Page 968 – RTO Insider

May 25, 2021

North Dakota PSC Hosts Reliable Grid Discussion

SPP COO Lanny Nickell last week pointed to a lack of gas generation as the primary culprit behind the first-ever load sheds in the grid operator’s 80-year history during February’s Winter Storm Uri.

RTO staff is still working to obtain “specifics about the data,” Nickell said during a May 20 technical conference hosted by the North Dakota Public Service Commission, but the lack of gas supplies for fossil plants contributed to the loss of 35 GW of generation capacity.

“The best I can tell, from anecdotal evidence in talking to members, production was the largest reason gas didn’t show up,” Nickell said. “I’ve also been told there were pipeline issues. I don’t know whether the pipeline issues were driven by production issues or something else. I don’t know for sure, but I’ve heard both issues presented as possible drivers for a lack of supply.”

SPP has said gas generation accounted for about 60% of the unavailable generation during Uri’s peak Feb. 15-16. The RTO is working with its members to better understand what happened as it develops a comprehensive report to be released in July. (See SPP Launches Review of Storm Response.)

The grid operator twice reached its maximum energy emergency alert status and called for load sheds totaling nearly 3.3 GW over a four-hour time period. SPP returned to normal operations on Feb. 20. (See ERCOT, MISO, SPP Slough Load in Wintry Blast.)

Nickell reminded the commission that the RTO’s responsibility for grid reliability includes balancing supply and demand and ensuring the grid’s equipment is always operated within reliability limits.

SPP load sheds — Gas resources accounted for most of SPP’s generation outages during the February winter storm. | *SPP*

“During this event, there were times when we were trying to do both,” he said. “It appeared the solutions conflicted. At times, we had to dispatch generation down to protect transmission elements, but that goes against the need to make sure we balance supply and demand. We take responsibility … as an organization, we are responsible for protecting the transmission grid.”

PSC Chair Julie Fedorchak asked Nickell who is responsible for the diversity of the fuel mix or ensuring dual-fuel capabilities. Referencing an earlier analogy from Basin Electric Power Cooperative’s Tom Christensen, who pinpointed fuel, not the number of vehicles, as the key to an effective package-delivery system, she said, “If you don’t have the fuel, you can’t run the power plant.”

“We’ve never advocated for fuel diversity,” Nickell said. Like other grid operators, SPP makes a point of being fuel agnostic. “I hope to see this in the final report — that as the RTO, we do need to step up, we do need to show some leadership in determining and assessing the minimum characteristics we need identified in the fuel mix. Right now, it’s entirely on the members to show up.”

He said SPP will have to “step up” and express what types of attributes, such as quick-starting resources, are needed in the fuel mix.

“We’re going to have to inform our stakeholders and the country as to what is needed to keep the lights on, especially as we see this transition to more and more renewables,” Nickell said.

Commissioner Randy Christmann, hinting at the unavailability of wind generation during the winter event, asked Basin Electric’s Valerie Weigel, whether dispatchable resources are not being compensated and “encouraged to disappear.”

“We have a great opportunity to participate with SPP and develop market products that can compensate dispatchable resources for the services they provide,” Weigel, Basin’s director of asset management, said, noting she is involved in the work to build a “multitude of producers … for all various fuel types.”

Christmann queried Weigel about load-serving entities’ responsibility to help SPP meet 112% of the system’s peak load, which is based on peak summer loads. “Does February tell us 112% is too low of a number?” he asked.

Weigel said several working groups are discussing reserve margins for winter peak loads.

“I think we’re going to have to start performing winter seasonal assessments, and maybe spring and fall assessments, about what the requirement should be during those times to ensure the capacity we feel should be there is there,” he said.

The technical conference included two groups of cooperatives’ utilities along with SPP and MISO, who both manage parts of the North Dakota grid. The two grid operators were placed in separate groups.

Fedorchak painted the event as an “informal discussion” as the attendees discussed ensuring long-term reliability and the “major transformation of the electric grid.”

“We can’t go beyond where our technology is able to take us, where our infrastructure is able to take us, where all the pieces have to fit together,” she said. “We have to ensure that we as regulators, you as the industry, are not getting too far in front. We have to be the ones that say this is as far as we go. February is an example of going too far. Yes, it was bad weather, but let’s make sure we keep [the grid] resilient moving forward.”

North Dakota is the ninth state in which SPP has testified about its response to Uri before regulators and legislators, joining Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico and Oklahoma.

South Dakota Commissioner Kristie Fiegen, who chairs SPP’s Regional State Committee, sat in on the discussion.

MISO Probing Emergency Steps

MISO, spared from having to shed load during Uri, said it’s examining its emergency phases to possibly make them more user-friendly.

“We operate the fleet that is provided to us,” Senior Director of Operations Planning J.T. Smith told the commissioners, adding that the grid operator is trying to gain more insight into its resources’ capabilities.

Smith said it would be helpful if the RTO could access demand response resources without first declaring an emergency and called for a re-examination of emergency declarations, which he said don’t always result in load shed.

“One of the things that’s tough about a capacity emergency is that you can move very quickly … into load shed,” Smith said.

When MISO enacts a second-level emergency, the situation can rapidly devolve into the process’ more severe steps. The grid operator calls for available maximum energy from offline resources at step 1A, with load shed taking place at step 5. The emergency must reach 2A before MISO can direct its load-modifying resources.

The commissioners asked whether MISO is considering ways to give members more warning as emergencies rapidly intensify. Smith said staff has recognized “inadequacies” in the step-based process.

MISO only directed utilities to make public appeals in its Entergy region, Smith said.

“Do I think we saw a lot of reduction? Not necessarily,” he said. “What I didn’t see was major impacts from public appeals.”

May 25, 2021

PG&E to Sell San Francisco HQ for $800M

Pacific Gas and Electric (NYSE: PCG) will sell its iconic San Francisco headquarters to a real estate venture for $800 million, the company said Monday.

The deal with Hines Atlas US includes PG&E properties at 77 Beale St. and 245 Market St., in the heart of the city’s high-priced financial district.

The sale comes nearly a year after PG&E emerged from an extended bankruptcy process stemming from its role in sparking some of the most destructive wildfires in California history, including the 2018 Camp Fire, which killed 85 people and destroyed the town of Paradise. (See Lawyers Close PG&E Bankruptcy Case.)

PG&E Headquarters — PG&E’s sale includes its main headquarters building at 77 Beale St. in San Francisco. | *Minesweeper, CC BY-3.0, via Wikimedia*

It represents what is supposed to be a significant cost-cutting measure for the company, which is moving its headquarters to lower-priced Oakland, across the San Francisco Bay, beginning next year.

“We are working hard every day to make fundamental changes at PG&E and become the utility our customers expect and deserve,” PG&E CEO Patti Poppe said in a statement. “We’ve made a commitment to keep customer costs as low as possible, and one way we’re following through on that is by selling non-core assets including real estate.”

Closing of the transaction is contingent upon approval by the California Public Utilities Commission. The utility is also asking the PUC for permission to return up to $420 million of the proceeds from the gain on the sale to its customers over five years.

“This offset would help moderate rate growth as the company continues to make significant safety and operational investments,” PG&E said.

PG&E said its new Oakland headquarters will use space more efficiently and better accommodate new working arrangements in a post-COVID-19 pandemic environment. It will also reduce commute times for most of its headquarters-based employees, many of whom already live in the East Bay, the company said.

“We’re so excited to deepen our ties to the wonderful Oakland community. As an economic and innovation hub for California, Oakland is the perfect place for PG&E to call our hometown,” Poppe said.

May 25, 2021

CAISO Updates Board Selection Policy

The CAISO Board of Governors approved changes Wednesday to the ISO’s criteria for recommending new board members to California’s governor.

The updates, the first in 16 years, are intended to broaden the pool of nominating committee members and candidates to reflect changes in the electric industry.

“The policy has not been substantively revised since its adoption in 2005,” CAISO General Counsel Roger Collanton wrote in his memo to the board. “While the existing board selection process has worked well over the years, we have determined, with the benefit of stakeholder feedback, that certain aspects of the policy should be updated to account for changes in the industry and the ISO’s markets since 2005.”

“The ISO’s footprint and market have evolved considerably since 2005, with new market offerings, technologies and types of market participants,” Collanton wrote. “In light of these changes, and with the benefit of stakeholder input, management recommends certain relatively modest revisions to the policy to better align the process with current circumstances.”

CAISO Board — CAISO headquarters in Folsom, Calif. | © *RTO Insider LLC*

Among the approved changes are additions to the stakeholder sectors of the Board Nominee Review Committee, which identifies and recommends qualified candidates to the governor.

When the board selection policy was established in 2005, community choice aggregators and energy storage resources did not exist, Collanton pointed out. Stakeholders from those sectors can be considered for the nomination committee under the revised policy.

Another change was to update candidate qualifications “to align with the development of the grid and market and with experience through recent board member searches,” his memo said.

The section of the policy dealing with candidate qualifications was updated to “more specifically reference, under the general category of electric industry expertise, certain characteristics that have more recently gained importance, including experience in forward-looking electric industry technologies, expertise in grid security and operations and experience in other industry sectors closely linked to the electricity sector.”

The revised policy also includes adjustments to categories of qualifying nominee experience, including adding a reference to experience as a “law professor or other prominent legal professional and nonprofit management experience.”

“The updated and expanded set of qualifications should enhance the pool of available board candidates and ensure that the board collectively has the experience needed to meet the current and future challenges of the ISO’s evolving markets and grid,” Collanton wrote.

May 25, 2021

New York Clean Fuel Standard Bill Targets Indirect Emissions

New York lawmakers are working to establish a state clean fuel standard that encompasses indirect emissions in the production and distribution process, in addition to emissions from the fuel itself.

The policy is based on a low carbon fuel standard originally adopted in California in 2009 and amended in 2018.

“My entire 30-year career I’ve worked on decarbonization of the transportation fuel sector in one way or another, and the low carbon fuel standard was the first policy that actually successfully accomplished that goal,” said Eileen Tutt, executive director at the California Electric Transportation Coalition, at a webinar Thursday.

Electricity is considered a fuel in the language of the bill (A 862), which is intended to reduce “carbon intensity,” or amount of greenhouse gas emissions per unit of fuel energy over its lifecycle, by 20% by 2030. Further goals would be implemented based on advances in transportation technology in the next decade.

The standard is effective, Tutt said, because it “doesn’t mandate a particular fuel type, but rather an outcome” of transportation decarbonization.

New York Clean Fuel Standard Bill — A bill under consideration in New York would establish a clean fuel standard that takes into consideration indirect emissions, such as a company’s distribution methods. | *Shutterstock*

Natural Resources Defense Council, which supports the standard, described it as complementary to and supportive of the multistate Transportation Climate Initiative program. New York is monitoring that program but has not agreed to join it officially. The state’s Climate Action Council transportation advisory panel recently recommended to the full council that New York join TCI-P to help fund regulatory changes for vehicle electrification. TCI-P would cap and reduce transportation emissions 25% by 2030. (See New York Should Join TCI-P, Climate Council Says.)

One of the most controversial aspects of the Clean Fuel Standard in California and proposed in the New York bill is the indirect emissions calculations. They include land use changes caused during generation or extraction, throughout distribution and delivery and during the final use of the fuel by the customer.

“If you derive your fuel from something like palm oil that destroys the planet, it does not generate credit,” Tutt said.

The regulation also impacts the ethanol industry. Depending on how ethanol is produced, the carbon intensity can be higher than that of oil.

Under the clean fuel standard, fuel providers that exceed specific standards to be determined by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority would receive credits that can be applied to future emission reduction obligations. The credits also could be traded to other providers that are not meeting the standard.

“It has caused the oil industry to really wage war against the low carbon fuel standard in California and other states because it recognizes you can’t just shift to another carbon-based fuel manufacturer or import oil,” Tutt said.

The bill would require all fuel industries, including electricity, to consider the upstream emissions associated with the alternative fuel. Electric utilities would be encouraged to garner clean and renewable sources of electricity generation, but the bill also leaves room for the growth of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, Tutt added.

Groups such as the Alliance for Clean Energy New York and New Yorkers for Clean Power are advocating in support of the bill and hosted the webinar where Tutt addressed the New York legislation.

After passing the bill, the next step would be to build out vehicle charging infrastructure, Tutt said, to help accelerate consumer adoption of electric vehicles.

May 25, 2021

Biden Admin Must Show How US Will Reach Net Zero Ahead of Glasgow

The Biden administration does not have specific plans to coordinate domestic efforts and prove to other nations, as well as U.S. utilities and industries, that the country is fully committed to cutting carbon emissions in half by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.

Net Zero Glasgow — President Joe Biden | *The White House*

President Biden “has yet to announce a clear plan for achieving his pledge. He’s announced billions of dollars of new spending on green projects, but I haven’t found any clear plan with specific targets or timetables for translating spending into progress,” Richard Parker, a University of Connecticut School of Law professor and expert on climate law and policy, said in kicking off a breakout panel discussion Thursday at the annual New England Energy Conference and Exposition, held virtually this year.

Parker initiated the conversation by recalling Biden’s announcement of the U.S.’ pledge on Earth Day. (See Biden Commits US to Cutting GHG Emissions 50% by 2030.) He also convened a two-day virtual summit that included 40 world leaders.

“I think the main goal of this Earth Day summit,” Parker continued, “was not to elicit immediate concessions from around the world, but to signal that the U.S. is back in the climate game and to promote key nations to undertake their own reassessment of their voluntary commitments under the Paris Agreement — with a goal of eliciting more ambitious pledges from delegates at the 26th meeting of the Conference of the Parties [COP26], which will be held this November in Glasgow, Scotland.”

He noted that the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded in a 2018 report that average global temperatures had been rising over the preceding decade and that steep carbon reductions would be needed by roughly 2030 to avoid a global average annual temperature increase of more than 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) over preindustrial levels.

Parker was joined by James Cotter, general manager of Shell’s Offshore Wind Americas, and Jason Albritton, director of climate and energy policy for The Nature Conservancy.

Albritton said achieving the kind of carbon reduction envisioned by the administration — most of it in the power and transportation sectors — will require “policy action at multiple levels,” he warned.

“We realize that getting to net zero by 2050 is not going to be easy, and there’s really no one silver bullet,” he said. “Clearly, things have changed dramatically in the last few months with the new administration in the White House, Congress changing hands at the leadership level and, clearly, climate change becoming a central part of the policy discussion where it hadn’t been in past years.” The administration’s goal is “the level of ambition that a lot in the environmental community, the business community, and mayors [and] state governors were advocating … prior to the administration’s announcement. …

“The international community is now looking at the U.S. and what’s going to happen next. We have a commitment, but how are we going to get there? What are we going to do? What policies is the U.S. going to put in place?

Jason Albritton, The Nature Conservancy | *The Nature Conservancy*

“I think what happens in the next few months … are pretty critical. The administration has indicated it is going to put out more detail on their path to get there, but obviously that’s constrained by Congress; it’s constrained by their legal authority. What are the near-term actions is really the next question that I think everybody’s going to be watching,” he said.

Complicating any predictions is that the president’s $2 trillion infrastructure spending proposal is the centerpiece of the administration’s agenda to address climate change, Albritton said.

“The investments and the incentives that are included address a lot of different areas that are relevant to the climate conversation. A key piece is electrification of the transportation sector. That includes investments in charging infrastructure, conversion of fleets [to electric], tax incentives for vehicle purchases to really drive electrification of the transportation sector [and] investment in transit as a way to reduce emissions by increasing transit opportunities.

“There is a big focus on energy efficiency and weatherization both for public buildings and residential buildings as a way to reduce energy use, and a lot of attention to transmission and grid investments, which I think everyone on this call likely knows is critical if we’re going to increase clean energy deployment across the economy,” Albritton said.

While the debate on policy and politics is expected to drag on indefinitely, wind developers are already racing to get steel in the water off the Atlantic Coast. And that could create big problems in the future.

Shell’s Cotter stressed the importance of planning an integrated transmission system now to ensure that future wind farms generating as much as a combined 30 GW by 2030 — and much more later — can be integrated into the electric grid.

“Transmission is one of the most significant hurdles, especially here in the Northeast,” he said. “We should not underestimate how hard it is to physically get cables to the points of interconnection. When individual projects connect, we should ensure that they enable the highest capacity possible both over the beach and into those points of interconnection.”

In other words, allowing each project to plan its own interconnection to the existing transmission system, without an overall transmission plan designed to handle the massive amounts of offshore power that will eventually be generated, could in the long run stymie continued wind development that East Coast states envision.

“Individual projects exist to deliver by themselves, so they can and do make decisions [that] benefit themselves and maybe not the broader industry,” he warned.

May 25, 2021

Apple Endorses Biden’s Clean Energy Standard at ARPA-E Summit

Lisa Jackson, vice president of environment, policy and social initiatives at tech giant Apple, opened the U.S. Department of Energy’s ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit with a strong corporate endorsement of President Biden’s proposed clean energy standard, aimed at decarbonizing the U.S. power system by 2035.

“I cannot tell you how excited we are to have an administration that’s poised to take more stringent action than we’ve ever seen to advance the clean energy economy,” said Jackson, former EPA administrator under President Barack Obama, during a virtual “fireside chat” with Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm. “We support the passage of a clean energy standard, which we think will drive large amounts of new renewable generation and do so in a way that shows people where they need to go and when they need to get there.”

ARPA-E Summit — Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm (left) and Lisa Jackson, vice president of environment, policy and social initiatives at Apple | *ARPA-E*

DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) funds emerging technologies in sectors that, its researchers and program managers believe, will be critical for getting the U.S. to net zero by 2050.

The opening day of the four-day conference was marred by an afternoon computer crash, when too many attendees tried to get on the event’s website, effectively closing down some panels. The opening session, however, sent a strong message of the critical role of collaboration — be it public-private, cross-sector or bipartisan — in driving energy innovation that will keep the U.S. competitive in both global and domestic clean energy markets.

“We cannot be working on clean energy in silos,” Granholm said. “We have to join with our partners across the federal government, in our communities, around the world and throughout the private sector. Only with our collective resources can we reach these goals at the speed we need.”

Granholm and acting ARPA-E Director Jennifer Gerbi also rolled out numbers and charts documenting the impact the program has had, with more than 1,000 projects nationwide generating $4.9 billion in private investment and 88 companies. With the notable exception of South Dakota, ARPA-E projects have been funded in every state across the country, Gerbi said.

She also emphasized the range of technologies the program has funded and its agility to move with and keep ahead of the market.

“Early on, we had a very strong showing of batteries for electric vehicles, and that has without question, resulted in disruptive change that is quite apparent today,” she said. More recently, the agency announced $40 million in funding for research focused on reducing nuclear waste from small modular reactors, and $35 million each for projects that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions from biofuel production and cut methane emissions from the oil and gas industry.

The online conversation between Granholm and Jackson was basically an exercise in cross promotion, with the secretary talking up Biden’s American Jobs Plan and the role of innovation in bringing new opportunities to communities that have been left behind in the energy transition.

Meanwhile, Jackson listed a range of Apple initiatives, such as the company’s new “impact accelerator for black- and brown-owned businesses that work in the clean energy economy.” With total corporate emissions already carbon neutral, the company has committed to a carbon-neutral supply chain and life cycle for all its products by 2030. It has also been releasing data on its greenhouse gas emissions for a decade, she said.

“It really has shown us and given us a roadmap to how we’re going to get to carbon neutral by 2030,” Jackson said. “We couldn’t have made that pledge in good conscience if we weren’t pretty intimately familiar with where our carbon emissions and our suppliers’ emissions, and even our customers’ emissions are coming from. … Public and mandatory disclosure would also create a baseline of reliable information, so if you’re an investor, if you’re a stakeholder and you want to follow a company and put your money in companies who are doing it the right way, you would have something to do that.”

Slashing Coal in the UK

In 2012, the U.K. got 30% of its electricity from coal; today, that coal generation has now been slashed to 2%, thanks to the country’s booming offshore wind industry, said Kwasi Kwarteng, secretary of state for business, energy and industrial strategy.

The country has also committed to cutting its greenhouse gas emissions by 78% from 1990 levels by 2035, Kwarteng said, a goal adopted under Prime Minister Boris Johnson, with wide bipartisan support.

“When you saw the debates in Parliament, in the House of Commons, there was quite a large measure of cross-party support,” he said. “So, in terms of the decarbonization agenda, the fight against climate change, we’ve been lucky the division hasn’t really split along partisan lines.”

The government also established a framework for offshore wind auctions that has brought significant private investment, Kwarteng said. “The only way to get to net zero is by involving private [companies], as well as state investment,” he said. “If you rely on the government to do it, I don’t think we’ll get there. If you rely on the private sector to get there exclusively, I think it will be very challenging. It has to be a mix or a dialogue, if you like, between the two.”

Kwarteng said the U.K. is looking at hydrogen and small modular nuclear reactors as technologies where the country can potentially drive innovation. He also pointed to the role of international collaboration and the recent strong joint communique issued by the G7 climate and environment ministers.

“Rolling the clock forward, we’ll look back in amazement that we were burning hydrocarbons for so long. Generations will marvel at that,” he said.

Innovation and National Security

The Defense Department has a national security interest in energy innovation and works with DOE to leverage its research and advanced technologies, Deputy Secretary Kathleen Hicks said in the opening session’s closing keynote.

Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks | *ARPA-E*

Climate change affects U.S. military security “by simultaneously increasing demands on the [armed forces] while impacting our capacity to respond to those demands,” Hicks said. “The climate crisis is a destabilizing force for the entire globe, and no nation, including the United States, can find lasting security without addressing it.

“Most military installations rely on the commercial grid and are vulnerable to events like extreme weather and cyberattacks that threaten to disrupt the grid,” Hicks said. “We need to adapt to this new reality, deploying microgrids that can power our bases with energy storage and distributed generation like solar. We need to build differently and be more efficient and resilient to ensure a base can support critical missions.”

Middle of the Journey

The need for urgent action now to meet ambitious climate goals was another theme across presentations.

Kwateng noted that the U.K. has already cut its GHG emissions by 45% from 1990 levels, but “we’re in many ways in the middle of the journey. The 78% target can only be made possible by what we’ve done so far,” he said.

Similarly, Jackson said that Apple is working with its supply chain to get them on board for a carbon-neutral 2030. So far, 110 companies across 17 countries have committed to the goal, she said.

“We made clear, frankly, that by 2030, we’re requiring you to use clean energy, and it needs to be 100%, so work with us now,” Jackson said. “This is where innovation is really needed to get a manufacturer to say, ‘OK, I am willing to stake my business. I need energy to run my business, but I am willing to do it because clean energy is becoming more available.’”

May 25, 2021November 29, 2023

Skis are Very Bad for the Environment, but That’s OK

Ski manufacturer Renoun had a carbon emissions problem, and the first step to recovery was admitting it.

“We knew as a ski company we were having a lot of negative impact,” said Cyrus Schenck, founder of the Burlington, Vt., company. “Skis are terrible for the environment, and no one ever talks about it.”

Last fall, Schenck started Renoun on a journey to face up to the environmental footprint of the business and try to do something about it. The company made a public affirmation that “skis are bad, straight up,” and reached out to nonprofit Climate Neutral to discover what Renoun’s impact really looks like.

Climate Neutral helps companies broadly estimate their carbon footprint, then invest in offsets and develop a plan to reduce that footprint over time.

For Renoun, discovering ways to decarbonize after offsetting its footprint required creativity, Schenck said during the Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility (VBSR) annual conference last week. The ski manufacturing process, he said, does not have much room for innovative decarbonization because the products are highly designed and dependent on environmentally unfriendly materials.

“You really can’t make a green ski,” he said.

Vermont-based ski manufacturer Renoun says nobody talks about how bad skis are for the environment, and it is trying to change that. | Stowe Mountain Resort

The company had to turn to other areas of the business to achieve results. So far, it has identified sustainable opportunities, for example, in its packaging, shipping and product storage.

“Our skis right now are wrapped in plastic, so we’re looking at how to transition that to something a little more sustainable because it is single-use,” Schenck said.

Each pair of skis also is packaged with a box of promotional products, such as hats or t-shirts, but now the company is looking at that box through the lens of decarbonization.

“We are forced to question what we’re putting inside that box,” he said. “It may only cost a buck to put a hat in the box … but do we actually need to do that, or can we consolidate — finances aside — from a carbon perspective?”

The company also tailored its shipping containers to different ski sizes instead of having one box for all skis.

Having five different boxes is more complicated, Schenck said, but now the shipping costs and environmental impact of the boxes are down because the company is not shipping “a bunch of dead air.”

Finding a way to decarbonize product storage simply came down to locating a warehouse that uses renewable energy.

“This business is high-margin, so we don’t really care if things are a little bit more expensive for a warehouse,” Schenck said.

After working through the decarbonization process, Renoun can now display a Climate Neutral certified logo in its marketing. And the company is working to make its sustainability message relatable to its customers because the idea of offsetting a ton of carbon is not intuitive.

“We’re working hard to figure out how to relate how buying one pair of our skis offsets XYZ amount of carbon,” he said. “Maybe that’s equivalent to … one day of breathing or running a ski lift for 17 hours.”

The company is also “leaning in” to the reality of what its business and products mean in environmental terms.

“Our skis are still bad for the environment, absolutely,” Schenck said. “But the nice thing is that being carbon neutral in our case, we know we’re doing much, much better than anybody else out there, so it’s our way of showing the market and the industry that this is a financially viable option, moving forward.”

Demystify and Simplify

Climate Neutral launched about two years ago with a mission to give consumers an easy way to identify brands that are measuring and addressing their carbon emissions, according to CEO Austin Whitman.

The three-step brand certification process — measure, compensate and rethink — starts with an online carbon emission estimation tool designed to help businesses pass the first hurdle of decarbonization.

“We find that folks are really tripped up by the sense of complexity that exists around actually trying to measure carbon emissions,” Whitman said during the VBSR conference.

Making the estimation tool easy and accessible to brands allows them to go through the measurement process on their own and relatively quickly, without a big spend on analysis.

The software for the estimation tool is based on an economic input-output model, according to Isabella Todaro, certification manager at Climate Neutral. With a basic understanding of how sectors of the economy work, the estimator identifies a company’s emissions based on its operational and spending data.

In addition, a refinement option allows companies to override the model with more precise data, Todaro said. But even with those refinements, she added, the hotspots are not going to change.

The large drivers of a company’s carbon footprint are what Climate Neutral is going after with the estimator. It gives the company a place to start.

The Brand Emissions Estimator is available to the public at bee.climateneutral.org.

May 25, 2021

Engagement on Justice, Equity Challenges Vt. Climate Plan Timeline

The Vermont Climate Council is trying to find a way to engage meaningfully with the state’s most vulnerable communities and still deliver a climate plan on time in December.

“This rocket-fueled schedule that we have right now … was designed with very little appreciation for the very thing that we’re now struggling to … open ourselves up to, which is what this work looks like from the perspective of people who have not always had a seat at our proverbial table,” Vermont Department of Public Service Commissioner June Tierney said at a council meeting Monday.

Under Vermont’s 2020 Global Warming Solutions Act, the council must adopt a plan by Dec. 1 for achieving the state’s greenhouse gas emissions requirements while advancing equity.

Vermont climate plan — Bindu Panikkar of the Rubenstein School for Environment and Natural Resources told the Vermont Climate Council that the state has pockets of environmental and social justice issues that it has “struggled to address.” | *Vermont Climate Council*

The council is preparing this summer to enter a formal public engagement process, which is guided by a just transitions subcommittee. But some council members are concerned that the outreach timeline will not provide the dialogue needed to inform the climate plan in a way that produces environmental justice.

Tierney suggested that the council consider two simultaneous pathways for the legislative mandates to address climate change quickly and ensure a just transition for vulnerable citizens.

First, she said, the council could design an ongoing public engagement process that is “truly solicitous and receptive and engaging.” At the same time, she added, the council can identify “no regrets policies” that can be taken in the near term with a high degree of confidence and are “beneficial to all regardless of who you are in our society.”

Tierney also urged the council to consider taking its concerns on timing to the state’s legislators.

“If we are not feeling comfortable with the power that we’re wielding because we’re not sure that we’re bringing everybody into this conversation, at some point we have to … stand up and say so,” she said.

Last month the council discussed delaying the release of the plan, but it made no decision on that front. It is now considering formalizing its concerns in a letter to legislative leadership. (See VT Climate Council May Delay Release of Action Plan.)

Equity Issues

In Vermont, environmental justice is harder to define than in other states, according to Bindu Panikkar, assistant professor at the University of Vermont’s Rubenstein School for Environment and Natural Resources. The state is 94% white and ranks as one of the least polluted in the country.

But Vermont, Panikkar said during the council meeting, has pockets of environmental and social justice issues that it has “struggled to address.”

Her research on environmental health disparities found that Black and Indigenous populations, people of color and people with limited English proficiency in the state are “significantly” more at risk from air pollution, polluting sites and heat vulnerability. Nonwhite communities, she said, are seven times less likely to have solar panels compared to white groups. In addition, people below the poverty line and people of color are less likely to have their homes weatherized.

“Environmental and health disparities are prominent in BIPOC and low-income populations in Vermont, but the inequities are preventable,” she said. “We need state support and resources to carry out this transformative work.”

Funding Outlook

The environmental justice issues that the council is working to address now are going to inform how the state spends federal funds from the American Rescue Plan Act, according to Agency of Administration Secretary Susanne Young.

Funding, she said during the council meeting, will be dedicated over time to economic recovery and climate change. But federal guidance, she added, specifically directs states to address equity in their planning for the funds.

Vermont legislators adjourned their current session Friday with passage of a budget that included a statement of intent to allocate $250 million to climate action work over the next few years, Agency of Natural Resources Secretary Julie Moore said.

The FY22 budget includes a $65 million commitment for climate-related programs, with $50 million of that coming from the federal stimulus package. Weatherization assistance accounts for $18 million of the budget, and $7 million will go to electric vehicle incentives, Moore said. Another $10 million will be used to invest in community-scale renewable energy generation projects, and $5 million is available as incentives for consumers to transition from fossil fuels to heat pumps or modern wood heating. Additional funding will be used for conservation and hazard mitigation, among other things.

Gov. Phil Scott has signaled his support for the budget, even though it did not align with all his recommendations for the federal funds. The legislature will hold a veto session in mid-June.

May 25, 2021March 23, 2026

Bipartisan Renewable Bill Ruptured by Rancor over Jan. 6

How bad is the partisan rancor in Congress? So bad that even a hearing Monday on a bipartisan bill to speed development of renewable generation on federal lands was marred by sniping between Republicans and Democrats over the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

The hearing of the House Natural Resources Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources was on the Public Land Renewable Energy Development Act (PLREDA). Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) has been pushing the bill for 10 years, along with — since 2019 — California Democrat Mike Levin.

After parts of the bill were included in the Energy Act of 2020, Gosar and Levin hoped to get the remainder over the finish line this year. But last week, Levin reintroduced the bill by himself, telling Gosar he would not permit him to be an original co-sponsor (H.R. 3326). Gosar responded by introducing the bill under his name.

Natural Resources Committee Chairman Raúl M. Grijalva (D. Ariz.) noted that Gosar’s bill is identical to Levin’s. “So we know that we agree on the policy. But it’s important to note the attack on the Capitol was a threat to our democracy. The ongoing refusal to accept the results of the presidential election is a threat to our democracy. The ongoing efforts to invalidate the election results in my home state of Arizona is a threat to democracy.”

Grijalva said he planned to cosponsor Levin’s version but promised to hold a hearing on Gosar’s as well.

Disturbing ‘Precedent’

Rep. Pete Stauber (R-Minn.), ranking member of the subcommittee, said the Democrats had “strong-armed” Gosar to take credit for the legislation.

“I find it insulting,” said Gosar, whose Twitter feed is topped with a photo of former President Donald Trump and features video of his appearance at an “America First” rally last week with firebrand Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).

“Regardless of the wide gulf between Republicans and Democrats here, we know there’s room for bipartisanship. The Public Land Renewable Energy Development Act was at the top of the list,” Stauber said, calling the Democrats’ actions a “disturbing … precedent.”

However, two other Democrats, Rep. Betty McCollum (D.-Minn.) and Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) said there was nothing new about such partisan gamesmanship. “It’s also happened to me,” McCollum said.

25 GW Goal

PLREDA would direct the Department of Interior to establish priority areas on federal lands for the development of geothermal, solar and wind energy and create a program to improve coordination of federal permitting procedures. The bill also would provide host counties with increased revenues from such projects.

The Energy Act of 2020 directed Interior’s Bureau of Land Management to create Renewable Energy Coordination Offices (RECOs) and to authorize the production of at least 25 GW of geothermal, solar and wind energy capacity by the end of 2025.

BLM currently hosts less than half that amount, including 36 wind projects totaling more than 2,900 MW, 37 solar projects over 7,000 MW and 47 geothermal projects totaling 2,500 MW, said BLM Deputy Director Nada Culver, who told the committee the bill “aligns” with the Biden administration’s goals.

Culver said BLM is considering updating the Solar Energy Zones that designated 285,000 acres for development in 2012, and the West-wide Energy Corridors that were designated in 2009 to facilitate pipelines and electric transmission.

She said BLM has identified another 19 million acres of public lands with solar energy potential outside the solar zones in California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah. BLM also manages more than 20 million acres in 11 Western states that have been identified with wind energy potential.

H.R. 3326 would define public lands as either “priority areas” preferred for renewable energy development, “variance areas” that are potentially available and “exclusion areas” not suitable for development.

The bill would require Interior to update the categorizations in the final programmatic environmental impact statements (PEIS) for geothermal (issued October 2008), solar (July 2012), and wind (July 2005) and to review the categories every 10 years.

The bill also sets a new revenue distribution structure for receipts from solar and wind development on public lands, with 25% each going to the states and counties involved. Another 25% would go toward funding BLM’s renewable energy program, and 25% would be deposited in a new Renewable Energy Resource Conservation Fund.

Also testifying in favor of the bill Monday were Virinder Singh, vice president of regulatory and legislative affairs for EDF Renewables; Kate Miller, director of government affairs for Trout Unlimited; Paul Thomsen, vice president of business development for geothermal developer Ormat Technologies (NYSE:ORA); and San Bernardino County Supervisor Dawn Rowe, representing the National Association of Counties.

Trout Unlimited’s Miller said while her group was pleased to see some provisions of PLREDA enacted as part of the Energy Act of 2020, it was “disappointed that the heart of the bill was left behind.”

“The bill before the committee today would carry those key provisions forward, including provisions on updating the upfront planning process for solar, wind and geothermal energy development and the revenue sharing program that will support responsible development of renewable energy resources on public lands in a way that invests in local communities and in fish and wildlife resources,” she said. “Given the history of broad and bipartisan support for this bill, as well as its legislative record and all of the stakeholders anxious to realize its benefits, I implore you to please work together to advance these provisions through the House.”

Time for an Update

EDF’s Singh cited research finding that the U.S. will need to increase its annual deployment of renewable energy by two to 3.5 times the current annual rate to meet climate goals, or about 60 GW annually over the next decade.

He said only 6.2% of large-scale solar projects and less than 1% of installed wind capacity are on federal lands. “We clearly need to do more to make federal lands relevant to our clean energy future,” he said.

Singh praised the bill’s requirement to update the 2012 solar PEIS and 2005 wind PEIS by adding new priority areas. “In terms of solar project design and technology innovation, 2012 is a long time ago. For example, new solar panel technology can capture more solar insolation and convert it to useful energy, and do so at lower cost, thus allowing for areas of less insolation to be economic today compared to 2012,” he said.

With new transmission upgrades “transmission flows have changed sufficiently … to warrant revisiting priority zones relative to available transmission,” he added.

The 2012 solar PEIS included 19 million acres of variance lands, with less than 300,000 acres of priority areas.

“The thresholds to cross to develop on variance lands are very high,” he said. “One must show that priority areas are not an alternative, address 25 variance factors … and face evaluation of approximately 400 programmatic design features, as prescribed in the solar PEIS.”

He also called for revisiting how BLM determines the acreage rent fees for renewable developers.

“The acreage rent is based on National Agricultural Statistics Services values for agricultural lands, rather than appraisals of nearby private lands. However, the types of federal lands used for solar development, such as lands in the southern California desert and in southern Nevada, rarely have the characteristics of agricultural lands. As a result, the ‘fair market value’ estimate often is an overestimate,” he said.

Ormat’s Thomsen, representing the Geothermal Rising Policy Committee, an industry trade group, said BLM should allow geothermal developers to use “categorial exclusions” (CX) rather than requiring costlier environmental assessments (EAs) and environmental impact statements (EISs) for permitting “resource confirmation wells” used to determine the viability of geothermal sites. Requiring the lengthier, more costly EAs and EISs creates a “disproportionate permitting burden at the ‘front end’ of the project, before a revenue payback is guaranteed,” he said.

Allowing use of CX for exploration wells would “provide greater parity between geothermal and oil and gas, which is afforded a broad CX for exploration activities,” he said.

May 23, 2021

Sweeping Nev. Energy Bill Passes Senate Unopposed

A bill that proponents say will help Nevada “capture its place in the new energy economy” unanimously passed the state Senate Friday as the legislative session races toward the finish line.

Senate Bill 448, by Sen. Chris Brooks (D), was passed 21-0 after emerging from the Senate Committee on Growth and Infrastructure Wednesday night. The committee’s approval followed a nearly three-hour hearing on the bill on Monday.

Brooks introduced the wide-ranging energy bill on May 13, just weeks before the state’s 120-day legislative session ends on May 31.

SB448 seeks to boost the state’s transmission network, and sets a deadline of Jan. 1, 2030, for transmission providers in the state to join a regional transmission organization.

Another focus of the bill is transportation electrification. SB448 would provide for an initial investment by NV Energy of $100 million from 2022 to 2024 for a variety of electric vehicle charging programs.

Nevada energy bill — Nevada Senate Bill 448 seeks to boost the state’s transmission network and potentially place it under the oversight of an RTO. | *Environmental Protection Agency*

The bill would also address energy storage by adding storage facilities and hybrid generation-and-storage facilities to the Renewable Energy Tax Abatement Program. The program currently gives tax breaks to renewable energy facilities.

Diversifying the Economy

Michael Brown, executive director of the Nevada Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED), spoke during Monday’s hearing, calling SB448 “landmark legislation” and urging its adoption.

“This is really an opportunity to help build and diversify the Nevada economy,” he said.

Brown said when a Midwest-based manufacturer met recently with GOED about potentially operating in the Silver State, the company’s first question was about renewable energy.

“They wanted to know how we were producing it, how it was transmitted, what the prices were,” Brown said. “That’s a game changer. We’ve not had that before.”

David Bobzien, director of the Governor’s Office on Energy, also spoke in support of SB448 on Monday.

Bobzien said the bill’s provision for an RTO in Nevada dovetails with recent discussions and studies on the topic. For example, in the Western Interconnection Regional Electricity Dialogue, or WIRED initiative, state officials and utility representatives are working together to develop recommendations on resource adequacy, transmission planning and greenhouse gas accounting. (See Group Hopes West Can be Wired for Collaboration.)

“So, the timing of this legislation couldn’t be better,” Bobzien said.

Streamlining Greenlink

SB448 seeks to streamline approval of NV Energy’s Greenlink North transmission project. In March, the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada approved construction of Greenlink West, a 525-kV transmission line that will run north-to-south along the western edge of the state. (See Regulators Greenlight NV Energy’s Greenlink West.)

Greenlink North would connect Greenlink West with the existing One Nevada line in the eastern part of the state, forming a transmission triangle.

PUCN approved the conceptual design, permitting and land acquisition for Greenlink North, but NV Energy must return for approval of construction. Under SB448, NV Energy would be required to file a plan for the Greenlink North project with PUCN by Sept. 1.

PUCN would be required to approve the project as long as NV Energy’s plan met criteria such as expanding transmission access to renewable energy zones and promoting economic development in the state. Greenlink North would then be in service by the end of 2028, under SB448.

Cost Concerns

Laura Granier, speaking on behalf of the Nevada Resort Association on Monday, said the group was concerned about the potential for the Greenlink projects to increase utility rates. Granier also described the timeline for the bill as “challenging.”

“We are 14 days from sine die and faced with major policy changes and a proposed directive for billions of dollars of utility expenditures that could lead to rate hikes and additional costs or surcharges for customers,” Granier said.

NV Energy CEO Doug Cannon said the company cannot recover its costs for the project until it is finished. Then, the company’s proposed cost recovery would be reviewed by PUCN in a public process.

“It’s not a risk-free proposition,” Cannon said. “We don’t know ultimately what the Public Utilities Commission will approve.”

Bringing more renewable energy online may ultimately reduce electric rates, proponents said. Brooks presented a slide showing that as NV Energy’s megawatts of renewable energy have increased, the cost to customers has decreased.

SB448 would also form a Regional Transmission Coordination Task Force to advise the governor and legislature on RTO-related matters. The committee would include members from utilities, gaming, labor, environmental groups, the solar and geothermal industries, and the state Assembly and Senate.

In response to suggestions during Monday’s hearing, Brooks filed an amendment to the bill that would add an assembly member and a senator from the minority party to the panel.

Before Friday’s passage by the full Senate, the bill was amended to include a provision requiring that 20% of expenditures in a proposed plan to accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles be devoted to incentives for behind-the-meter investments in EV charging infrastructure or stations.

Another amendment clarifies that both bundled retail customers and other eligible classes of customers will have non-discriminatory access to utility plans that provide investments and incentives for the deployment of EV charging infrastructure at single-family and multi-use dwellings and are also designed to serve historically underserved communities.