouri Public Service Commission, but it inadvertently disclosed that it would be willing accept about $100 million less.
Ameren told its investors in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it had accidentally shared its proposed settlement position with all of the parties in a series of electronic document transfers meant to go only to the PSC staff. Ameren said it had “inadvertently” disclosed the proposed settlement to all the parties but made no further comment.
More: St. Louis Post-Dispatch
PPL is transferring 88 engineer and technical support staff members associated with its nuclear operations from its Allentown, Pa., headquarters to its Susquehanna nuclear generating station in Berwick, Pa.
The announcement came amid market speculation that PPL might be looking to sell more generation assets. It is currently spinning off most of its power generation assets, along with those owned by Riverstone Holdings, into a new company called Talen Energy.
A company spokesman said engineering and support for the plants under the Talen name will remain in Allentown. The Morning Call reported that rumors are circulating that Talen may already be looking to buy more generation assets, but the company declined to comment on the rumors. The Talen spinoff has yet to achieve approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
More: The Morning Call
Exelon, which has been lobbying hard for legislation to favor its six nuclear reactors in Illinois, said it expects a bill to be introduced in the Illinois General Assembly as soon as March. William Von Hoene Jr., the company’s chief strategy officer, said during an earnings conference call that it expects bi-partisan support for the measure.
Details of the bill haven’t been released, but Exelon has long complained that its nuclear fleet doesn’t get credit for being a carbon-free generation source, making it hard to compete against subsidized renewable energy. It has warned that without some sort of relief, it may have to shut down some or all of its nuclear sites in the state.
More: Midwest Energy News
Compiled by Ted Caddell
By Michael Brooks
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last week approved a new risk-based approach to reliability compliance monitoring and enforcement, saying it will allow regulators to focus resources on the most serious issues (RR15-2).
The Reliability Assurance Initiative (RAI), a collaboration among NERC, the Regional Entities, and industry, is intended to streamline what reliability violations come under enforcement of the North American Electric Reliability Corp., with “minimal”-level risk issues subject to less oversight.
The new approach allows qualified facilities to self-log minor issues that they have identified and solved, instead of reporting them immediately to NERC. These logs will be periodically reviewed by NERC’s Regional Entities, FERC said.
The initiative also includes a compliance monitoring program, which provides definitions of risk levels and violations, among other guidelines.
“A risk-based approach is necessary for a proper allocation of resources and to encourage registered entities to enhance internal controls, including those focused on the self-identification of noncompliance,” NERC said in describing the new approach.
The minimal risk issues will not be subject to NERC penalties. Instead they will be treated as “compliance exceptions.” While RAI received broad support, some stakeholders disagreed with NERC’s decision not to make these exceptions public. NERC had proposed to submit them monthly to FERC for review.
“Greater transparency, particularly in the first two transitional years as [NERC] gains experience with implementation of RAI, is essential to educating [the] industry to avoid and mitigate noncompliance with reliability standards and to maintain the credibility of NERC’s compliance and enforcement regime,” a group of stakeholders, including the American Public Power Association and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, said in a joint filing.
FERC agreed, requiring NERC to post exceptions similar to how it files Find, Fix and Track reports.
“We find arguments that publicly posting compliance exceptions is unnecessary or will discourage entities from taking advantage of the efficiencies of RAI unpersuasive,” FERC said, alluding to comments by the Edison Electric Institute and the Electric Power Supply Association. “Public disclosure of compliance exceptions would appear to require only minimal additional resources since information will be compiled monthly in a spreadsheet and provided to the commission.”
FERC directed NERC to submit a compliance filing within 90 days of the order outlining revisions to its rules and procedures incorporating RAI.
In a separate order, FERC also approved a new NERC reliability standard, MOD-031-1, which allows planning authorities and coordinators to collect demand data to support reliability assessments (RM14-12). Transmission planners, balancing authorities and load-serving entities are required to provide data such as total internal demand, net energy for load and demand-side management.
FERC said the standard will improve consistency and efficiency as well as help identify where grid improvements are needed.
By Suzanne Herel and Ted Caddell
Duke Energy said Friday that it had reached a $102.2 million settlement with the federal government to end the investigation into the Dan River ash spill and the company’s ash basin operations at other North Carolina plants.
News of the proposed settlement, which must still be approved by a U.S. District Court judge, came hours after federal prosecutors filed misdemeanor criminal charges against the company for illegal ash pond discharges throughout the state.
The investigation began following the February 2014 spill of up to 39 million tons of ash into the Dan River.
“We are accountable for what happened at Dan River and have learned from this event,” said CEO Lynn Good in a prepared statement Friday. Good mentioned the pending settlement during an earnings call on Wednesday.
Under the terms of the settlement, Duke will pay $68.2 million in fines and restitution and $34 million for community service and mitigation. The settlement calls for the $102.2 million to be borne by company shareholders, not ratepayers. The company’s fourth-quarter results included a charge of 14 cents per share to cover the settlement.
The full terms of the settlement will be released if it is approved by the court.
Good said the investigation was a catalyst to strengthen Duke’s ash management practices and to speed up its ash basin closures.
She also said the company expects to spend $1.3 billion to excavate and close five sites: Asheville, Dan River, Riverbend and Sutton in North Carolina, and W.S. Lee in South Carolina.
The Duke incident led North Carolina legislators to impose stricter rules on how coal ash storage sites can be operated.
In December, the Environmental Protection Agency issued the first-ever federal regulations governing the storage and use of coal ash, a byproduct of burning coal. There are an estimated 1,000 coal ash storage sites in the U.S., primarily under the control of electric generating companies. The industry produces about 140 million tons of coal ash per year.
On Wednesday, the Charlotte, N.C.-based company reported fourth-quarter earnings of $97 million ($0.14/ share), compared with $688 million ($0.97/share) a year earlier. Year-end earnings were $1.88 billion ($2.66/share), down from $2.67 billion ($3.76/share) in 2013.
Duke said the results for its regulated utility business were affected by higher operation and maintenance costs due to a change in the accounting treatment of nuclear plant outages in the Carolinas. Meanwhile, its nonregulated businesses were impacted by Duke Energy International’s lower earnings, which resulted from a widespread drought in Brazil.
Duke said Wednesday that it has decided to retain the international affiliate, which it had said last year it was considering selling.
The company said it plans to repatriate $2.7 billion in DEI earnings to the U.S. through 2022 through a taxable dividend.
DEI owns, operates or has substantial interests in approximately 4,900 MW of electric generation outside the U.S., primarily in Latin America.
By Chris O’Malley
Fourth-quarter earnings of Northern Indiana Public Service Co. parent NiSource rose to $154.2 million ($0.49/share), up nearly 2% from $151.8 million ($0.48/share) a year ago. Fourth-quarter revenues rose 8% to $1.129 billion.
For all of 2014, net income was $530 million, down from $532 million in 2013 despite a 10% jump in revenues to $4.23 billion.
Highlights for the year included a record $2.2 billion capital investment program.
Earlier this month NiSource completed the initial public offering of Columbia Pipeline Partners, the spinoff of its natural gas pipeline business.
NiSource remains on-track to complete the Columbia transition in mid-2015, said president and CEO Robert Skaggs Jr.
Columbia will issue its own long-term debt prior to the separation to fund a one-time cash distribution to NiSource, reducing the latter’s debt. NiSource shareholders will receive a one-time cash distribution in the form of a pro-rata dividend of shares in Columbia stock.
Because of the pending separation, NiSource did not provide full-year earnings guidance.
NiSource’s electricity segment during the fourth quarter generated revenues of $392 million, compared with $386 million during the fourth quarter of 2013.
For the full year, electricity revenues were $1.68 billion, up from $1.56 billion in 2013. Increased environmental cost recovery and two transmission projects authorized by MISO boosted revenue by $5.1 million.
NIPSCO recently filed with the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission an electric and natural gas capital expansion plan totaling $2 billion over seven years. Among the major projects in the plan is the 70-mile, 765-kV Greentown-Reynolds transmission line, to be completed by 2018.
