FERC Chairman Cheryl LaFleur in her office. Photo courtesy of FERC.
With a disruptive confirmation process behind her, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Cheryl LaFleur said she believes morale at the agency is improving as she attempts to make progress on priority issues before she turns over the gavel to Norman Bay in April.
In an interview with RTO Insider last week after her return from a late August vacation, LaFleur said she is happy that the leadership succession is now clear. “After more than a year of uncertainty,” she said “now there’s clarity that I’m chairman.”
LaFleur said it was hard to judge the impact that the failed nomination of Ron Binz and the bruising confirmation of Bay had on the agency’s 1,500 staffers. “But I think people have a little spring in their step knowing we’re past that stage.
“We talk a lot about the commissioners, but you know there’s a body of employees at FERC that maybe don’t get enough love. I think their efforts are what keeps this place moving along.”
LaFleur was appointed acting chairman in November to replace Jon Wellinghoff. After LaFleur and Bay were confirmed by the Senate in July, President Obama removed the “acting” title from LaFleur. She will serve as the panel’s head until April 15, when Bay, formerly FERC’s director of enforcement, will become chair.
The unusual arrangement was the result of a deal by the White House to win support for Bay’s confirmation. Some senators were angry that Obama had signaled his intent to appoint Bay immediately as chairman over LaFleur, who has served on the commission since 2010. The last five FERC chairmen served a median of 30 months before becoming chair.
The removal of the acting title allowed LaFleur to promote David Morenoff to general counsel, a position he had been serving in an active capacity for nearly two years.
LaFleur declined to say whether she received any assurances from Bay that he would keep Morenoff on next year.
“I did discuss it with Norman. I discussed it with all my colleagues. But it was my decision,” she said.
“When Norman is chairman he’ll make such decisions as he makes. That’s not for me to say [whether Morenoff will remain]. I don’t think David will stop being terrific.”
PJM Capacity Proposal
LaFleur said she was unable to comment about the specifics of PJM’s Performance Capacity proposal, which will be submitted for FERC approval later this year. (See related story, PJM Members, Monitor Skeptical of Capacity Market Overhaul).
Instead, she pointed to FERC’s April 1 tech conference. “We talked conceptually about whether there were ways to price more fuel security into the electric product,” LaFleur said. “This is one of the hardest parts of the gas-electric coordination – that the gas and electric industries attract capital differently.”
EPA Carbon Rule
LaFleur said conversations with state commissioners suggests many states are open to regional collaboration as a way to reduce the cost of complying with the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed cap on carbon emissions from existing generation.
“I do think we will see some regional collaboration in some places,” she said, noting the carbon trading systems in California and the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which includes New York, the members of ISO-NE and Maryland and Delaware in PJM.
PJM is considering identifying transmission operators that are chronically tardy in submitting outage tickets, officials told the Operating Committee last week.
PJM released an analysis that showed transmission operators submitted less than half of their outage tickets on time in the first seven months of 2014. Only 51% of tickets under the one-month rule (outages of five days or less) and 44% of tickets under the six-month rule (outages exceeding five days) were submitted on time. The late outage notifications repeated a pattern seen in 2013.
Many transmission operators were also slow to notify PJM when they cancelled outages. PJM had three days or more notice for only 54% of cancellations. About 42% of the notifications came the day of or one day before the scheduled outage.
PJM shared only aggregate data with the committee, with no individual TOs identified. But Mike Bryson, executive director of system operations, said the identities may be made public in the future to address “habitual” late filers.
Dave Pratzon of GT Power Group noted that NYISO recently began assessing TOs for uplift costs resulting from late outage notifications and cancellations. “Suddenly, performance got a lot better,” Pratzon said.
NYISO spokesman Ken Klapp said the ISO’s day-ahead congestion residual balancing shortfalls are allocated 100% to the transmission owner of the line that is out of service. “From a market design perspective, this approach creates a financial incentive for transmission owners to minimize transmission outages,” he said.
In total, PJM received 11,342 outage notices in the first seven months, a 7% increase over the same period in 2013. About 9% of the outages in 2014 resulted in congestion, PJM’s Lagy Mathew said.
New Frequency Response Rule Requires Improved Performance by Generators
PJM will begin contacting generation operators this fall to ensure the RTO’s compliance with a new frequency response reliability standard that takes effect April 1.
Standard BAL-003, approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in January, measures primary frequency response 20 to 52 seconds after the start of an event. The rule establishes a minimum frequency response obligation for each balancing authority, provides a uniform calculation of frequency response, establishes frequency bias settings and encourages coordinated automatic generation control (AGC) operation. (See FERC OKs Rules on Geomagnetic Disturbances, Frequency Response.)
In 2013, non-nuclear steam units provided more than 90% of generator frequency response, PJM senior engineer Brad Gordon said during a presentation to the OC. Units scheduled for retirement or considered at risk were responsible for about 20% of generator response. “That’s something we need to address and to monitor,” Gordon said.
Gordon said PJM will be looking more closely at individual generator performance and requesting generators other than nuclear units to set their dead bands to ≤36 MHz with a maximum 5% droop. “We have performance. We’re not sure where it’s coming from,” he said.
PJM to Wait on SPP Decision on Combined-Cycle Model
PJM wants more price certainty before it considers moving ahead with more sophisticated modeling of combined-cycle plants.
Currently, combined-cycle generators must be entered into eMKT as either a combustion turbine or steam unit. Neither option captures these plants’ true capabilities, which can vary greatly based on unit configurations and use of duct burners.
PJM is considering software from Alstom that officials initially thought would cost about $1 million.
Southwest Power Pool has a prototype of the Alstom model in production but balked at moving into full-scale implementation after the projected price tag rose to $7 million, PJM’s Tom Hauske told the OC last week. “That’s significantly more than what we thought this might cost,” Hauske said.
SPP is attempting to conduct a cost-benefit analysis before deciding whether to proceed, Hauske said.
PJM’s Market Monitor told the OC last month that better modeling would allow operators to use combined-cycle units more efficiently but that it had been unable to quantify the benefits with any certainty. (See Combined-Cycle Model’s Cost, Benefit Uncertain.)
Bryson said PJM is waiting to see the results of SPP’s analysis before making a decision. “Right now we’re on at least a short holding pattern,” he said.
Stakeholders have expressed near unanimous support for new requirements for enhanced inverters serving solar generators and other asynchronous generation. All but one of 69 stakeholders polled said they support a requirement that enhanced inverters be able to automatically reduce active power in response to high system frequency or increase active power when system frequency is low.
The rule, which the Planning Committee will consider Oct. 9, would also require inverters to autonomously provide dynamic reactive support within a range of 0.95 leading to 0.95 lagging at inverter terminals.
Enhanced inverters must also adhere to North American Electric Reliability Corp. standard PRC-024 regarding voltage and frequency ride through and have the ability to limit ramp rates.
The rule would apply to inverter-based asynchronous generators with an interconnection service agreement or a wholesale market participation agreement. It would not apply to merchant transmission facilities, high voltage DC inverter-converter facilities, existing generation or generation already in the new service queue.
PJM hopes to win stakeholder approval in time to file the rule with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in February.
TOs to Present Criteria Changes to PC
Transmission operators will brief the Planning Committee on all future planning criteria changes under a new policy announced last week by PJM officials. Although TOs already file such changes with FERC, Paul McGlynn, general manager for system planning, said the new procedure is an effort to increase transparency.
The first TO to participate in the new procedure is Dominion Resources, which briefed Planning Committee members last week on its new method for determining the “end of life” for transmission infrastructure. Facilities will be considered at the end of their life when they become at risk for failure and continued maintenance or refurbishment is not a viable option to ensure system reliability.
The designation will depend on factors including the manufacturer’s recommended service life and the facility’s performance history.
Once an end-of-life designation has been assigned to a facility, its deletion becomes part of PJM’s base case for transmission studies.
PJM will order transmission upgrades to address any reliability problems caused by the facility’s removal — similar to the reliability analyses the RTO performs in response to generator retirement announcements.
No Change in Preliminary IRM Results
PJM expects to leave its Installed Reserve Margin at 15.7% for planning year 2018, unchanged from 2017.
A preliminary reserve requirement study shows the need for a 0.1% increase based on the PJM load shape and another 0.1% from capacity model changes. But these increases are offset by a 0.2% expected increase from imports under PJM’s capacity benefit margin.
The analysis shows a slightly lower loss-of-load expectation for the peak week — the third week of July — and slightly higher risk the following week than in 2017.
The PC will vote on the recommended IRM Oct. 9.
Planners Seek Info on DCB Line Protection Schemes
PJM planners are asking the PJM Relay Subcommittee to provide an inventory of all directional comparison blocking (DCB) line protection schemes on 500-kV lines. The request is in response to a stakeholder’s concern that DCB schemes are prone to overtrips that can cause system instability.
Officials said the initial inventory, due Sept. 30, will likely be followed by a request for information on such schemes on 345-kV lines.
PJM will simulate DCB overtrippings to determine their impact on system performance and may order baseline transmission upgrades as a result.
Locations of transmission security needs. (Source: NYISO)
Some areas of New York could face transmission violations as soon as next year and capacity shortages are likely by 2019 — one year earlier than expected — according to NYISO’s latest Reliability Needs Assessment.
“These reliability needs are generally driven by recent and proposed generator retirements or mothballing combined with load growth,” the report says.
Transmission security violations could occur as soon as next year in Rochester, Western & Central New York, the Capital Region, the Lower Hudson Valley and New York City.
Generation resources needed to keep reserve margins above 17% will fall short in about 2019 and get worse from then on, the document states. This is a year earlier than the ISO’s 2012 assessment predicted. “The most significant difference between the 2012 RNA and the 2014 RNA is the decrease of [New York’s] capacity,” the new assessment says.
This summer’s Installed Capacity Reserve was at 122.7%, well above the 117% margin reserve requirement. But the new report shows the ISO’s 2019 margin as 2,100 MW less than what was expected in the 2012 report. The change resulted from increased load growth and a decline in capacity resources and special-case resources — end-use resources that can be interrupted on demand.
The NYISO Management Committee approved the analysis, the first step in assessing the state’s reliability needs from 2015 to 2024, on Aug. 27. The Board of Directors will review the report in October, after which the ISO will issue requests for solutions from transmission operators and developers.
Additional generation plants could delay the shortfall beyond 2019, NYISO said.
Some of the transmission constraints in western New York would be mitigated by the repowering of the mothballed Dunkirk power plant. State regulators and plant owner NRG have agreed on a plan to convert the former coal plant to 435 MW of natural gas-fired electricity in late 2015.
NYISO also expects market rule changes, such as the creation of a new capacity zone in the Lower Hudson Valley, to entice generation owners to add additional capacity in Southeastern New York. Opponents say the zone represents a windfall for existing power plant owners, who will benefit long before any new generation plants are built.
The ISO said generation capacity could be reduced more than expected as a result of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standard, which takes effect next year, and proposed caps on carbon emissions.
Compared with the previous assessment, the new report predicts the following for 2019:
Capacity resources decline by 874 MW (724 MW upstate and 150 MW in SENY)
Baseline load forecast increases by 250 MW (497 MW higher upstate and 247 MW lower in SENY)
Special-case resources drop 976 MW (685 MW upstate and 291 MW in SENY).
The Market Implementation Committee last week approved the following changes recommended by the Credit Subcommittee:
Risk Documentation Requirements – Remove the requirement that officer certifications be notarized and allow electronic submissions. Eliminate the requirement for annual submissions of risk policy documentation; PJM will accept certification that no substantive changes have been made since the last submission.
Peak Market Activity (PMA) Exclusions – Spot market energy, transmission congestion and transmission loss charges resulting from virtual transactions will be excluded from the peak market activity (PMA) credit requirement. Virtual transactions have their own credit screening rules. Screened export transactions also will be excluded from the PMA. The PMA is used to set baseline credit requirements for members based on historical activity.
Virtual and Export Transactions Credit Requirement Timeframe – Reduce the credit requirement timeframe for export transactions to two days from four days. The MIC approved a similar change in August for virtual transactions. (See PJM MIC OKs Settlement, Credit Changes.)
Demand Bid Volume Limits – PJM will establish a daily demand bid limit for each load-serving entity by transmission zone. Bids would be limited to the LSE’s calculated zonal peak load reference point for the day plus whichever value is more, 30% of the reference point or 10 MW. The 30% limit was based on analysis showing that the largest two-day-ahead zonal forecast shortfall from January 2013 through March 2014 was 28%.
PJM said the need for such limits was illustrated by the default of People’s Power & Gas in January. Due to an input error, the company entered a demand bid about 100 times the retailer’s load. Because demand bids are currently unlimited, bids exceeding actual load act as a decrement bid but lack the protections of the virtual transaction credit screen and minimum participation requirement.
Sampling to Replace Outdated Studies for
DR in Synchronized Reserve Market
The MIC heard a first read on proposed rules that would allow use of statistical sampling to calculate the performance of residential demand response resources providing synchronized reserves. The sampling would apply to homes without meters reporting data hourly or in shorter intervals.
The samples will be stratified to group like resources by characteristics including end-use device (e.g. air conditioners, water heaters), curtailment measures (50% cycling, 100% cycling, thermostat set point) and geography.
The sampling results would have to show an error rate of less than 10% at a 90% confidence level.
The sampling would replace outdated studies such as the Deemed Savings Estimate Report, which is based on data from 2001–2005 from zones in Maryland and New Jersey. Since then, PJM’s footprint has grown to include Kentucky and Chicago, and air conditioners and other appliances have become much more efficient.
Sampling is a way to improve accuracy without the cost of installing one-minute meters on every participating household, PJM said.
The rule would take effect June 1, 2015 with a transition mechanism for resources that cannot meet new requirements for delivery years 2016 through 2018.
Pricing Interface Ordered at Warren, Pa.
PJM instituted a closed-loop interface at Warren, Pa., in the Penelec zone to set real-time LMPs for when operators take actions to address voltage problems. The interface, effective Sept. 2, is being modeled in the day-ahead market and financial transmission right auctions and is expected to help minimize FTR underfunding. There is no end date.
PJM also provided additional details about the Black River interface that took effect Sept. 1. PJM’s Joe Ciabattoni said the interface, which was instituted to address voltage or thermal issues resulting from a transmission outage, is unlikely to be implemented before it expires Oct. 31 because of forecasts for mild temperatures.
“Ninety-five-plus degree days is what this is targeted for,” Ciabattoni said. “I highly doubt we’ll use it.”
In response to calls for more transparency, Ciabattoni said PJM will notify members whenever it is “seriously considering” adding a new pricing interface. “We do a lot of thinking about things that don’t go anywhere,” he explained.
PJM Gains $200K in Settlement Adjustments
PJM will receive a net $212,000 from MISO as a result of two market-to-market settlement adjustments.
The cancellation of a scheduled outage on the Monticello–East Winamac 138-kV line on July 7 and 8 resulted in a recalculation of firm-flow entitlements and a refund from MISO to PJM of $733,611. A modeling error by PJM resulted in incorrect calculations regarding the Pleasant Prairie–Zion 345-kV line for several days in June. PJM will refund $521,193 to MISO.
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s ruling in a dispute over interconnection costs in PJM, calling the agency’s action “the very essence of unreasoned and arbitrary decision-making.”
At issue is whether the developers of a generating plant in West Deptford, N.J., should be liable for transmission improvements ordered before the developers entered PJM’s interconnection queue.
West Deptford Energy joined the queue in 2006 and was informed it would be assessed $10 million for improvements PJM ordered as a result of previous projects, including one that was later cancelled. In 2008, PJM won FERC approval to change the section of its Tariff that related to liability for prior transmission upgrades.
If the 2008 Tariff applies, West Deptford will not be liable for the cost; if the 2006 Tariff controls, West Deptford will have to pay the bill.
FERC ruled that West Deptford must pay “since, at the time when West Deptford entered the PJM interconnection queue, that provision was the one that established its financial responsibility.”
But the commission referred to the 2008 Tariff in ruling that West Deptford’s request for auction revenue rights was “not ripe.”
“The question in this case is, when a utility filed more than one rate with the commission during the time it was negotiating an agreement with a prospective customer, which of the two filed rates governs: the rate at the time negotiations commenced or the rate at the time the agreement was completed?” the court said (Case No. 12-1340).
“West Deptford argues that, as a matter of practice, the commission has used the rate on file at the time the agreement was finalized. The commission is of the view that it can pick and choose which rate applies on a case-by-case basis.”
The court vacated the commission’s ruling against West Deptford, saying it “has provided no reasoned explanation for how its decision comports with statutory direction, prior agency practice or the purposes of the filed rate doctrine.”
It ordered FERC to provide an “explanation consistent with” the court’s ruling.
PJM expects to spend $276 million in 2015, a 2% increase over 2014, according to a preliminary budget outlined to members last week. The spending plan will result in a charge of $0.32/MWh, a rate that hasn’t changed since 2011.
The budget anticipates revenues of $283 million, a $1 million reduction from PJM’s 2014 forecast. PJM plans $30 million in capital spending, unchanged from 2014. Nearly two-thirds of the spending is for enhancements to existing applications and systems.
The Finance Committee will consider the budget Sept. 17, with the Board of Managers making the final decision on the plan Oct. 30.
A PJM task force has recommended lifting the $1,000 cap on cost-based energy offers, but the margin suggests the proposal may have a tough time winning final stakeholder approval.
The proposal would limit cost-based incremental energy offers to production costs allowed under the cost development guidelines plus a 10% adder up to a maximum of $90/MWh. Adders for frequently mitigated units (FMU) and associated units (AU) would not apply above $1,000/MWh.
To mitigate market power, market-based or price-based offers would be required to be less than or equal to cost-based offers when cost-based offers are greater than $1,000/MWh.
The proposal was the only one of three to win majority support in a vote of the Cap Review Senior Task Force. But its 57% support is below the two-thirds threshold needed to win endorsement by the Markets and Reliability Committee, where sector-weighted voting often results in less support than in lower committees.
Two other proposals failed to win backing from more than 25% of the task force.
One would keep the $1,000 offer cap but create a review process allowing PJM and the Independent Market Monitor to approve costs above it without a waiver from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Cost offers exceeding $1,000 would be compensated via uplift with no 10% adder.
The third proposal would allow recovery of incremental, start-up and no-load costs and day-ahead gas costs based on an index. All offers would be reviewed after the fact. The 10% adder would decline as the cost offer rises, being eliminated above $1,000/MWh. Cost-based offers greater than $1,000/MWh also would not include FMU/AU adders.
Stakeholders agreed to consider lifting the cap after some gas-fired generators reported that their operating costs exceeded $1,000/MWh when natural gas prices spiked during January’s extreme weather. (See Effort to Lift Offer Cap Advances After Debate.)
At a presentation before the MRC Thursday, Carl Johnson, representing the PJM Public Power Coalition, expressed concern that two of the proposals, including the one recommended by the task force, propose using a gas index instead of actual gas costs.
“One or two units with higher prices because of pipeline constraints could set LMPs,” he said. “When we take the $1,000 [cap] away we have the opportunity to exacerbate the error.”
Raghu Sudhakara of Rockland Electric said eliminating the cap would raise market power concerns. “It incentivizes generators to move away from dual-fuel capability and more to spot gas pricing because they are guaranteed cost recovery,” he said.
Jim Benchek of FirstEnergy said he’d like to see the task force continue to work on a rule change that applies to market-based offers, even if it is unable to reach consensus for the coming winter.
Market Monitor Joe Bowring said he believed the task force’s proposal addressed market-based offers by saying they cannot exceed cost-based offers.
The Monitor’s proposal, which failed to win consensus in the task force, would have permitted cost-based offers to exceed $1,000 while excluding the 10% adder. Price-based offers would be limited to no more than cost-based offers.
The Public Service Commission delayed a vote on Delmarva Power & Light’s infrastructure improvement plan until Exelon completes its acquisition of Delmarva’s parent company, Pepco Holdings Inc. PSC staff was critical of Delmarva’s five-year, $397 million plan to improve its distribution system, calling it too expensive, considering the utility’s good reputation for outage management. The commission said it would consider the plan three months after the merger’s close, which the companies anticipate in the second or third quarter of 2015.
The controversial $1.65 billion FutureGen clean-coal demonstration project is facing new challenges, despite recently receiving approval to charge consumers for the yet-to-be-built project’s output. The Sierra Club has refiled a complaint with the state Pollution Control Board, saying the project needs additional permits because it is a plant retrofit, rather than completely new construction. The plant, which would capture carbon dioxide and then dispose it underground, is supported by a $1 billion federal economic stimulus grant. Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, that money must be spent by the end of September 2015. But FutureGen CEO Ken Humphreyssays investors won’t commit financing while the air permit challenge is unsettled.
A group of owners of coal- and gas-fired power plants told the Illinois Commerce Commission that they’ve already taken about all the steps they can to reduce carbon emissions, and that the new Environmental Protection Agency’s carbon emission rule should be aimed elsewhere. Dean Ellis, a Dynegy official, said installing emissions-control equipment makes plants less efficient and isn’t the answer. An NRG official agreed. “A more cost-effective approach for Illinois is likely to include the voluntary [switch to natural gas] of inefficient coal plants, augmented by the competitive development of renewable energy, energy efficiency and distributed energy resources,” said Barry Matchett, NRG’s director of external affairs. The ICC is developing regulations to ensure that Illinois can meet the new EPA standards.
Indianapolis Power & Light will ask state regulators to allow it to convert the last unit of an aging coal-fired power plant in Indianapolis to natural gas as part of the effort to help the state meet recent Environmental Protection Agency emissions mandates. The company said it will ask the Utility Regulatory Commission to allow it to increase rates to recover some of the costs of converting a 427-MW unit at its Harding Street Station. It estimates fuel conversion and the cleanup of the coal ash pond would add about $1 to the average customer’s monthly bill. The local chapter of the Sierra Club has been advocating for the company to stop burning coal at the plant, saying it has long been Indianapolis’ biggest polluter.
Energy Secretary: Meeting EPA Rules will be Expensive
Energy and Environment Secretary Len Peters said the state’s draft answer to meeting new Environmental Protection Agency carbon emissions mandates will be expensive, if it’s even possible. Peters said current technology to capture carbon emissions is not yet economically feasible, undercutting the federal agency’s statements that the rules are reasonable. It is particularly challenging in Kentucky, he said, because much of the area’s generation is from burning coal. The EPA cap for coal-burning plants is 1,100 pounds of carbon dioxide per MWh. State officials say that the state’s best-performing plant emits 1,750 pounds per MWh.
Exelon’s proposed acquisition of Pepco Holdings Inc. took another step forward last week when the Chicago-based energy giant filed its formal application with the Public Service Commission. The $6.8 billion merger would add PEPCO, Atlantic City Electric and Delmarva Power & Light to Exelon’s stable of utility companies it already owns: BGE, Commonwealth Edison and PECO. Exelon CEO Christopher Crane said the Maryland review could take up to 15 months. The acquisition also requires approvals by several other states and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
The Public Service Commission awarded $89.5 million in energy-assistance grants to 13 organizations, including $30.2 million to DTE Energy and Consumers Energy. The two utilities will use the grant money to help low-income households with energy costs. The grants are funded by a commission-approved charge on utility bills and $40 million in Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program funds from the state Department of Human Services. Most of the grant money is provided during the winter heating months.
Scientists at Michigan State University have created a solar panel that is clear, opening the way for new uses, from self-charging smart phones to windows that capture solar energy while allowing light to penetrate. The new panel is called “transparent luminescent solar concentrator” and differs from earlier opaque solar panels. Small organic molecules, developed by Richard Lunt of MSU’s College of Engineering, absorb specific nonvisible wavelengths of sunlight, which are then converted to electrical energy.
“It opens a lot of area to deploy solar energy in a non-intrusive way,” Lunt said. “It can be used on tall buildings with lots of windows or any kind of mobile device that demands high aesthetic quality like a phone or e-reader. Ultimately we want to make solar harvesting surfaces that you do not even know are there.”
PPL’s ambitious plan to build a $4 billion to $6 billion transmission line to carry energy produced by new plants in Pennsylvania’s shale gas region is already attracting opposition. PPL bills the line, which would run from Pennsylvania to New York and New Jersey, and from Pennsylvania south to Maryland, as important to the company’s financial health and the regional power grid’s health. The proliferation of cheap shale gas has triggered a boom in new power plant construction, but the current transmission system isn’t robust enough to handle much more power.
The New Jersey Chapter of the Sierra Club says it will marshal forces to stop the line. “We have better places to invest our energy money” in or near New Jersey, state Sierra Club Director Jeff Tittel said. He said if money was spent on offshore wind, solar and energy-efficiency projects, “you wouldn’t need the power line.”
Gov. Pat McCrory is facing criticism for failing to disclose that he owned Duke Energy stock during the start of the state’s coal ash spill controversy this past spring. McCrory, a former Duke employee, sold his stock in the days after more than 39,000 tons of toxic coal ash spilled into the Dan River. Although he has since filed updated ethics disclosures, the initial ethics forms didn’t note his Duke stock holdings or the sale.
McCrory’s attorney has said the failure to note the stock ownership and stock sale on the forms was an oversight. McCrory’s communications director, Josh Ellis, said the governor sold the stock in response to criticism from the media and environmental groups after the coal ash spill. “The stock was sold in response to repeated public requests via the media and to stop the constant, unfounded challenges of the governor’s character,” Ellis said.
The state Department of Environment and Natural Resources is pressuring Duke Energy to come up with a plan for removing coal ash from four plants. The request comes after Gov. Pat McCrory issued an executive order for Duke to file plans after the state legislature failed to approve an ash-disposal bill. The efforts come in the wake of a spill of 39,000 tons of coal ash from one of Duke’s ash ponds on the Dan River. The state ordered Duke to submit plans by mid-November for cleaning up ash retention areas at the company’s Asheville, Riverbend, Dan River and Sutton plants. Some environmental groups say the state’s action doesn’t go far enough, noting that Duke has ash sites at 10 other plants in the state.
The Public Utilities Commission is working on a new rule to require electric utilities to include a distinct line item on customer bills that discloses the costs of renewable and energy-efficiency programs. The requirement was part of Senate Bill 310, which froze renewable energy standards for two years. The issue has pitted lawmakers against utility companies. A workshop is to be held this week to discusss how the rule will be implemented.
Moundsville Power received another approval for its planned 549-MW gas-fired plant. A split Marshall County Commission approved a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement for the plant. Under the agreement, the commission would own the $615 million plant and lease it back to Moundsville Power, which would operate it. Moundsville would pay an estimated $1 million each year to the county in lieu of taxes. The company said it would begin construction next year.
Private equity firm Panda Power Funds has started construction on a second power plant designed to take advantage of Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale gas boom. The 829-MW Patriot generating station will be in Montgomery, Pa., which lies just inside Lycoming County’s Marcellus Shale territory. The combined-cycle plant is expected to go online by the middle of 2016. Panda Power’s first Marcellus project, the Liberty plant, is under construction in Bradford County, Pa. The company is building three others in the ERCOT region in Texas and is in the final planning stages of plants in Maryland and in Virginia.
Hoosier Energy has agreed to buy 25 MW of the output of Rail Splitter Wind Farm in Illinois for 15 years, the company announced. The wind facility, about 25 miles west of Bloomington, Ill., has a total capacity of 100 MW. It is one of 31 wind farms in the U.S. operated by EDP Renewables of Texas. Hoosier Energy President and CEO Steve Smith said the deal will add to the renewables portfolio serving Hoosier’s 18 electric coops in southern Indiana and southeast Illinois. Hoosier also obtains energy from hydro and methane collection systems.
Critics Call FirstEnergy’s Plan ‘Bailout,’ Want More Info
FirstEnergy insists that its plan to have Ohio ratepayers subsidize generation costs for its merchant plants will be a good deal for consumers, but critics of the plan see it as a bailout and say the company is slow to provide all the details of the plan. Under the “Powering Ohio’s Progress” plan that it submitted to the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, the state’s regulated utilities would enter into long-term power-purchase agreements with the plants, including the W.H. Sammis coal plant and the Davis-Besse nuclear plant. The regulated utilities would then resell that power on the market.
FE admits that the first few years would probably result in a net loss to the utilities, but it insists that consumers would benefit in later years. Consumer advocates and other critics say it amounts to a bailout for the company and are complaining that they are having trouble obtaining access to the information FE filed with PUCO. They have vowed to contest the agreement before the commission.
“FirstEnergy admits that there are going to be costs, but that somehow everything will change, and in the out years there will be benefits,” said Dwayne Pickett, State Electric Caucus Chair for the Retail Energy Supply Association (RESA). “This is a bad idea.”
Exelon Lobbies Illinois Lawmakers for Nuclear Generation Credits
Exelon, operator of the largest nuclear fleet in the U.S., told the Illinois Commerce Commission that it should get credit for the carbon emission-free electricity its reactors generate. Talking at an ICC policy meeting last week, the company said that in light of the recent Environmental Protection Agency’s emissions rule, nuclear generation should be recognized for its emissions-free generation.
“We’re the largest clean-energy producer in the country. We’ve ridden that horse for a long time,” an Exelon executive said. “If nuclear is not preserved in this country, there is no way we can meet those carbon rules.” Exelon said earlier this year that at least three of its nuclear generating stations are at risk of being shut down if they don’t receive some sort of credit.
Five Integrys Energy Group executives will receive about $34.1 million in cash and stock after the company is sold to Wisconsin Energy next year, according to Securities and Exchange Commission records. Integrys CEO Charles Schrock will get $13.1 million. President Lawrence Borgard will get $9.6 million. None of the five is expected to have roles with Wisconsin Energy after the closing.
Kentucky Utilities and Louisville Gas & Electric cancelled plans to build a $700 million natural gas-fired plant in western Kentucky, citing decisions by nine municipal customers to terminate their power contracts. The proposed Muhlenberg County plant would have replaced the output of the soon-to-be shuttered Green River Station coal plant, and some Green River employees would have been shifted to the new plant.
“We’ve analyzed the situation carefully and believe that it is in the best interest of all of our customers to withdraw our current application for the natural gas combined-cycle unit in western Kentucky,” said Paul W. Thompson, chief operating officer for KU and LG&E. “Removing more than 300 MW of demand changes our load forecasts and thus delays the need for new generation.” The power companies said they are still looking at plans for a solar energy facility in the region.
Ameren Missouri said it would need to build 1,200 MW of natural-gas fired generation at a cost of $2 billion to comply with the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed carbon emissions rule. Customers would see 10-15% rate increases. “We don’t really need that generation, but in order to comply with this, we need to install something to get that rate down because [the EPA’s proposal] is a rate-based formula,” said Mike Menne, Ameren vice president of environmental affairs.
Instead, the company is promoting its own plan that would combine new plant construction with renewable energy and energy-efficiency programs. The plan would take longer, missing the EPA’s proposed deadline, but cost much less. “We’ll still get to the final place, and we think it will be a lot less expensive for our customers,” Menne said.
Dominion’s Plant Closing Plan Leaves Tons of Toxic Coal Ash
Dominion Virginia’s plan to decommission a coal-fired plant on the Elizabeth River in Virginia would leave nearly 1 million tons of coal ash at an on-site waste dump, records show. The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality is reviewing the plan. The company announced in 2011 that it would shut down the Chesapeake Energy Center by the end of 2016, but it recently moved that date up to the end of this year. The 973,400 tons of coal ash will be buried under a cap of synthetic liner and soil.
Allentown officials fear the city would lose 600 jobs with the proposed spinoff of PPL’s generation business into the new Talen Energy. PPL officials have said they have not decided where the new company’s headquarters will be located but said Allentown is still in the running. PPL’s filing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission seeking approval of the spinoff said it would make “commercially reasonable efforts to maintain competitive retail energy supply business activity” in the city for at least three years. City authorities have said losing the jobs and the tax revenue would be a hard hit in already hard times.
FirstEnergy’s decision to exit the retail energy business means that up to 70 of its employees in the Akron, Ohio, headquarters could be out of work as early as tomorrow. FirstEnergy Solutions officials told a gathering of about 230 employees last week that although 30% of positions would be eliminated at the Akron facility, some of those employees would be offered jobs at other FE facilities. Company officials said the job cuts would be among sales and marketing groups, as well as support staff.
NRG Energy said last week it will acquire Goal Zero, a Utah company that makes “personal power” solar units that allow people to plug in no matter where they are. Elizabeth Killinger, president of NRG Retail, said Goal Zero’s business of producing portable solar generators and panels fits in with NRG’s vision to provide small-scale distributed generation. She said Goal Zero’s solar products free consumers of the need to find a wall outlet to recharge their electronic devices. “When I’m on the go, it’s an easy way to get power and not have to sit on the floor next to the (airport) bathroom,” she said. “People deserve their dignity.” Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
