Search
April 12, 2026

Posted on

MISO Dusts off MVP Cost Allocation for Long-range Tx Plan

MISO said it will likely draw on a decade-old cost allocation method for its long-range transmission plan — at least in the Midwest.

The grid operator proposed using the cost allocation of 2011’s Multi-Value Projects (MVPs), with some departures, during a stakeholder cost allocation teleconference Wednesday.

The costs of MVPs were recovered through a 100% uniform, “postage stamp” rate from load. While the method would apply to long-range projects in MISO Midwest, the grid operator is holding off on proposing a method for projects in MISO South.

“Once we took a step back, we saw a lot of parallels with the Multi-Value Project type,” MISO planner Jeremiah Doner told stakeholders.

Doner said the method’s emphasis on congestion relief, reliability, energy policy goals and economics fits well with the aims of the current long-range plan, even 10 years later.

“We also heard that we should try to leverage what’s already in our tariff. This [allocation] has gone through a lengthy stakeholder process and FERC approval. So instead of coming up with a completely new project type, let’s look at the Multi-Value Project and see what needs to be changed,” he said.

The RTO intends to maintain the MVPs’ 100-kV minimum voltage threshold and $20 million cost minimum. To qualify for recovery, the grid operator proposed that long-range transmission projects meet the MVP criteria of supporting state or federal energy policies; addressing NERC issues and showing reliability benefits across multiple zones; and demonstrating multiple types of economic value across multiple pricing zones with at least an overall 1:1 benefit-to-cost ratio over the first 20 years of service.

Reviving the MVP methodology also means MISO might consider evaluating projects in groupings, though it’s not certain yet that it will advance portfolios of projects for approval in annual transmission cycles. The RTO has yet to announce any specific projects under the long-range transmission plan.

The postage stamp rate will likely be calculated based on local balancing authorities’ monthly net actual energy withdrawals and follow a 40-year depreciation schedule with operations and maintenance costs thereafter for projects.

Doner said MISO would not enact a systemwide postage stamp rate and instead opt for a subregional rate. “We would define MISO as the MISO Midwest and MISO South subregions” for the purposes of allocation.

The Environmental Groups sector and some MISO transmission owners last month advocated for a subregional postage stamp methodology. (See MISO Members Revive Debate over ‘Postage Stamp’ Cost Allocation.)

Different Treatment for MISO South

Exactly how South transmission projects would be allocated on a subregional basis remains up in the air.

“At this point in time, we’re not ready to make a recommendation on how to allocate costs in the South,” Doner said.

MISO South regulators in July voiced opposition to long-term planning. (See South Regulators Lambast MISO Long-term Tx Planning.) The grid operator is hoping for majority support among its states’ regulatory bodies on its long-range plan.

Stakeholders registered concern that MISO South might get special treatment through a different cost allocation method. Some pointed out that a few areas in MISO Midwest have limited transfer capability, similar to the Midwest-South subregional constraint, but will nevertheless share in a Midwest postage stamp rate.

“If MISO South comes up with a different cost allocation scheme … then are we basically suggesting that customers’ in the Midwest … benefits are going to be viewed differently? Can you help me understand how that would pass the fairness test, the equity test?” energy consultant Kavita Maini asked.

Maini said the fairness question will be particularly important for members who own facilities in both regions.

Doner said the question was fair, and the RTO would have more information when it proposes a specific cost allocation for MISO South.

“To the extent that the cost allocation differs, the rationale for that is going to be important,” he said.

Clean Grid Alliance’s Natalie McIntire said she was troubled that MISO has not yet proposed an allocation method for the South.

North Dakota Public Service Commissioner Julie Fedorchak urged MISO to build stronger business cases and show more proof of heightened reliability to sell the dramatic transmission expansion. “I need more than this to sign my ratepayers on to 40 years of costs,” she said.

Fedorchak said there needs to be clarification on what qualifies as a long-term transmission project, otherwise “anything could be labeled a long-range project” and cost-shared regionally.

Doner said MISO will build business cases as projects emerge, including demonstrating future NERC violations without them. MISO has already said that voltage and thermal issue will proliferate in the Midwest footprint without major transmission construction. (See MISO Analyses Show Reliability Woes Without Transmission Builds.)

The Union of Concern Scientists’ Sam Gomberg said that while he understands the concerns around protecting consumers from wasteful spending, he said he’s confident that MISO would present clear business cases as staff begin to analyze specific transmission solutions.

“Our world is changing so fast that we can’t wait on a perfect process. If we wait — I don’t want to say we will be left in the dark, because that would be too literal — but we’ll be behind the eight-ball,” Sustainable FERC Project attorney Lauren Azar said. She said if members wait any longer, there will be a scramble to build infrastructure.

Azar urged stakeholders to look no further than the 2011 MVP portfolio, whose benefits increased over time and even stabilized the grid as February’s winter storm lashed the footprint.

“They brought benefits that were never considered in the benefit analysis or the triennial reviews,” she said.

WPPI Energy’s Steve Leovy said that while he agrees with broad cost sharing, he hoped to see an allocation plan where MISO assigns a portion of costs to interconnecting generators.

“It’s imperative that generations see the cost impacts of their siting decisions,” Leovy said. “This is a big undertaking. We shouldn’t really on existing mechanisms to allocate costs.”

WEC Energy Group’s Chris Plante also asked that MISO modify the MVP methodology to include elements of its shared network upgrades so that generators share cost burdens.

“The long-range transmission plan is not an interconnection study. It’s a broad, regional system needs study,” McIntire countered.

Azar said the long-range plan contemplates the “total transformation” of the industry over the next two decades, including retirements, electrification and utility goals.

“Just placing this on the back of the generators is not the thing to do,” Azar argued.

Posted on

Maine Prepares Statewide Storage Pilot for Critical Services

Efficiency Maine is taking lessons learned from a commercial energy storage pilot to design a new program for putting storage at critical care facilities.

Maine’s new energy storage law directs the agency to launch a new pilot by January to install up to 15 MW of energy storage at hospitals, fire departments, police stations and other facilities that provide critical services. The law, which Gov. Janet Mills signed at the end of June, establishes a goal of 400 MW of installed storage capacity for the state by 2030. (See New Maine Law Sets 400-MW Energy Storage Target for 2030.)

For the new pilot, the agency will target “sophisticated energy consumers,” such as large hospitals, that can support 1.5 MW to 2 MW of storage capacity, Efficiency Maine Director of Strategic Initiatives Ian Burnes said on Wednesday.

“We learned with our commercial storage pilot that if you go small, you pay a lot per kilowatt,” he said during a Northeast Energy and Commerce Association webinar on Maine’s storage goals. “We want to find solutions that are the lowest cost per kilowatt and provide the most benefit.”

The commercial pilot included installation of batteries at three locations to study how dispatching the battery energy can affect peak demand, according to Burnes.

“One of the things we found right away is that with the smaller systems, the controllers that we needed to control those batteries were very expensive,” he said.

The agency also is planning to launch a new statewide load shifting initiative that takes lessons learned from a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) pilot for reducing load during peak demand periods.

Under the new initiative, the agency plans to limit the technologies that can participate to start, Burnes said.

“What we found from our [BYOD] pilot is that heat pumps … are so efficient that shifting that load doesn’t get us much benefit,” he said. “We’re going to start with the largest, most reliable devices in people’s homes, which are the [electric vehicle] chargers and battery storage systems.”

The BYOD pilot demonstrated that residential and small customers responded well to incentives for networking their battery storage systems to help mitigate peak demand, according to Burnes.

Under the new initiative, the agency will pay participants to dispatch battery energy to reduce the state’s exposure to peak charges and peak infrastructure, he said.

Challenges

As Maine works to achieve its new energy storage goal, it faces unique challenges, according to Sen. Eloise Vitelli (D), who sponsored the energy storage legislation (LD 528).

“Our energy systems are very complex,” she said during the webinar. “They’re dynamic, they’re interwoven and interdependent on each other and on other systems, on the markets both in-state and regional, and the technologies that keep changing and developing.”

The state is starting to build the capacity to address the challenges that arise from complex market dynamics, but Vitelli said it’s difficult to keep policy in line with what’s happening “on the ground.”

Legislators will need to be “nimble,” she said, even if they are “not known for that.”

The energy storage market also needs to remain technology-neutral, a challenge that Vitelli says can be an opportunity as well.

Storage is not all about batteries, and the energy storage law acknowledges that reality, she said.

The law directs the Public Utilities Commission to consider the feasibility of a pilot program that would develop power-to-fuel projects that convert renewable energy to hydrogen gas, methane or other fuel.

On Monday, the PUC issued a request for comments on the program (Case 2021-00208). The inquiry seeks information on the definition of power-to-fuel projects, possible benefits to the grid, ratepayer impacts and project examples in other states. Comments are due Aug. 16, and the PUC will submit a report to the legislature in February.

“We need to make sure that we’re staying abreast of what some of the other technologies are that may emerge that will play a role in storage as we work to reach our clean energy goals,” Vitelli said.

Posted on

PURA Establishes Rules for Conn. Electric Storage Program

Connecticut regulators on Thursday finalized rules for a statewide incentive program to support deployment of 580 MW of installed electric storage capacity by 2030.

The Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) established rules for a storage program that includes upfront and annual performance-based incentive structures to reduce the cost of buying and installing a storage system for customers of the state’s two investor-owned utilities.

The Connecticut Green Bank will administer the nine-year program with Eversource Energy and United Illuminating starting in January and continuing through at least the end of 2030.

The average upfront residential incentives will start at around $250/kWh, with a maximum incentive of $7,500 per project. Commercial and industrial ratepayers will also be eligible for upfront incentives, including up to 50% of the project cost. Residential, commercial and industrial eligibility for performance incentive payments will be based on the average power a storage project contributes to the grid during critical periods.

More incentives will be available for low-income ratepayers and underserved communities, in addition to small businesses and those who historically experience frequent and prolonged storm-related outages.

Development of the program was informed by legislation signed by Gov. Ned Lamont in June that set a statewide deployment goal of 1 GW of energy storage by 2030, with interim targets of 300 MW by 2024 and 650 MW by 2027.

Calling 1 GW an “aspirational” goal, PURA said in its ruling that it appreciates the “nascent nature” of the electric storage industry in Connecticut and recognizes that market conditions “are likely to change in the coming years.” However, the authority believes that a 580-MW program deployment target for 2030 is necessary given the legislative goal and PURA’s objective to lower entry barriers to foster the development of a “state-based electric storage industry” through the program.

The program will include three-year review cycles for PURA to reassess deployment targets and the breakdown of the deployments by ratepayer class. The reviews will also evaluate whether the program ultimately delivers on the expected value to Connecticut’s ratepayers and meeting objectives.

Between the new law and rules, PURA Chair Marissa Gillett said in a statement that Connecticut is primed to be a potential leader in realizing the benefits of energy storage.

“Today’s decision builds on that vision by establishing a comprehensive statewide program that not only incorporates different applications and types of electric storage but ensures the state is on a path to achieving 1,000 MW by 2030,” Gillett said. “I want to thank the legislature and Gov. Lamont for their leadership and recognition of the vital role storage will play in a truly equitable, decentralized, decarbonized and modernized grid.”

This ruling and PURA’s recent announcement of a nine-year electric vehicle charging program — both part of the Equitable Modern Grid initiative — also address Connecticut’s long-term greenhouse gas reduction targets that require a 45% reduction in emissions by 2030.

Posted on

Dispatches from the Frontlines of Environmental Justice in Conn.

Connecticut’s five biggest cities — Bridgeport, Hartford, New Haven, Stamford and Waterbury — each contain about 600 pollution sources, according to the state’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. They’re also home to 51% of the state’s impoverished residents and 71% of its communities of color.

State Rep. Geraldo Reyes (D) this year tried to address those issues by co-sponsoring a bill on environmental justice and racism during the Connecticut General Assembly’s regular session. The bill would have protected “distressed municipalities from new sources of pollution while reducing existing sources of pollution for such areas of the state.”

The legislation did not advance out of committee. Reyes proposed it after helping to revise the state’s environmental justice regulations in a special session last fall. The state now requires facilities impacting the environment to improve communication with “environmental justice communities” located in census blocks where 30% of the population are low-income individuals or communities defined as “distressed.” These actions put Reyes squarely on the frontline of environmental justice, not only in his hometown of Waterbury but statewide.

“Although I’m no stranger to the environmental justice conversation … I’ve taken on the environmental challenges simply because I did not like what I saw around in my neighborhood, as it was affecting the quality of air and the quality of life in the south end of Waterbury,” Reyes said at a recent Connecticut Green Bank webinar on the “History of Environmental Justice in America and the Frontlines of Climate Justice Today in Connecticut.”

Once known as America’s “Brass City,” Waterbury is now better known for poor air quality and high asthma rates, including among Reyes’ family, he said. And while progress is being made on the environmental justice front through legislation, Reyes said there is “a long way to go.”

Reyes said it was a “struggle” for him when the environmental justice and racism bill did not advance out of committee, because he wants to “get to the end result.” Legislating is a marathon, not a sprint, he said.

“I want to put the perfect bill out there, but when you’re working across aisles and negotiating, you may not be able to get the perfect bill in one shot.”

Inclusion Needed

While environmental justice might primarily focus on air quality and other ecological aspects, it also can deal with energy affordability and burden, said Brenda Watson, executive director of the nonprofit Operation Fuel. It also serves as an entry point into climate justice.

“There’s a huge role that utility companies and regulators play, as well as advocates, and we all need to be at the planning table together,” Watson said. “For a long time, regulators and investor-owned utilities have been shaping energy policy and regulation from the top down, and what we should be doing is planning from the top down as well as bottom up.”

Infrastructure and weatherization can help reduce energy burden and address public health and climate change, Watson said. She said that environmental justice and energy affordability advocates alike realized that weatherization is critical to addressing climate change.

“If we’re not shoring up infrastructure for the many households who can’t afford to invest in renewable energy products like solar battery storage, heat pumps and fuel cells when those become available on a wide scale, we’re going to continue to be on this cycle of perpetuating the harm.”

In June, Gov. Ned Lamont (D) signed into law legislation that requires clean energy projects pay prevailing wages, despite vehement opposition from solar industry trade groups, which said the state should not apply rules governing the level of wages and benefits usually reserved for publicly financed projects.

John Harrity, chair of the Connecticut Roundtable on Climate and Jobs, said the law was “not a union worker bill.” Instead, he said, it urges renewable energy project developers to have apprenticeships and pre-apprenticeship programs aimed at communities of color where people who have been disenfranchised “get something out of it” and break the cycle of “promises made and promises broken.”

“If green jobs are allowed to become a kind of a Walmart, no-benefit type job, then workers will resist addressing climate,” Harrity said. “We need to make this an inclusive effort that brings people in where we all share in that prosperity because we are definitely going to be asked to make sacrifices, and this should be an equitable situation.”

Posted on

NRC Conducting Special Inspection of Davis-Besse

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is launching a special inspection at the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant in Ohio after a reported “complicated” reactor trip earlier this month and multiple diesel generator failures during testing and maintenance operations.

Prema Chandrathil, a public affairs officer at NRC’s regional office in Lisle, Ill., said a six-member team started the inspection Monday to review the response of Energy Harbor, the owner of the plant, regarding the failure of its diesel generators, including the cause analysis, maintenance practices and system designs.

NRC said Davis-Besse experienced four failures of emergency diesel generators in the last 24 months during required testing and one failure of a station blackout diesel generator during maintenance.

“The inspection will take as long as necessary to review the issues and understand exactly what happened and why,” Chandrathil said. “After the NRC completes the special inspection, we will document any findings in a report which will be publicly available.”

Davis-Besse has two emergency diesel generators, which are designed to provide emergency power during the loss of off-site power, along with one station blackout diesel generator, which provides power to the plant in case both emergency generators fail. Officials said one generator is sufficient to enable the plant to safely shut down and remain in a stable condition in an emergency.

NRC said that as its inspectors were planning for the examination of the diesel generators, Davis-Besse experienced an unplanned reactor trip on July 8 in which “certain pieces of equipment did not function as designed.”

According to a report sent to NRC, the reactor “automatically tripped due to trip of the main turbine, caused by failure of a non-safety-related breaker during functional testing” around 10 p.m. with the unit at 100% power. The report said following the reactor trip, the unit’s steam feed rupture control system “automatically initiated on low steam Generator 1 level, actuating both turbine-driven auxiliary feedwater pumps,” and operators manually started high-pressure injection pumps “in response to overcooling indications.”

“There was no impact on the health and safety of the public or plant personnel,” the report said. “Operators took action to address the equipment issues, and the reactor was shut down safely and placed in a stable condition. After making the necessary repairs, the reactor returned to power.”

NRC officials said based on the complications of the reactor trip, the agency chose to expand the special inspection to “better understand equipment performance issues and operator response.”

Posted on

Groups Urge Michigan to Adopt All Electrification in New Building Code

A coalition of 30 organizations has called on Michigan officials to adopt a new building energy code requiring all new construction to be fully electric, saying eliminating additional use of natural gas is “a critical measure to reduce air pollution and protect the public health.”

Failing to block the use of natural gas in new buildings would lock in greenhouse gas emissions for the future, or force newly built structures to undergo retrofits to meet a 2020 executive order issued by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) that the state develop a plan to reduce carbon emissions to zero by 2050, the groups said in a letter to the state Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs.

The state is looking at an update to its 2015 energy codes.  Any changes must undergo a legislative review process before they can take effect. The departmental rule review process must include public hearings, which have not yet been scheduled.

Final approval of any code changes could be several years away.

The code changes are occurring as the state’s Council on Climate Solutions, created by Whitmer’s order, is continuing to gather information on drafting a carbon neutral plan for the state.   The council has a deadline of this fall to deliver a proposal.

The letter — signed by officials from the Michigan Environmental Council, the Michigan League of Conservation Voters, West Michigan Environmental Action, the Grand Rapids NAACP, the City of Ann Arbor and others — argues that heating and cooling buildings through electric heat pumps, along with improved overall construction and insulation standards, improve a house’s overall affordability.

Natural gas appliances can create health hazards inside a house along with impairing overall air quality, the groups argued in the letter.

However, any effort to bar the use of natural gas could face stiff opposition in the Republican-controlled legislature. A bill, HB 4575, prohibiting local governments from banning the use of natural gas has had one committee hearing, where it was backed by the state’s largest utilities as well as construction unions. And CMS Energy (NYSE:CMS), Michigan largest utility, recently announced a plan that would expand the use of solar generation but continue to develop natural gas generation. Michigan is a large producer of natural gas, with most wells in Republican-controlled regions.

Posted on

SRP Details Stakeholder Engagement Strategy to Accelerate Carbon Reduction

When the Salt River Project, one of Arizona’s largest utilities, sought to identify stakeholders with solid commitments to transportation electrification, it wanted to reach as many different constituencies as possible. Cities and towns in the Phoenix area with detailed climate action plans supporting the proliferation of electric vehicles were low-hanging fruit.

Enter the American Lung Association, not a top-of-mind player in the decarbonization of the transportation sector, but Marc Campbell quickly linked to the valid reason otherwise.

“When it comes to electric vehicles, stop and think about air quality and the impacts on people that have lung disease, and [the American Lung Association is] a pretty vocal stakeholder in that arena,” said Campbell, manager of sustainability policy and programs for SRP. “They can reach legislators and other organizations in a different way than a utility does.”

Speaking on Tuesday at the Smart Electric Power Alliance’s virtual Grid Evolution Summit during a session on stakeholder engagement as part of accelerating carbon reduction, Campbell said that when SRP made changes to its 2035 Sustainability Goals, there was a five-month process with more than 60 community stakeholders and customers to gain recommendations and support for the revisions.

As part of SRP’s strategy to get 500,000 EVs in its service territory, Campbell wanted to identify 10 strategic stakeholders that had a strong commitment to transportation electrification and the ability to influence others and take tangible action to reach goals. For example, the American Lung Association said in a report that the widespread adoption of zero-emission transportation technologies like EVs could produce wide-ranging health and climate benefits.

The hope was to create a “positive process with a lot of momentum,” and Campbell said the 10 “founding partners” got other groups excited about the EV initiative. That also created an organic word of mouth, Campbell added.

“The way that we have built this has been extremely collaborative,” Campbell said. “We did not come into it with any sort of SRP-specific agenda.”

The stakeholder process can be a “black hole,” according to Campbell, who said that it was important that SRP’s “gravitational pull” not be felt too strongly in this instance.

“We didn’t want this to be about SRP. We wanted this to be about transportation electrification,” Campbell said. “As we started to design the foundations, we were really careful to make sure that our partners had a strong voice in determining what the vision and mission of this group were going to look like, and that’s what gets people excited, because they can start to see themselves as a part of the process.”

In electrifying the transportation sector, Campbell said it is not a space in which utilities typically operate. That requires “a lot of community partners” for SRP to reach its EV goal.

As part of SRP’s more extensive sustainability stakeholder process, which will tackle goals like reducing carbon per megawatt-hour by 65% from 2005 levels by 2035 and by 90% by 2050, “the ingredients are still largely the same.”

“It’s about open dialogue, transparency and creating common visions of where you can go,” Campbell said. “The primary difference here is that there are some stakeholders that might want you to get to a place — particularly the carbon emissions reduction from our from generating facilities — that you can’t quite get to yet, and that is a very tough conversation when you start to talk about the limits of your system.”

Posted on

DTE CEO Hints at Accelerating Coal Plant Closures

Amid a strong second quarter showing, DTE Energy’s Jerry Norcia signaled that the utility could be accelerating some coal plant closures.

“We’re looking at how we can accelerate our coal retirements … We are looking very closely at how we can accelerate all of these retirements prior to 2040,” Norcia told financial analysts during the company’s second-quarter earnings call Monday.

DTE (NYSE: DTE) committed to retiring all its coal generation by 2040 in its last integrated resource plan (IRP) in 2020.

Norcia said the company would issue an update “likely at the end of the year or early next year as to what those plans may look like.”

“We continue to look at ways to accelerate our coal fleet retirements and potentially file our updated IRP before September of 2023,” he said. “We’re spending a lot of time with various stakeholders through the summer, including our board, having those conversations, trying to balance the interest of acceleration and, of course, affordability and reliability.”

The Michigan Public Service Commission rejected DTE’s last IRP for insufficient development of renewable energy and energy efficiency savings. The company eventually earned the PSC’s approval by promising more ambitious energy savings goals and energy-efficiency programs. (See Michigan PSC Orders DTE to Redo IRP.)

On June 4, DTE completed the retirement of the 1950s-era, coal-fired River Rouge Power Plant along the Detroit River. Norcia said River Rouge is one of the three coal-fired plants DTE is retiring by the end of 2022 and an “integral part of our company’s clean energy transformation.”

DTE reported $329 million ($1.70/share) in total operating earnings for the second quarter. The earnings were $19 million higher than the second quarter of 2020, primarily because of higher commercial sales, rate implementation and warmer weather, the company said.

During the quarter, Michigan regulators gave the utility the go-ahead to expand MIGreenPower, the company’s voluntary renewable energy program, by another 1 GW of new voluntary wind and solar by the end of 2023, Norcia said. He added that the program will soon become more affordable and accessible to low-income customers.

Norcia noted that new MIGreenPower customers include the state of Michigan, Detroit real estate company Bedrock, Trinity healthcare system, and Detroit Diesel. He said the program has reached 950 MW of “voluntary renewable commitments” and approximately 35,000 residential customers, with an additional 400 MW in “very advanced stages of discussion.”

“MIGreenPower is one of the largest voluntary renewable programs in the nation and helps advance our work toward our net-zero carbon emission goal while helping our customers meet their decarbonization goals,” Norcia said.

He said DTE has also partnered with Ford to install rooftop solar and battery storage at the Ford Research and Engineering Center. The array can generate more than 1,100 MWh of clean energy and will be used to power electric vehicle chargers, Norcia said.

Norcia also reported that DTE Midstream is a completely standalone business. DTE announced late last year that it would spin off its non-utility natural gas pipeline, gathering and storage business. (See DTE Energy to Cleave Pipeline Business.)

Posted on

DC PSC Says Renewables Make Up 12.2% of City’s Fuel Mix

“Significant” growth in distributed clean electricity generation, mainly solar energy, is driving D.C.’s efforts to mitigate climate change, according to Cary Hinton, director of the Office of External Affairs at the district’s Public Service Commission.

“The key is that we’re making significant progress in expanding the amount of renewable resources and generators that are used in the district,” he said in an interview July 20. “The district is unique in that there is virtually no electricity generation in the area we regulate, except for distributed [resources] like solar.” So, D.C. draws most of its power from neighboring states, leaving the PSC with little it can do directly about reducing fossil fuel-powered electricity, he said.

The city’s Clean Energy Omnibus Amendment Act of 2018 set ambitious goals for climate change mitigation. The new law raised the district’s existing renewable energy portfolio standard, setting goals of 100% renewable energy by 2032, with 10% of electricity coming from solar in and around the district by 2041.

Progress seems to be much more rapid on the latter goal. On June 30, the PSC issued its required Biennial Report on Fuel Mix to the D.C. Council, providing an update on the ratio of different energy sources used to generate the electricity supplied to the district. In 2020, 12.2% of the total energy sold in the district came from renewable energy sources, the report said. That contrasts favorably with the figure for PJM, which stands around 6%. In nonrenewable fuel sources, coal was responsible for 18.3% of D.C.’s power, compared to 19.4% for PJM; nuclear stood at 31%, compared to 34.5%; natural gas made up 38.1%, compared to 39.8%; and oil and other sources comprised 0.4%, compared to 0.2%.

The PSC added in an accompanying press release that, “since 2016, carbon dioxide emissions, one of the key metrics of greenhouse gases, have decreased about 20%. Nitrogen oxide, which plays an important role in the formation of smog and contributes to the problem of acid rain, decreased by roughly 52% over the same time period. Sulfur dioxide, which can adversely impact respiratory health, dropped by nearly 68% since 2016.”

On May 3, the PSC issued a separate, annual report to the D.C. Council on how the district did in meeting its RPS in 2020. That report noted “significant growth in solar energy generator applications and Community Renewable Energy Facilities (CREFs) in the district. In 2019 and 2020, the commission received and processed 1,591 and 2,835 applications, respectively.”

Much of that growth can be attributed to D.C.’s Solar For All program which was rolled out in 2018 with the ambitious target of installing enough solar across the nation’s capital to cut in half the electric bills of 100,000 low- and moderate-income residents. To date, the program has put panels on the roofs of 200 low-income single-family homes and launched 130 CREFs, saving hundreds of dollars a year for 4,000 D.C. households.

As of June 1, the more recent PSC report says, the agency has certified 164 CREFs that are associated with 19.4 MW of capacity. Since May 1, 2020, the PSC has not required CREFs to directly connect to the distribution system, which “helped implement a virtual CREF … that helps reduce the cost of establishing a CREF by avoiding certain infrastructure upgrades while maintaining safety and reliability.”

The district has also certified 11,790 renewable energy systems, including 8,623 solar photovoltaic systems that have 130.4 MW of capacity and 112 solar thermal systems that have 5.4 MW of capacity. Together, these two types of solar energy systems “account for the vast majority of these approved renewable systems — 11,491 as of June 1, 2021,” the report adds. For reference, during calendar year 2020, default electricity utility PEPCO and 46 active competitive suppliers collectively supplied approximately 9.85 million MWh to electric customers in D.C.

“We are cautiously optimistic,” Hinton said.

Posted on

ISO-NE Planning Advisory Committee Briefs: July 22, 2021

Eversource Replacing Conductors

Eversource Energy (NYSE:ES) will replace more than 12 miles of 115-kV high-pressure, fluid-filled (HPFF) underground conductors between Waltham and Watertown in central Massachusetts to mitigate environmental and reliability issues, according to a presentation to the ISO-NE Planning Advisory Committee last week. The project is estimated to cost $69.6 million.

The existing 1250 kcmil paper-insulated copper conductor will be replaced with a 2000 kcmil laminated paper-polypropylene-insulated copper conductor, which is standard for Eversource in replacement considerations to minimize the number of spare reels and accessories on hand. Larger conductors also allow the cable to run cooler, which increases asset life and ratings.

There is only one remaining supplier of HPFF cables in the world, and the potential loss of that supplier would make replacement with solid dielectric cable or cross-linked polyethylene the only technically viable option, adding time and considerable cost to the preferred solution, according to Eversource’s Christopher Soderman.

The project will address safety and environmental risks associated with a cable failure or pipe breach. There have been six leaks since 1985 that have spilled more than 24,000 gallons of dielectric fluid/mineral oil, including 45% of those total gallons leaked in two significant events in the last six years. There is also increasing scrutiny from state and federal regulators to eliminate or reduce leaks. In addition, leaks result in high cleanup costs from fluid entering waterways and roadways, resulting in shutdowns.

The alternative is to “do nothing,” which is not an option because of the demonstrated asset condition issues, Eversource said. In addition, rebuilding the lines with cross-linked polyethylene requires new duct banks, civil work and lengthy siting, permitting and construction processes that do not quickly address the critical condition of the HPFF cables.

The proposed in-service date is the third quarter of 2023.

More Results from Tx Planning Pilot Study

ISO-NE’s Dan Schwarting and Meenakshi Saravanan presented additional preliminary results from the RTO’s “Transmission Planning for the Clean Energy Transition” pilot study, quantifying the tradeoffs between cost and the ability of the transmission system to accommodate high amounts of renewable resources.

Among the key takeaways of the study, ISO-NE found that generation reductions in southeastern Massachusetts/Rhode Island would be sufficient to relieve overloads on the Stoughton-K St. 345-kV line caused by future renewable resource additions, including over 3,100 MW of offshore wind and 2,300 MW of solar PV. The study kept approximately 5,150 MW of fossil-fuel generation offline to avoid cable overloads.

The study found that thermal overloads in real-time operations could be “relatively easily managed,” and many options exist for generation reduction that would alleviate the constraint. Operators can quickly identify post-contingency thermal overloads before a contingency occurs and make system adjustments, such as reducing generation to avoid overloads.

In a needs assessment, a thermal overload is not considered a need if it could be resolved by reducing generation. Currently, enough capacity is available outside of SEMA/RI that the reduction does not cause a reliability concern. If significant generator retirements occur, some fossil-fuel capacity may be needed to serve load. The RTO will continue the current practice of reducing generation when necessary to avoid overloads.

ISO-NE will next month make its final PAC presentation on steady-state and stability results and share its proposal for new study assumptions for load, solar generation and wind generation. New study conditions for load, solar generation and wind generation will be finalized and documented at the September PAC meeting.