Skeptics Question CAISO Plan to Lower Bid Floor

By Robert Mullin

Critics of a proposal to lower CAISO’s energy market bid floor last week questioned the need for the measure and its efficacy in solving the ISO’s increasing intervals of oversupply.

The ISO contends that reducing the bid floor from -$150/MWh to -$300/MWh will provide the market with more “downward flexibility” — or the ability to curtail renewable resources in the market rather than through out-of-market operations.

CAISO hopes that lowering the bid floor will persuade self-scheduled resources to submit bids that reflect the marginal cost of operations when oversupply turns prices negative.

“To ensure the ISO is able to provide accurate price signals to incent a more flexible fleet of resources during this transition, market changes must be implemented to encourage generators to economically participate in the markets rather than self-schedule,” CAISO wrote in its proposal.

Self-schedules often represent renewable resources operating under power purchase agreements with load-serving entities that include take-or-pay clauses. The LSE’s penalty for refusing the power adds to its opportunity cost of not generating a renewable energy certificate (REC).

The ISO has authority to curtail self-scheduled deliveries to protect reliability during periods of oversupply. The ISO said it was compelled to take that step during 2.5% of five-minute intervals between April 2015 and April 2016.

CAISO is seeing an increase in curtailed self-schedules as more renewables come online in California.

The practice is only growing with the increased penetration of renewables in response to the state’s 50% by 2030 renewable portfolio standard.

“In April [2016] alone we had 11% of intervals where self-schedules were being cut,” Kallie Wells, senior market monitoring analyst in CAISO’s market infrastructure and development department, said during an Aug. 18 stakeholder call. “The shoulder months will likely see increased amounts of that.”

In addition to incentivizing LSEs to bid contracted renewable resources into the CAISO market rather than self-schedule, ISO staff say they also hope the change will encourage LSEs to negotiate renewable PPAs that give them the option to curtail renewables to accommodate the ISO’s operational needs.

Market Monitor not Convinced

CAISO’s internal Market Monitor says the ISO hasn’t made a compelling case.

The Department of Market Monitoring “is right now opposed to lowering the bid floor,” said Ryan Kurlinski, manager of the department’s analysis and mitigation group. “We’re not seeing the evidence that this policy will create additional decremental bids.”

Kurlinski contended that lowering the bid floor will create a greater likelihood for the exercise of market power in decremental bids and expand the opportunity for increasing bid-cost recovery — or uplift — payments, which are shared by load across the ISO.

While a number of stakeholders have commented in favor of the measure, others are skeptical.

“Can you tell me what type of resource would be bidding in at less than -$150/MWh?” asked Eric Little, manager of wholesale market and greenhouse gas market design at Southern California Edison.

“We did look into actual costs, and -$150/MWh did cover a portion of intermittent resources’ costs but didn’t cover another portion,” said Brad Cooper, CAISO’s manager of market design and regulatory policy.

“Whenever we talk about this it comes down to RECs, but there are no RECs worth more than” $150/MWh, Little said.

Greg Cook, CAISO director of market and infrastructure policy, said that “it comes down to the power purchase agreements.”

“We do know that there are those that have contracts that are take or pay, but those contracts are changing,” Little said. “Are you trying to get companies to renegotiate contracts?”

Seeking Evidence

Little also asked the ISO to provide more evidence supporting the change.

“I would like to see something that would show what elements will require a floor below -$150,” he said. “That would help us out.”

Nivad Navid, a principal with Pacific Gas and Electric, also sought more supporting data, asking CAISO to provide statistics showing how often the market clears at -$150/MWh. He also expressed concern about the ISO deterring LSEs from submitting self-schedules.

“We’re not saying you can’t self-schedule,” Wells said. “By lowering the bid floor, economic bids will more likely set the price” rather than out-of-market mechanisms. Wells also said a deeper pool of economic bids would prevent the ISO from cutting self-schedules.

“So when you change the bid floor, are you expecting that you will not need any more curtailment?” Navid asked.

“It sounds like the assumption you’re making is that there are resources that can’t bid into the market because of the bid floor of -$150,” said Josh Arnold, a settlement analyst at PG&E.

“That seems to be a sticky assumption to be making without providing supporting data,” he continued, adding that the ISO’s Board of Governors had previously said the -$150/MWh floor was appropriate.

Arnold questioned whether the renewables-heavy fleet serving California would change its market behavior as a result of the change, pointing out the difficulty in renegotiating contracts within the timeline of the proposal’s implementation. The ISO plans to seek approval from the board this fall, meaning the change could be implemented early next year, pending FERC approval.

“I’m very confused by the way you’re going about this,” Arnold said. “It seems like you’re anticipating an upcoming problem and trying to smash it with a hammer.”

CAISO is pairing the bid floor proposal with a plan to no longer exempt load corresponding with self-scheduled supply from being allocated costs associated with uplift payments. The ISO says the latter proposal will further incentivize economic bids over self-schedules and align allocation with cost-causation principles, as self-scheduled generation is also contributing to the oversupply issue.

The ISO is seeking comments on both proposals by Aug. 25 and plans to present a final plan to the board in October.

August 21, 2016

Co-ops, Munis Call for Reset of PJM Capacity Model

By Rory D. Sweeney and Rich Heidorn Jr.

The grand bargain that created PJM’s capacity market in 2007 has suffered fissures in the years since because of repeated rule changes.

Now, a coalition of cooperatives and municipal utilities says it’s time to start over.

At this week’s Markets and Reliability Committee meeting, American Municipal Power plans to propose a problem statement calling for a “holistic assessment” of the Reliability Pricing Model.

Joining with AMP are the Delaware Municipal Electric Corp., Old Dominion Electric Cooperative, the PJM Public Power Coalition and the Public Power Association of New Jersey.

Also part of the coalition are the dominant utility in PJM’s largest vertically integrated state, Dominion Virginia Power, and retailer Direct Energy.

Although the initiative is likely to be greeted coolly by many, it has a good chance of winning the majority support needed to proceed because PJM stakeholders rarely reject problem statements.

But how AMP and its supporters would build a larger coalition to replace the RPM — or what that replacement would look like — is far from clear.

Winning approval for Tariff changes would take a two-thirds sector-weighted vote at the MRC and Members Committee. The current coalition includes 31 of 43 members of the Electric Distributors sector but only one of 13 Transmission Owners, one of 353 Other Suppliers and none of the 23 End Use Customers or 90 Generation Owners.

PJM’s public power members have long complained that they could meet their capacity needs more cheaply through self-supply than through the RTO’s capacity auctions. AMP said the restoration of public power systems’ ability to self-supply is a “minimum step to reform the capacity construct.” (See Capacity Market Attracts Praise, Criticism at FERC, “APPA, ISO-NE Spar on Capacity Markets,” NARUC 2016 Winter Meetings Briefs.)

Neither the problem statement nor the proposed issue charge suggests any broader solution.

But in a press release quoting from her comments at PJM’s Grid 20/20 conference Thursday, Lisa McAlister, AMP’s deputy general counsel for FERC/RTO affairs, outlined some options.

“PJM could still specify resource adequacy requirements for its footprint and local distribution companies of concern. The load-serving entity or electric distributor would be responsible for securing its peak load obligation plus a predetermined reserve margin and would face significant penalties absent securing the capacity,” McAlister said. “These LSEs/EDs could procure bilaterally resources on a long-term portfolio basis in compliance with a state’s resource adequacy requirements. PJM could conduct a residual auction to accommodate supply that did not enter into a long-term arrangement.”

The RPM, which took effect June 1, 2007, replaced PJM’s voluntary Capacity Credit Market, which produced less than 10% of PJM’s total capacity obligation. It was based on daily market clearing prices that were uniform across the RTO’s footprint.

The “original CCM did not include explicit market power mitigation rules, provided only weak performance incentives and did not permit the participation of demand-side resources,” according to a 2008 report by The Brattle Group. Prices were generally below the cost of adding new capacity and did not recognize the higher value of capacity in import-constrained areas in eastern PJM.

FERC ordered PJM to develop a replacement in April 2006.

The RPM, the product of more than two years of stakeholder negotiations, introduced the three-year forward auction with a downward sloping demand curve, locational pricing and included stronger performance incentives and market power protections. It allowed direct participation of demand-side resources and mandated participation by load.

More than 65 parties took part in FERC-mediated settlement discussions that resulted in the December 2006 RPM order (ER05-1410-001, et al.).

In the years since, AMP and its allies say, the RPM has proven it lacks the resilience to accommodate “unforeseen events.”

AMP counts “24 significant filings” to modify the RPM since 2010. “According to PJM, the 2016 [Base Residual Auction] was the first BRA with no rule changes from the prior year,” the problem statement says.

pjm capacity performance — The Capacity Performance model was designed to avoid the outages experienced during the polar vortex.

The new Capacity Performance construct was a reaction to the January 2014 polar vortex, when forced outages exceeded 20% and PJM nearly fell short of meeting its load. CP pays generators bonuses for fulfilling their delivery commitments when the system is stressed and charges them increased penalties when they fail to perform as agreed.

Opposed by environmentalists and demand response supporters for its phase out of summer-only resources, it’s the subject of a challenge before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

AMP says the RPM continues to be beset by threats such as the subsidies FirstEnergy and American Electric Power have sought for their money-losing plants in Ohio. EPA’s Clean Power Plan could provoke further changes, AMP says.

The proposed Ohio subsidies have spawned calls to extend the minimum offer price rule — currently applied only to new gas-fired generators entering the capacity auction — to existing units.

McAlister said that would be a mistake. “Public power does not want to be a source of increased capacity prices as a result of being considered subsidized because we have a lower cost of equity than an administratively determined reference resource,” she said.

“Capacity Performance was particularly stressful to the stakeholder community due to the inclusion of operational performance requirements, a paradigm shift for seasonal resource participation and a near complete unwind of the market mitigation rules surrounding offer caps, all of which were enacted in an expedited timeframe,” the problem statement says. “PJM needs a resource adequacy construct that is sufficiently robust to be reasonably able to withstand unforeseen exogenous events absent significant and reactionary rule change.”

The issue charge proposes that work on the overhaul be performed by a new Capacity Market Construct Restructuring Senior Task Force reporting to the MRC. The group hopes to complete the work by the end of the third quarter in 2017.

McAlister suggested the effort could be successful even if the group doesn’t win a complete overhaul.

“While the PJM stakeholder process attempts to achieve consensus, it also … provides an opportunity for minority views to be heard and ultimately enables the PJM board to be better informed as it decides how best to proceed.”

August 18, 2016

Arkansas Landowners Seek to Stop Plains Eastern Clean Line Project

By Tom Kleckner

Two Arkansas landowner groups have filed suit to block Clean Line Energy Partners’ planned 700-mile HVDC transmission line, questioning the legality of the project’s approval and its right to use eminent domain (3:16-cv-00207-JLH).

The groups, Golden Bridge and Downwind, filed their complaint Aug. 15 in U.S. District Court in Jonesboro, Ark., listing the U.S. Department of Energy, Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz and the Southwestern Power Administration (SPA) and its administrator, Scott Carpenter, as defendants.

In March, the Energy Department approved Clean Line’s $2.5 billion Plains & Eastern Clean Line project, which would deliver 4,000 MW of wind power from the Oklahoma Panhandle to the Tennessee Valley Authority near Memphis, Tenn. (See DOE Agrees to Join Clean Line’s Plains & Eastern Project.)

congress, clean line project, plains & eastern clean line — Clean Line’s Plains & Eastern Clean Line Project *Source: Clean Line Energy Partners*

The department said it would participate in the project under Section 1222 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPACT), which authorizes it to take part in “designing, developing, constructing, operating, maintaining or owning” new transmission. The department will do so through SPA, a federal agency that markets hydroelectric power from 24 dams in six states.

The lawsuit questions the process by which the Energy Department approved the project, saying it acted “arbitrarily and capriciously” in giving “undue consideration to nonstatutory, policy considerations.” The landowners said the department and SPA approved the project’s construction and operation, “completely [ignoring]” existing Arkansas siting laws “and without the necessary approval of the appropriate Arkansas siting authorities.” They are asking the court to declare the federal agencies’ use of eminent domain in violation of EPACT and force the department to withdraw its approval of the project until it is in compliance with state-level siting requirements and federal laws, including the Fifth Amendment.

A Golden Bridge spokesman told local media the landowners should have been given a “significant opportunity to engage on a meaningful and substantive level.”

“Unfortunately, it is not uncommon to see legal complaints filed against the most important infrastructure projects,” Clean Line said in a statement. The Houston-based company called on the private and public sectors to “come together to bring new infrastructure projects to fruition.”

Clean Line said it has invested nearly $100 million of private capital in the project’s development and it expects to make more than $30 million in payments to Arkansas landowners for easements and building transmission towers on their property. It said it was “very confident” in Section 1222’s validity and the “extensive process” behind the Energy Department’s decision to participate.

The Plains & Eastern Clean Line project has also drawn opposition from Arkansas’ all-Republican Congressional delegation. Rep. Steve Womack advanced a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives in June that would amend EPACT to require approval from a state’s governor and legislators before using eminent domain. The state’s senior senator, John Boozman, has filed a matching bill that hasn’t moved since May. (See House Panel OKs Bill Targeting Clean Line Project.)

Clean Line expects to begin construction on the project as early as next year.

August 17, 2016

UPDATED: Mass. Supreme Court Vacates EDC-Pipeline Contract Order

By Michael Brooks and William Opalka

Massachusetts’ highest court Wednesday struck down regulators’ plan to allow electric distribution companies to charge ratepayers for additional natural gas pipeline capacity, concluding that the legislature intended for electricity and gas utilities to be regulated separately (SJC-12051).

The Department of Public Utilities issued the order last year in response to the Department of Energy Resources’ request for an investigation into how the state could add more pipeline capacity, an issue that has lingered since the polar vortex of 2014. The order was challenged by ENGIE Gas & LNG and the Conservation Law Foundation.

massachusetts, electric distribution companies, natural gas pipeline — John Adams Courthouse, home of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. *Source: Massachusetts*

The Supreme Judicial Court determined that state law, dating back to 1926, precluded the DPU from allowing EDCs to enter into contracts for gas capacity.

The DPU argued that language in the 1926 act unambiguously allowed it to approve such contracts. But the court said that the law neither expressly prohibits nor permits the department’s order. Instead, it relied on legislative intent for its ruling.

“We conclude that the legislature did not intend to authorize the department to approve the contracts contemplated in its order, but rather intended, with limited exceptions, to regulate the gas and electric utilities differently,” the court said.

The court found that the law was enacted at a time when EDCs were being consolidated into large holding companies, provoking concerns about the impact on ratepayers. The 1926 law was amended in 1930 to include gas companies because lawmakers “predicted that the same concerns about electric companies would arise with respect to gas companies as well,” the court said. It also noted that the state’s utilities distribute both electricity and gas.

The court’s logic mirrors comments state Attorney General Maura Healey made in June before the order was finalized. “Legislative history also clearly demonstrates that the legislature meant to relate purchases of electricity to electric companies and purchases of gas to gas companies,” she wrote.

“The court’s decision makes clear that if pipeline developers want to build new projects in this state, they will need to find a source of financing other than electric ratepayers’ wallets,” she said in a statement Wednesday.

Healey also released a study in November disputing the presumption that New England needed additional pipelines to maintain reliability and lower prices. (See Mass. Attorney General’s Study: Pipelines Unneeded.)

Environmentalists praised the court’s decision.

The ruling “will help Massachusetts move more quickly to a clean, renewable energy future,” the Sierra Club said. “The $3 billion that would have gone to out-of-state corporations for fracked gas pipelines can now be spent here in Massachusetts on projects such as energy efficiency, energy conservation and clean power sources like solar and wind.”

The New England Coalition for Affordable Energy, which advocates for expanded energy infrastructure in the region, called the ruling disappointing, but not surprising.

“However, it does not resolve underlying concerns about the region’s ability to cost-effectively meet future needs, which we believe requires an integrated approach using both renewable resources and natural gas generation,” the group said.

While pipeline proponents were disappointed by the court’s ruling, they said they would press on with their attempts to get infrastructure funded and built.

“This leaves Massachusetts and New England in a precarious position without sufficient gas capacity for electric generation during cold winters. The lack of gas infrastructure cost electric consumers $2.5 billion during the polar vortex winter of 2013 and 2014,” said Creighton Welch, a spokesman for Spectra Energy, which is developing the Access Northeast project with partners Eversource Energy and National Grid.

“This is a disappointing setback for the project, which is designed to help secure New England’s clean energy future, ensure the reliability of the electricity system and, most importantly, save customers more than $1 billion annually on their electricity bills,” National Grid said in a statement.

“While the court’s decision is certainly a setback, we will re-evaluate our path forward and remain committed to working with the New England states to provide the infrastructure so urgently needed to ensure reliable and lower-cost electricity for customers,” Eversource said.

Part of that path is changing its Tariff to allow for targeted capacity releases from natural gas pipelines to be sold to natural gas-fired generators. That proposal, which has been opposed by some power generators, is pending before FERC. (See Utilities Seek OK for Gas Releases to Generators at Technical Conference.)

“Massachusetts has some of the highest electricity rates in the nation, and without additional gas capacities and a diverse energy portfolio, the trends will continue to rise over time,” said Peter Lorenz, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs.

The Massachusetts ruling may have also killed a similar pipeline funding order in Maine. State regulators there last month approved ratepayer financing, provided other New England states followed suit. (See Maine PUC Endorses Gas Pipeline Contracts.)

For its part, ISO-NE reiterated it remains neutral on individual projects or how they are financed. But the RTO repeated its position that the region needs gas infrastructure to replace retiring generation and to help balance the increased penetration of intermittent renewable resources.

“The ISO has consistently stated, based on studies conducted for the ISO as well as our operational experiences as the regional power system operator, that we continue to see a need for natural gas infrastructure to ensure continued system reliability,” spokeswoman Marcia Blomberg said. “The need will continue to grow as the region transitions rapidly to a power system with decreasing amounts of coal, oil and nuclear power and increasing levels of renewable and distributed energy resources.”

August 16, 2016

Generators Balk at PJM Proposal on Fuel-Cost Policies

By Rory D. Sweeney

Stakeholders continue to react coolly to PJM’s proposed rules for generator fuel-cost policies, spending two and a half hours expressing their concerns at last week’s Market Implementation Committee meeting.

PJM has held three meetings in the past three weeks to explain the policy to stakeholders, several of whom said last week that the rules are more punitive than incentivizing. The RTO is due to make an interim compliance filing on the issue Aug. 16.

The rules have been revised so that sellers without approved fuel-cost policies are not required to submit cost-based offers. They can, however, submit negative price offers and are subject to the greater of their capacity resource’s deficiency charges or nonperformance charges — such as those from a performance hour assessment.

A seller would have 30 days to revise a rejected policy, during which time the seller would revert back to using a previously approved policy.

A seller deemed by PJM and the Independent Market Monitor to have violated its approved policy would be subject to a separate penalty. The amount would be calculated via a formula based on the unit’s capacity and the LMP at its bus. The penalties would begin five days after the seller is notified about the noncompliance.

The proposal has “significant problems and needs substantial rethinking,” said Monitor Joe Bowring, who distributed his own proposal that requires CP units that don’t have approved policies to make offers, but penalizes them in a way similar to the unit capacity/LMP formula.

“It sounds like one bad rule offset by another bad rule,” Bowring said of PJM’s proposal. “They all have unintended consequences. What that means is that the units aren’t going to offer in, which isn’t what you want. You want units to offer in.”

“Unless we’re just trying to find another way to penalize a generator, can we please rethink this?” asked Jason Cox of Dynegy. Instead, the lost opportunity created by holding sellers to a $0 offer “seems like a pretty efficient way to get them to get a policy done,” he said.

pjm, fuel-cost policies — Natural gas plants in PJM’s energy market, such as Duke Energy’s 620-MW Buck Combined Cycle Station in Rowan County, N.C., would be subject to the RTO’s rules on fuel-cost policies. *Photo Source: Duke Energy*

Stakeholders felt the policy lacked clarity. Bob O’Connell of Main Line Electricity Market Consultants said that it has no way to maintain compliance, no procedure for making necessary revisions while maintaining compliance and no timeline for that process.

Ed Tatum of American Municipal Power said stakeholders have expressed “grave concerns” that “this penalty is overly punitive, goes beyond the scope of the order and is generally bad market design.”

Under the proposal, if the Monitor disagreed with a PJM-approved policy, it could refer it to FERC’s Office of Enforcement.

That, said Tatum, is “unacceptable.”

The purpose of the policy is twofold, Bowring explained: to ensure compliance with all requirements to participate in the PJM market and that offers are consistent with competitive offers. Sellers need to document a verifiable and systematic method for calculating cost-based offers, he said.

“There has to be recognition that we’re changing the paradigm about fuel-cost policies; it makes sense to give everyone enough time to get there, but there have to be incentives to get there so people are not simply wasting time [and] everyone’s working toward that same objective,” he said.

Stakeholders questioned how the policies would be reviewed and whether the process or the result was the real focus.

“I’m just hopeful that in the final language, that we’re talking about the reasonableness of the process, not the reasonableness of the result and that that’s really clearly articulated to everybody,” said Mike Borgatti of Gabel Associates.

The proposal is scheduled to be brought to votes by the MIC, along with the Markets and Reliability and Members committees next month, with board approval targeted for October before a filing with FERC.

August 15, 2016

NC Health Official Resigns in Dispute with Gov. over Duke Energy Coal Ash

By Ted Caddell

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — A dispute between North Carolina’s governor and a veteran state scientist over Duke Energy’s coal ash practices has exploded into the public, with the scientist’s boss resigning in protest.

GovPatMcCrory (McCrory) - Duke Energy, Coal Ash — McCrory *Source: North Carolina State Gov.*

The state epidemiologist, Dr. Megan Davies, resigned Wednesday night, after Assistant Environmental Secretary Tom Reeder and state Health Director Randall Williams posted a statement criticizing her staffer’s concerns. The statement said toxicologist Ken Rudo’s “questionable and inconsistent scientific conclusions” had “created unnecessary fear and confusion among North Carolinians.”

Last year, Rudo balked at putting his name on a letter downplaying the risk of groundwater contamination near Duke power plants, despite being pressured by higher-ups in a meeting that he said included Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican and former Duke Energy executive. McCrory has denied taking part in the meeting.

In her resignation letter, Davies was blunt. “I cannot work for a department and an administration that deliberately misleads the public,” she wrote.

McCrory and his administration have been dogged by the Duke coal ash issue since February 2014, when a dike at a retired Duke plant burst, releasing 39,000 tons of toxin-laden coal ash and 27 million gallons of contaminated water into the Dan River.

The dispute became public this month after a judge released portions of a deposition Rudo gave in a lawsuit by the Sierra Club, the Southern Environmental Law Center and other environmental groups over Duke’s coal ash storage sites. The suit alleges that toxins from coal ash stored on Duke sites are contaminating rivers and other waterways and groundwater. It calls on Duke to safely remove the coal ash and ensure residents living near the plants have clean water.

By the end of the week, Democrats in the state legislature were calling for a probe into the whole affair.

Meeting with the Governor

In his deposition, Rudo testified his office sent a warning to about 400 homeowners near Duke plants in late 2014, telling them their well water wasn’t safe to drink because of pollution from Duke’s coal ash.

Rudo said groundwater samples showed increased levels of hexavalent chromium and vanadium, both cancer-causing agents. As a result, while the issue was still being debated by Duke and other state environmental and health officials, Duke began supplying some of the homeowners with bottled water.

Duke Energy, Coal Ash — Duke Energy engineers and consultants view the breach at Dan River coal ash storage pond in 2014. *Source: North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality*

Rudo said that in early 2015, he was called in to a discussion with Reeder and other higher-ups about the wording of the letters. “They wanted language put on there that stated, in essence, we were overreacting in telling people not to drink their water,” Rudo said in the deposition. He said he objected to the wording and told them to take his name off the letter.

“You know, I can’t stand behind that,” he said. “It is just not right. It is going to confuse people. People are not going to really know whether they should drink the water or not,” Rudo testified.

The dispute came to a head, he said, when he was called to another meeting with a McCrory aide in March 2015 in which McCrory briefly took part by phone. “I have never talked to a governor in all of the years I have been here, so I was a little … intimidated,” he said.

Rudo said McCrory and the aide raised concerns about the department warning people not to drink the water.

The language on the letters was changed, and the revised letter was sent out while he was on vacation. “And it was just amazingly misleading and dishonest language,” Rudo said.

In May 2015, EPA fined Duke $102 million for federal Clean Water Act violations; North Carolina added a $6.6 million penalty.

Following public outcry, North Carolina legislators passed legislation calling for Duke to clean up all of its coal ash dumps in the state.

McCrory, who had worked for Duke for almost three decades before becoming governor, vetoed the bill in June 2016. Last month, he signed a compromise bill calling for Duke to begin cleaning up half of its coal storage sites immediately while monitoring the rest.

Deposition Becomes Public

The dispute became public last week after the Southern Environmental Law Center filed Rudo’s redacted deposition in the group’s lawsuit.

The McCrory administration fired back. “We don’t know why Ken Rudo lied under oath, but the governor absolutely did not take part in or request this call or meeting, as he suggests,” said McCrory’s chief of staff during a rare, late-night press conference.

When Rudo stood by his testimony, the administration issued a scathing statement Aug. 9.

“Rudo’s unprofessional approach to this important matter does a disservice to public health and environmental protection in North Carolina,” Reeder and Williams wrote. “It doesn’t help that political special interest groups perpetuate his exaggerations and fuel alarm among citizens for their own purposes.”

The statement was the last straw for Davies, who issued a letter resigning from the Division of Public Health (DPH) on Wednesday night. Davies defended Rudo and claimed her superiors in DPH and the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) were fully involved in all decisions.

“The [statement] signed by Randall Williams and Tom Reeder presents a false narrative of a lone scientist … acting independently to set health screening levels and make water use recommendations to well owners,” she wrote. “In fact, and as I briefed you in August 2015, NCDHHS followed a process that engaged DPH and DHHS leadership in all decisions.

“Upon reading the open editorial yesterday evening, I can only conclude that the department’s leadership is fully aware that this document misinforms the public,” she wrote. “I cannot work for a department and an administration that deliberately [mislead] the public.”

McCrory addressed the dispute again while at a ribbon cutting ceremony on Thursday.

“We basically have a disagreement among scientists,” McCrory said, according to WRAL. “One group of scientists, which I support, believe the public ought to get all the information about the water, not limited information and one opinion.”

State Democrats, in their continued feud with McCrory and his administration, are calling for an investigation. “There is at least an appearance of pay-to-play politics, and, unlike other incidents of McCrory rewarding his friends and donors with political favors, this insider dealing puts lives at risk,” North Carolina Democratic Party spokesman Dave Miranda told reporters.

It is unclear who would lead such an investigation. The state attorney general, Roy Cooper, is running against McCrory for governor in November.

August 15, 2016

RTO Insider Top 30: Revenues, Earnings Down in Q2

By Rich Heidorn Jr.

The second quarter wasn’t a great one for most companies in the RTO Insider Top 30, as revenues declined 2% compared with 2015 while profits dropped 15%.

Twelve companies reported increases in revenue, while 15 reported reductions and three were unchanged. The outliers were WEC Energy Group and Avangrid, which saw revenues soar because of acquisitions.

Eleven companies reported an increase in profits while 19 showed declines. FirstEnergy, NRG Energy, Centerpoint Energy and Calpine reported quarterly losses.

It was a really bad quarter for FirstEnergy, which reported a $1.1 billion loss, much of it related to the pending closure of five coal-fired units. The company said it plans to rid itself of its merchant generation and transition to a “fully regulated company.” (See FirstEnergy Posts $1.1B Loss, Eyes Exit from Merchant Generation.)

NRG said most of its second-quarter net loss of $276 million ($0.61/share) — worse than its $9 million loss a year ago — resulted from impairments and losses on asset sales. (See NRG Continues to Pare Down Businesses, Affirms Guidance.)

Centerpoint, which has utilities in Arkansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Texas, reported a net loss of $2 million ($0.01/share), compared with a profit of $77 million ($0.18/share) in 2015. The company said its results were dampened by a $16 million drop in income from Enable Midstream Partners, a gas gathering and processing limited partnership with OGE Energy. The company has offered to sell its 55.4% stake to OGE. (See CenterPoint Abandons REIT Plan; Offers Stake in Gas Partnership to OGE.)

Calpine showed a net loss of $29 million ($0.08/share) versus a profit of $19 million ($0.05/share) a year earlier. The company blamed mark-to-market losses resulting from increases in forward power and natural gas prices. It also said increased hydroelectric generation in the West contributed to lower energy margins for its gas-fired fleet, although this was partially offset by an increase in generation in Texas.

The companies showing the biggest revenue declines in the quarter were Calpine, NRG, NextEra Energy and Public Service Enterprise Group, each of which was down more than 10%.

Company	Market Cap. ($ billions)	Revenue Q2 2016 ($ billions)	% change vs. 2015	Net income Q2 2016 ($ millions)	% change vs. 2015
NextEra	58.47	$3.82	-12.4%	$540	-24.6%
Duke Energy	57.23	$5.48	-2.0%	$509	-6.3%
Dominion Resources	47.89	$2.60	-5.5%	$452	9.4%
American Electric Power	33.13	$3.89	1.6%	$502	16.7%
Exelon	32.37	$6.91	6.1%	$267	-58.2%
PG&E	32.20	$4.17	-1.2%	$210	-48.3%
Berkshire Hathaway Energy	NA	$4.12	-7.4%	$545	-3.9%
Sempra Energy	26.78	$2.18	-7.6%	$17	-94.3%
PPL	24.84	$1.79	0.6%	$483	-163.8%
Edison International	24.82	$2.78	-4.5%	$307	-24.6%
Consolidated Edison	24.11	$2.79	0.0%	$232	5.9%
Public Service Enterprise Group	22.31	$1.91	-17.3%	$187	-45.8%
Xcel Energy	21.75	$2.50	-0.8%	$197	-0.1%
WEC Energy Group	19.75	$1.60	61.6%	$182	124.6%
Eversource Energy	18.19	$1.77	-2.7%	$204	-1.8%
DTE Energy	17.38	$2.26	-0.4%	$152	39.4%
Entergy	14.26	$2.46	-9.2%	$573	284.7%
FirstEnergy	14.19	$3.40	-2.0%	$(1,089)	-682.4%
Avangrid	13.58	$1.44	53.4%	$102	827.3%
Ameren	12.39	$1.43	2.1%	$147	-2.0%
CMS Energy	12.31	$1.37	1.5%	$124	85.1%
Centerpoint Energy	9.66	$1.57	2.6%	$(2)	-102.6%
Alliant Energy	9.02	$0.75	4.2%	$86	23.3%
Pinnacle West Capital	8.68	$0.92	3.4%	$121	-1.3%
NiSource	8.05	$0.89	0.0%	$29	-203.2%
Westar Energy	7.57	$0.62	5.1%	$72	13.5%
OGE Energy	6.21	$0.55	0.0%	$72	-18.3%
Calpine	4.61	$1.16	-19.4%	$(29)	-252.6%
Great Plains Energy	4.38	$0.67	9.8%	$32	-27.9%
NRG Energy	3.93	$2.64	-22.4%	$(276)	2966.7%
TOTAL		$70.44	-2.1%	$4,947	-15.4%

NextEra

NextEra said revenues dropped to $3.82 billion in the quarter, a 12% reduction from a year earlier. Its Florida Power & Light saw a 2.5% drop in retail sales, despite adding 65,000 more customers, due to mild weather.

NextEra Energy Resources, the company’s competitive energy unit, saw operating revenue drop to $970 million from $1.27 billion, due in part to hedging losses and the sale of 3,000 MW of natural gas generation in Texas. It also reported lower revenues from wind assets, which it attributed to lower output and reduced state and federal tax credits.

The company said it expects to add about 2,500 MW of contracted renewable generation in 2016, which would boost its renewable portfolio to 16,000 MW.

Last month, the company, which was rebuffed in its effort to buy Hawaiian Electric, reached an agreement to purchase Dallas-based Oncor in an $18.4 billion deal. (See NextEra Reaches Deal for Oncor.)

PSEG

PSEG reported second-quarter net income of $187 million ($0.37/share), a 46% drop from a year earlier. Operating earnings — which exclude the nuclear decommissioning trust, mark-to-market accounting and material one-time items — were flat year-over-year at $289 million ($0.57/share).

Public Service Electric and Gas’ expanded capital investment program goosed its net income of $179 million ($0.35/share), an increase from the $167 million ($0.33/share) for 2015.

Weather-normalized electric sales for the 12 months ending June 30 were down 0.2% versus a year earlier, despite an increase in the number of customers, because of increased energy efficiency and reduced industrial demand.

PSEG’s wholesale power unit, which earned $166 million ($0.33/share) a year ago, had a net loss of $11 million ($0.02/share) as output dropped 6% because of mild weather, low gas prices and a decline in PJM capacity revenues.

PSEG Power also took a hit from an extended refueling outage at the Salem 1 nuclear unit for repairs. The outage dropped the average capacity factor for the company’s nuclear fleet to 83% for the quarter, down from 86% a year earlier.

PSEG’s Peach Bottom nuclear plant, however, increased its output following modifications that increased its capacity by 130 MW.

Output from its combined cycle fleet declined to 4.4 TWh from 4.6 TWh due to mild weather, while low gas prices reduced the dispatch of its coal-fired units, which saw production drop to 0.9 TWh from 1.3 TWh.

CEO Ralph Izzo said the company was maintaining its operating earnings guidance for the year 2016 ($2.80 to $3/share). “However, reaching the upper end of guidance will be difficult even with improvements seen in the power markets, expectations for warm summer weather, normal operations and management of O&M for the remainder of the year,” he said.

Entergy

Entergy had a big earnings surprise, reporting second-quarter net income of $572.6 million ($3.11/share), almost tripling analysts’ expectations of $1.05/share, as polled by Thomson Reuters.

“We continue to make progress toward meeting our objective of steady, predictable growth at the utility while reducing our [Entergy Wholesale Commodities] footprint,” Entergy CEO Leo Denault said.

One step to shrinking that footprint came earlier this month, when the company agreed to sell its FitzPatrick nuclear plant in New York to Exelon for $110 million. The plant, which Entergy had planned to close, had a net book value $143 million. (See Entergy Sells FitzPatrick to Exelon.)

Net revenue was boosted by the company’s acquisition of the 1,980-MW Union Power combined cycle plant in Arkansas, Entergy Arkansas’ rate increase and higher industrial sales. The company cited strong demand from petroleum refiners who “continued to operate at high capacity levels compared to last year.”

Looking forward, the company also noted that it awarded itself contracts to build generation following competitive solicitations for Entergy Louisiana and Entergy Texas.

Methodology

The RTO Insider Top 30 includes the largest companies (by market capitalization) with significant presence in the seven RTOs and ISOs in the U.S. Since initiating the Top 30 in the first quarter, we have added Great Plains Energy and eliminated National Grid, a U.K.-based company that does not report its results quarterly. Expect more shuffling if Great Plains wins regulatory approval for its proposed acquisition of #26 Westar Energy.

August 15, 2016

Monitor: PJM Markets Competitive, but Have Room for Improvement

By Suzanne Herel

PJM’s wholesale energy, capacity and regulation markets were competitive for the first half of the year, but there is room for improvement, according to the second quarter State of the Market Report by Monitoring Analytics. The Independent Market Monitor made new recommendations for the energy, capacity and ancillary services markets.

During periods of high demand, the market’s performance “raised a number of concerns related to capacity market incentives, participant offer behavior in the energy market under tight market conditions, natural gas availability and pricing, demand response and interchange transactions,” the report said.

The report also called efforts to subsidize uneconomic units a “threat” to PJM market design.

The report includes five new recommendations and one modified recommendation. Two are classified as high priority; the others are ranked medium.

One of the high priority items concerns the capacity market. The Independent Market Monitor said that the costs incurred by pseudo-tied units should be borne by the unit and included in its offers into the market.

The other, first reported in 2012, calls for the emergency load response program to be treated as an economic resource that does not only respond after an emergency has been called.

The medium recommendations were:

Energy market: Clearly state the policy on the use of constraint relaxation and price-setting logic.
Capacity market: Re-evaluate mitigation rules for offers by demand resource and energy efficiency resources.
Capacity market: Eliminate the energy efficiency add-back mechanism so market clearing prices are not impacted.
Ancillary services: Eliminate separate payments for reactive capability and have generators recover its cost in the capacity market.

Prices, Demand Down

Lower fuel prices and less demand caused energy market prices to drop significantly over the first half of last year, the report said.

The load-weighted average real-time LMP was $27.09/MWh, a 36% drop from $42.30/MWh in 2015.

Average real-time load dropped 5.3% year over year, from 90,586 MW to 85,800 MW.

Net revenue, a measure of market performance and of the incentive to invest in new generation, decreased in the first six months of the year relative to 2015. Total net revenues, including both capacity and energy, dropped for a new combustion turbine (-50%), combined cycle (-41%), coal plant (-75%), diesel (-81%), nuclear plant (-46%), wind installation (-31%) and solar installation (-44%).

Combustion turbines (CTs) and combined cycle units (CCs) that entered the PJM markets in 2007 in three representative locations did not cover their total costs, including the return on and of capital. CTs and CCs that entered the PJM markets in 2012 did cover their total costs in the eastern PSEG and BGE zones but did not cover their costs in the western ComEd zone.

Mild winter weather, paired with low fuel prices and LMPs, enabled PJM to reduce uplift charges from $240.3 million to $63.9 million, a 73% cut.

Congestion costs dropped from $918.6 million to $479.1 million, a 48% reduction.

The report also said that auction revenue rights were not an effective way to return revenue to load. Together with financial transmission rights, they offset 86.5% of total congestion costs for the 2015 to 2016 planning period.

August 15, 2016

CAISO Refines Cost Allocation Proposal for Expanded BA

By Robert Mullin

CAISO met with stakeholders last week to refine a proposal for allocating costs of new transmission facilities in an expanded balancing authority (BA) that would include areas of the West outside California.

CAISO Plus Pacificorp Map (CAISO) - CAISO Refines Cost Allocation Proposal for Expanded Balancing Authority — The current CAISO footprint and PacifiCorp’s balancing areas would represent separate sub-regions under the ISO’s TAC proposal.

ISO staff laid out options for creating “default” cost allocation provisions, a requirement under FERC Order 1000, at an Aug. 11 working group.

Under CAISO’s proposal, “new facilities” would include new construction, additions and upgrades approved through the transmission planning process for an expanded ISO.

It would apply the transmission access charge (TAC) only to ISO-wide — or “regional” — projects meeting at least one of three criteria:

Receives a rating of 200 kV or more;
Facilitates a connection between two sub-regions; or
Creates, supports or helps increase intertie capacity with a neighboring balancing authority area.

The proposal also creates a new category of “sub-regional” transmission projects excluded from the ISO-wide TAC, including facilities under 200 kV, as well as those constructed or approved before expansion. Costs for those projects would be allocated entirely to the sub-region requiring the project — such as PacifiCorp’s service territory or the current CAISO BA.

Planning Process

CAISO staff told stakeholders that the TAC proposal is predicated on the assumption that the ISO’s current planning process is “a reasonable model” for expansion.

“We redesigned our [planning process] in 2010 and we think it’s a good model,” said Lorenzo Kristov, CAISO principal of market infrastructure and policy. “There’s no reason to think it wouldn’t work with expansion.”

That detail is important because the decision-making approach under the current planning process underpins the framework for the ISO’s proposed default cost allocation scheme.

CAISO breaks down projects into three categories: reliability-driven, policy-driven and economically driven.

ISO transmission planners run a proposed project through three stages of analysis, first determining the project’s reliability benefits, followed by an assessment of how the project helps fulfill state objectives for increased renewable generation. A third stage examines the economic benefits of the project.

Some projects may have more than one driver.

“We want to avoid tagging projects as just being economic or policy — the world doesn’t work that way,” said Neil Millar, the ISO’s executive director of infrastructure development.

Economically driven projects must produce total benefits exceeding the project’s cost — demonstrating a benefit-cost ratio of 1.0 or greater. To calculate those benefits, the ISO relies on the transmission economic assessment model, which considers savings from more efficient dispatch, reduced line losses and congestion and increased resource adequacy.

While the ISO said it weighs economics in its evaluation of any proposed project, reliability- and policy-driven projects don’t have to meet the same threshold as economically driven projects.

“We look at it this way so that people don’t think we can kill a project just for economic reasons, because it might meet a reliability and policy need,” Millar said.

The analytical approach underlying the planning process would inform the ISO’s proposed default cost allocation scheme under a redesigned TAC.

Benefit-Cost Ratio

Under the TAC proposal, costs for a project — including those for a reliability- or policy-driven project — with a benefit-cost ratio of 1.0 or greater would be allocated to sub-regions in proportion to the total economic benefits assessed for each sub-region.

For projects with a ratio less than 1.0, a portion of the cost would be allocated across sub-regions according to financial benefits, under the assumption that even uneconomic projects provide some economic benefits for market participants. Leftover charges — representing the portion of the costs not covered by economic benefits — would be assigned to the sub-region responsible for the reliability need or policy mandate driving the project.

In cases where multiple sub-regions derive policy or reliability benefits, leftover costs would be allocated in proportion to the total internal load for those areas during the year in which the project is placed into service, according to the proposal.

“The economics would be used to allocate the first tranche of needs, and then the incremental policy or reliability needs would be allocated on an incremental basis,” Millar said.

The ISO is also considering a concept by which the avoided costs for a reliability- or policy-driven alternative would be factored into a sub-region’s total benefits calculation for a proposed project.

A potential downside: A sub-region’s TAC allocation could rise based on the assumed cost of a “hypothetical” project.

“Is the avoided cost of a hypothetical sub-regional alternative an appropriate basis for cost allocation?” the ISO asked stakeholders.

Feedback

“This looks good [as] a conceptual idea,” said David Oliver, a managing consultant with Navigant. “But we’re talking about transferring money in sub-regions and that’s often not a fun thing to do.”

LS Power Vice President Sandeep Arora said, “I think this is very encouraging — the entire approach of looking at a transmission project not just fitting into one bucket but looking at the various benefits a project brings.”

The ISO said updating the TAC plan is a “central policy element” in the development of a Western RTO. Utility commissions in five states must grant approval before Portland-based PacifiCorp can join the ISO. The cost allocation scheme is likely to weigh heavily in regulators’ decisions.

CAISO planners initially expected to wrap up the TAC proposal in time to present it to the ISO’s board of governors in late August, in concert with a push to submit an RTO governance plan to California lawmakers before the end of this summer’s legislative session. (See CAISO Floats Latest Cost Allocation Plan for Expanded Balancing Area.)

The ISO got more breathing room after Gov. Jerry Brown’s Aug. 8 decision to postpone efforts to win legislative approval to expand the ISO until early 2017. (See Governor Delays CAISO Regionalization Effort.)

“Last time we had a meeting on this topic … we were still contemplating taking this to the board at the end of August, as ridiculous as that sounds,” CAISO’s Kristov said.

Instead, the ISO is likely to continue work on the proposal for the rest of the year, Kristov said.

August 15, 2016

State Briefs

Report Advocates a More Aggressive RGGI

A new Acadia Center report suggests the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) should adopt more aggressive emissions targets aligning it more closely with those of some member states. The climate-change advocacy organization also recommends extending the RGGI caps to 2031 to coincide with the proposed federal Clean Power Plan.

“RGGI continues to prove itself as an effective means of reducing carbon emissions and supporting economic growth,” said Daniel L. Sosland, Acadia Center president. “Now, Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states have an opportunity to build on RGGI’s success and lead the country by taking the steps necessary to meet state and federal climate requirements.”

RGGI states have committed to reducing emissions by about 40% across their economies by 2030. In addition, eight of the nine participating states have established 2050 requirements for 80% reductions.

More: Acadia Center

Del. Officials Say W.Va. Plant is Polluting Their Air

Delaware officials are asking federal regulators to take action against a coal-fired West Virginia plant they say is contributing to pollution in the First State.

The Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control says emissions from the Harrison Power Station near Haywood exceed federal standards. The plant is 245 miles west of the Delaware border.

The move is the latest effort by state officials to battle emissions produced in Maryland, Pennsylvania and other states that they say are making it impossible for Delaware to meet EPA air quality standards.

More: Delaware Online

CALIFORNIA

Watchdog Says Energy Companies Influenced California Democrats

A public interest group said Gov. Jerry Brown and California Democrats have received more than $9.8 million in campaign contributions from energy companies during the past eight years.

In a report titled “Brown’s Dirty Hands,” Consumer Watchdog alleges that the donations coincided with the companies’ winning political favors — including a deal between Southern California Edison and the state’s Public Utilities Commission that allowed the utility to charge ratepayers with most of the cost of shutting down the San Onofre nuclear generating station.

“The report really paints a troubling picture,” said Jamie Court, the group’s president. A spokesman for the governor called the report “cuckoo.”

More: Pasadena Star-News

Pilot Program to Generate Power from California Highways

The California Energy Commission is initiating a series of pilot programs next year that will attempt to generate electricity from sensors in the roadway triggered by cars driving along the state’s freeways.

The project will rely on piezoelectric technology, which involves installing tiny sensors beneath the road surface to capture energy produced by vibrations of passing cars. Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a bill, introduced by Assemblyman Mike Gatto, to fund the project, but the commission expressed interest in the technology shortly after.

“As an engineer, I could just see that vision of all these people driving down the roads and all that energy that’s sitting there and goes nowhere,” said Michael Gravely, a commission deputy division chief.

More: KCRA

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

OPC Takes Exelon Merger to Appeals Court

The Office of the People’s Counsel (OPC) is asking the D.C. Court of Appeals to examine the Public Service Commission’s order approving the Pepco/Exelon merger. (See Exelon Closes Pepco Merger Following OK from DC PSC.)

“Judicial review is critical not only because the decision impacts this case but all cases going forward in terms of the process and procedures the commission uses in making its decisions,” said Sandra Mattavous-Frye of the OPC. “It concerns the amount of process, or lack thereof, afforded to all parties, and the manner in which settlements are decided.”

Mattavous-Frye said the OPC also is opposing Pepco’s $85 million rate increase request.

More: Office of People’s Counsel

ILLINOIS

Lawmakers Urged to Follow NY’s Lead

A group of pro-nuclear Illinois mayors and community leaders have urged Illinois lawmakers to follow the lead of New York State policymakers, who arranged a nuclear bailout, expediting Exelon’s decision to buy and operate Entergy’s James A. FitzPatrick nuclear station.

In a letter sent to Gov. Bruce Rauner and lawmakers, the local leaders praised New York’s Clean Energy Standard, which includes subsidies for nuclear stations. “New York’s Clean Energy Standard is a road map for effective policy in Illinois,” said Tim Followell, city administrator of Clinton, Ill., which is home to one of the two nuclear stations Exelon says it will be closing because it is losing money due to low wholesale prices.

Followell and others have been pushing for passage of an Illinois version of a bill that would provide credits for nuclear stations. Critics have tagged that proposal, called the Next Generation Plan, a bailout.

More: Quad-City Times

AG Settles Case with Ethical Electric

Attorney General Lisa Madigan has reached a settlement with competitive retail energy supplier Ethical Electric requiring the company to refund up to $3 million for misleading customers.

Ethical Electric touted its power as being generated exclusively by renewable energy sources, when, in fact, it was sourced from a variety of generators paired with renewable energy certificates.

It also falsely promoted its fees as comparable with Commonwealth Edison’s rates, when they were more expensive.

More: Energy Manager Today

IOWA

Landowners File Yet Another Motion Against Dakota Access

A group of 14 landowners has filed a motion in Polk County District Court seeking to halt construction of the $3.8 billion Dakota Access Pipeline, asking the court to review the Iowa Utilities Board (IUB) ruling that the pipeline could use eminent domain.

“The landowners believe that Dakota Access is not a public utility and should not have the ability to use eminent domain to forcibly access Iowa landowners’ property to build a private pipeline,” Bill Hanigan, an attorney for the property owners, argued in a motion. He said the IUB misinterpreted Iowa law in calling the pipeline a public utility.

The 1,168-mile pipeline, parts of which are already under construction, will carry Bakken crude oil from North Dakota to terminals in Illinois.

More: The Gazette

KANSAS

Regulators Outline Standards for Upcoming Acquisition Dockets

The Corporation Commission said last week its members will consider whether Great Plains Energy’s proposed acquisition of Westar Energy will “promote the public interest” when it votes on the deal next year. Commissioners adopted merger standards for the Westar/Great Plains union and two other unrelated mergers to ensure the KCC takes a “consistent approach.”

The criteria the commission will consider include the merger’s effects on consumers, the environment and state and local economies and to the utilities’ communities.

The KCC is expected to hear the Westar Energy and Great Plains acquisition docket sometime between Jan. 3 and March 30. The two other acquisitions in front of the KCC are the purchase of Empire District Electric Co., of Joplin, Mo., by Liberty Utilities (Central) Co., a subsidiary of Algonquin Power & Utilities Corp., and a proposal for ITC Holdings to become an indirect, majority-owned subsidiary of FortisUS with minority ownership by GIC Ventures.

More: The Topeka Capital-Journal (Kan.)

KENTUCKY

LG&E Awarded Customer Charge for Clean Up

The Kentucky Public Service Commission has approved a request by Louisville Gas & Electric Co. (LG&E) to assess a new monthly charge for customers to pay for the cleanup of coal ash ponds. The commission approved the charge of 30 cents a month for this year for the typical residential customer, which will increase to $2.08 a month in 2024.

The commission approved a similar charge for LG&E’s sister company, Kentucky Utilities (KU), which was set at 30 cents per month and will later increase to $3.12 a month. The charges were approved after the two companies requested $994 million to meet new federal coal-ash cleanup rules. LG&E said it will spend more than $300 million in cleanup efforts. KU said it will spend about $675 million.

More: Louisville Courier-Journal

MICHIGAN

State Preps for Higher Rates In Face of Supply Shortage

Some consumers in the state are expecting electricity price increases in the coming years because of DTE Energy’s decision earlier this year to shut down seven coal-fired plants.

The Public Service Commission’s five-year outlook anticipates electric supply shortfalls through summers 2017 and 2020. The Lower Peninsula is expected to see a 270-MW shortage next year, an improvement over the 520-MW shortage that the PSC previously predicted. MISO’s Midwest region is predicted to fall short of the reserve margin requirement by 2018.

Tim Arends, executive director of Traverse City Light & Power, said the municipal utility’s annual power prices nearly doubled to $850,000 this year. The utility recovers the cost through a user fee.

More: Traverse City Record-Eagle

Consumers Installing More Safety Buoys Near Hydroelectric Dams

Consumers Energy in installing more safety buoys across rivers below its Michigan hydroelectric dams to warn swimmers and boaters of the dangers of swirling water released from impoundments.

The utility is working with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources to keep swimmers and boaters out of “potentially unsafe areas immediately downstream of hydroelectric dams.” Consumers will place buoys at 10 dams on five rivers statewide during the year.

Last year, Consumers installed buoys at three dams on two northern Michigan rivers.

More: Post-Bulletin

MISSOURI

PSC Could Quash Westar-KCP&L Merger

The Public Service Commission’s claims of jurisdiction over the $12.2 billion acquisition of a Kansas utility by Great Plains Energy could have significant impact on the deal. Commission staff says job cuts and possible outsourcing spurred by the proposed acquisition could harm existing customers of Great Plains’ subsidiary, Kansas City Power & Light.

The staff claims Great Plains violated a 2001 agreement with the commission, in which it agreed not to acquire any public utilities without commission approval.

Great Plains argues that combining Westar and KCP&L would benefit customers on both sides of the state line. Moreover, it says the commission’s complaint is a moot point because Westar isn’t a public utility under state law, and, therefore, Great Plains doesn’t need the state’s approval to buy Westar.

More: The Wichita Eagle (Kan.)

NEW MEXICO

Regulatory Examiner Recommends 67% Slash to PNM Rate Increase

A state hearing examiner has recommended a 67% reduction to Public Service Company of New Mexico’s (PNM) rate increase request, from $123.5 million a year to $41.3 million a year. The recommendation would result in a 6.4% increase for the average customer, compared to 14.4% under PNM’s request.

The hearing examiner rejected the $152.8 million PNM spent to purchase power from the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station in Arizona, which was disputed in a separate commission matter. The examiner also disallowed a $52 million investment in pollution controls at the San Juan Generation Station, which PNM did at the behest of the EPA, but some felt it was unnecessary. The examiner also reduced PNM’s requested rate of return from 10.5% to 9.575%.

PNM can file exceptions to the examiner’s findings, after which the regulatory commission’s general counsel will present a draft order to the Public Regulation Commission (PRC). According to the current schedule, the PRC must make a final ruling in the case by Aug. 31.

More: Albuquerque Journal (N.M.)

NEW YORK

Storage Provider Demand Energy Wins Load Relief Auction

Demand Energy was a successful bidder in Consolidated Edison’s first-ever auction to provide load relief on peak power days in New York City.

Demand Energy will soon begin installing several megawatts of energy storage in Brooklyn and Queens, controlled by the company’s Distributed Energy Network Optimization System (DEN.OS) intelligent software. The project is part of Con Ed’s Brooklyn-Queens Demand Management program.

The energy storage project, which will come online in 2017, will delay the need for a new $1.2 billion substation. The program will use demand-side resources such as energy storage, energy efficiency and demand response. The project is a prototype for New York State’s Reforming the Energy Vision initiative to encourage the use of more distributed resources.

More: Demand Energy

NORTH DAKOTA

Tribe Blocks Access to Dakota Access Crews

Members of Standing Rock Sioux Tribe blocked crews working on the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline that is to carry crude oil from North Dakota to terminals in Illinois.

Although the pipeline developers have received the necessary permits from state and regulatory agencies, they face continuing legal and political challenges. One was by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, which sued federal regulators in July, claiming the pipeline runs too close to sacred land and the tribe’s drinking water supplies. Tribe members blocked a road near their 2.3-million-acre reservation, backing up a line of 45 construction vehicles.

Work has already started on the 1,168-mile pipeline in other places in North Dakota, South Dakota and Illinois.

More: Associated Press

OKLAHOMA

Drop in Number of Earthquakes Could be Result of Regulation

Oklahoma has experienced a decline in earthquakes compared to last year, and some geophysicists believe that more stringent regulation of underground injection of wastewater from oil and gas drilling operations may deserve some of the credit.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Oklahoma experienced 448 magnitude 3.0 or greater earthquakes as of Aug. 10, compared to 558 for the same period last year. Robert Williams, with USGS, said the increased restrictions on wastewater injection and disposal could be one reason for the decrease, as well as the drop in oil and natural gas exploration.

More: USA Today

City Tests Smart Meters Before Making the Switch

City of Edmond officials in Oklahoma are conducting a pilot program to help determine whether the city should install smart meters for all 35,000 electric customers and 32,000 water customers. The pilot program could last from six months to a year before a decision is made.

In a 2011 feasibility study, consultants told city officials a total system, with all the possible extras, could cost $36 million over 15 years.

About 1.7 million smart meters were installed across Oklahoma in 2014.

More: The Oklahoman

PENNSYLVANIA

PUC Reliability Report Dings Penelec

A report by the Public Utility Commission says Penelec customers saw more power failures last year compared with consumers of electricity from other large companies in the state.

The report relies on data from quarterly and annual reliability reports submitted by electric distribution companies and details four benchmarks.

Penelec failed to meet any of the benchmarks but expects to improve reliability by 2018.

More: The Bradford Era