FERC set back efforts to stop a natural gas pipeline in New York on Thursday when it refused to rehear its December 2014 approval of the project. (CP13-499)
In a separate ruling Friday, the commission allowed limited tree cutting along the Pennsylvania section of the pipeline route.
FERC dismissed a challenge by project opponent Stop the Pipeline to thwart the Constitution Pipeline project and a related compression station in Wright, N.Y. The project is designed to transport shale gas from the Marcellus region of Pennsylvania, connecting with existing pipelines that serve eastern New York and New England.
“In the 2014 order, the commission found that the benefits the Constitution Pipeline and Wright interconnection projects will provide to the market outweigh any adverse effects on existing shippers, on other pipelines and their captive customers, and on landowners and surrounding communities,” FERC wrote.
The commission rejected complaints that the project failed to demonstrate a public benefit, that there was a lack of opportunities for public input and that the final environmental impact statement was incomplete.
Much of the opposition to the pipeline is now centered on FERC’s approval of the project without a completed permit by state environmental officials under Section 401 of the federal Clean Water Act.
FERC said the lack of a permit is not an “absolute bar” from development activities and that its conditional approval of the project does not allow activities that impair waterways.
At a joint legislative budget hearing at the New York State Capitol in Albany on Thursday, Department of Environmental Conservation Acting Commissioner Basil Seggos noted Constitution is a significant project with a large number of stream crossings. “I’m not going to pressure my department to move more quickly than they believe is warranted,” he said.
Also, on Friday, the commission granted partial permission to Constitution to proceed with limited tree felling in Pennsylvania only, in a letter from FERC’s Division of Gas – Environment and Engineering. About 25 miles of the 124-mile route is within Pennsylvania, but FERC delayed similar operations in New York. (See New York AG: No Tree Cutting for Pipeline Without Water Quality Permits.)
The letter notes that permission from landowners in Pennsylvania has been granted but does not address the controversy in New York, nor does it explain the prohibition there.
“This letter does not authorize tree felling in New York nor does it authorize the workspace variances in Constitution’s May 19, 2015, and Jan. 8, 2016, requests in New York at this time,” it states. The variances were requested to avoid wetlands or improve work site access.
December marked a return to energy prices not seen since 2009, MISO officials reported during Tuesday’s Markets Committee of the Board of Directors meeting. December’s average day-ahead and real-time energy prices were the lowest since MISO implemented the ancillary services market in January 2009.
“December was a relatively mild month,” said David Patton, MISO’s Independent Market Monitor. “The most notable thing that happened this month is the continued low gas prices… In addition to gas prices dropping, oil has continued to drop.”
Patton said languishing prices were driven by low loads, low natural gas prices, strong wind output and the return of nearly 15 GW of generation from the fall outage season.
December’s average real-time energy price was $21.23/MWh, representing a 31% drop when compared to December 2014. Load averaged 72.6 GW, which was lower than last December’s average of 76.6 GW. On Dec. 17, load peaked at 87.1 GW, down from last December’s peak of 93.1 GW.
Wind power alone produced 4,133 GWh, almost double the 2,461 GWh needed to satisfy combined state renewable portfolio standards.
Todd Ramey, vice president for system operations and market services, said temperatures in the footprint were 5 to 8 degrees above normal during December. He said unusually high temperatures complicated day-ahead forecasting and led to a mid-term load forecast that exceeded the 2% error threshold for eight days during the month.
The low energy prices caused capacity factors of coal-fired resources to drop to 45%, down from December 2014’s 60%. Patton said the reduced utilization could accelerate coal retirements. “We’re seeing some pretty significant changes in terms of types of dispatches,” Patton said.
CARMEL, Ind. — MISO revealed Thursday that it plans to increase its employee headcount and invest $30 million to update its Carmel, Ind., headquarters. The grid operator said it’s in need of an expansion because it has outgrown the 133,409-square-foot facility that has served as its headquarters for more than a decade.
MISO’s headquarters at 720 City Center Drive in Carmel, Ind.
Over the next four years, MISO said it could add more than 80 employees to its workforce. The RTO hopes to gradually open 84 new positions by 2020 in order to qualify for $1.6 million in conditional tax credits and up to $100,000 in training grants offered by the Indiana Economic Development Corp. Final approval on both the employee additions and building expansion rests with MISO’s Board of Directors.
MISO spokesperson Andy Shonert said MISO’s investment plans are based on projections that are subject to performance-based checks. He noted that “future investment and headcount decisions are approved by the Board of Directors during the annual budget process.”
“The investment numbers cited encompass a number of priorities that MISO has worked on with stakeholders, including reconfiguring our Carmel location to better support our workforce, meeting critical technology needs and lease payments for our office building,” Shonert said, adding, “MISO always seeks to ensure we are good stewards of our members’ resources.”
A large portion of the expansion investment will go toward updating MISO’s facilities and IT and computer networking systems.
If the employee goal is reached, the city of Carmel said it would consider additional incentives, although the “city rarely offers additional benefits,” according to the Indianapolis Business Journal.
MISO’s decision followed deliberations that began last fall on whether to expand or move into new headquarters.
“Indiana has been our home since we first started, and we are proud to continue that investment,” MISO CEO John Bear said in a press release issued by the Indiana Economic Development Corp. “Fulfilling our mission of ensuring reliable operation of the electric grid requires the best and the brightest. This commitment to our Carmel facility will ensure that we have the people and technology to continue that mission in a way that provides value to our region.”
Of MISO’s 940 employees nationwide, more than 700 work in Indiana.
“We congratulate MISO on its big news today and we celebrate the fact that they chose to expand here in Carmel,” said Carmel Mayor Jim Brainard. “MISO has been a part of Carmel’s corporate family of 100-plus headquarters since the late 1990s and we look forward to watching their continued growth.”
In the meantime, and as part of the improvements, MISO is undergoing an audio-visual overhaul at its Carmel location. MISO Conference Services Manager Mike Barber said the top priority is to “enhance the stakeholder experience” of meetings. Barber said MISO is installing state-of-the-art audio-visual equipment that will include allowing telecommuting stakeholders a presentation view of meetings.
The audio-visual improvements will extend to MISO’s Eagan, Minn., location as well. Barber said construction at the Eagan facilities will begin on March 28 and last until May, while improvements to the Carmel facility began in late January and will last until April 11. Until then, meetings will be conducted offsite via telephone or at MISO’s Little Rock and Metairie, La., locations.
During a Tuesday meeting of the Markets Committee of the Board of Directors, Wisconsin Public Service’s Chris Plante asked if stakeholders will be required to use different software to view presentations online after the upgrade. Barber said that was something he couldn’t answer until pilot testing the new equipment.
At the MISO Steering Committee on Jan. 27, MISO Stakeholder Relations Specialist Alison Lane said a new conference call operator is coming on board in March. With the change, there will be no limit to how many callers can call into MISO meetings; currently the number is capped at about 150 callers. “That is all being folded into our AV update, which is slowly underway,” Lane said.
Lane said Board of Directors meetings and Advisory Committee meetings will continue to be operator-assisted, while all other meetings will not require an operator, “unless an issue arises.”
Dominion Resources announced Monday that it is buying the Utah-based natural gas distributor Questar for $4.4 billion in cash in a deal aimed at expanding its gas business into the West.
Dominion said it expects to complete the acquisition by the end of the year. The company also said it would be assuming Questar’s approximately $1.31 billion in long- and short-term debt.
Like Duke Energy, which announced in October it would purchase Piedmont Natural Gas, Dominion expects the value of natural gas to increase as more and more states switch to the fuel for electric generation in order to meet state and federal emissions mandates.
It is Dominion’s latest big natural gas play. The company is one of the majority owners of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline project, a $5 billion, 550-mile pipeline that would bring natural gas from the shale fields in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio to markets and terminals in Virginia and North Carolina. It also has invested $3.8 billion to convert its liquefied natural gas import terminal at Cove Point, Md., on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay into an export facility.
GPI Names Bilek to Govt. Affairs and Communications
Amanda Bilek, who has held various positions at the Great Plains Institute since 2008, will become the director of government affairs and communications for the energy think tank.
“I look forward to the challenge of ensuring that our government affairs and communications efforts enhance the impact of our programs,” she said.
“Amanda’s extensive legislative and policy experience coupled with her management and communications skills make her a perfect fit for this new role,” said GPI President Rolf Nordstrom.
Invenergy announced it has signed a deal with Google to provide the Internet giant with 225 MW of wind energy. Craig Gordon, Invenergy’s vice president of sales and marketing, said the power will be generated at the company’s proposed wind facility near Lubbock, Texas, and will be transmitted through SPP to Google’s energy-hungry data centers.
“They are always looking to partner up with folks like us to green up their energy supply,” Gordon said. “Their needs are growing by leaps and bounds every year, and as a result their energy needs are growing by leaps and bounds every year.” A price was not disclosed.
The agreement is part of a plan Google announced in December to partner with six companies in the U.S., Sweden and Chile to obtain 842 MW of clean energy.
Duke Starts Coal Ash Removal from Riverbend Steam Station
Riverbend Steam Station (Source: Duke Energy)
Duke Energy began loading coal ash from its retired Riverbend Steam Station in Gaston County, N.C., using a rail spur it had built for the purpose. The company said each train can carry as much coal ash as 420 dump trucks, alleviating some of the community’s traffic concerns.
Riverbend, on the Catawba River, was retired in 2013, but the coal ash dump there is one of four high-priority sites that have to be cleaned up by 2019. Duke says it will clean up all its coal ash sites by 2029.
Montana Co-ops May Be Facing $5B Bill to Comply with CPP
Montana’s electric cooperatives will likely share in a $5 billion bill to comply with the federal Clean Power Plan, officials said recently.
The $5 billion is what Basin Electric Power Cooperative, an SPP member, estimates it will need to cut greenhouse gases from its coal-fired power plants while also adding wind farms and gas-fired generators as replacement energy sources.
Basin Electric Growth Rate Projected to Drop to 1.4% Annually
Basin Electric Power Cooperative forecasts new load will increase 1,350 MW over the next 20 years, 739 MW lower than its forecast last year.
The forecast projects a 1.4% annual growth rate across Basin’s membership, down from the previous year’s estimate of 2.5 to 2.9% annually. The cancelled Keystone XL pipeline and oil price fluctuations account for much of the difference.
The load forecast show Basin Electric’s service area growing at twice the rate of the rest of the U.S., even with oil prices at 12-year lows.
PNM Opens 3rd Solar Facility This Year, Adding 9.5 MW
Public Service Company of New Mexico opened a 9.5-MW solar facility south of Santa Fe, its 15th in the state.
The 40,000-panel solar center is part of the utility’s much debated and critiqued energy portfolio, 15% of which is required by the state to be derived from renewable sources.
In December, the state Public Regulation Commission approved PNM’s plan to close two of four coal-burning units at the aging San Juan Generating Station and replace that power with energy from nuclear and natural gas plants, additional coal power and some solar energy.
Nonprofit Says PNM Broke Law with 64-MW Palo Verde Purchase
An advocacy group is fighting a requested rate increase by Public Service Company of New Mexico, which it says quietly purchased a 64-MW share of the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station in Arizona for $163.3 million without getting prior approval from state regulators. PNM previously had leased the capacity from the nuclear plant.
The nonprofit New Energy Economy filed a motion Jan. 20 with the state Public Regulation Commission, along with Bernalillo County, to dismiss a third of the utility’s requested $123.5 million rate hike that would cover the $40 million cost of operating Palo Verde’s Unit 2 for a year, including taxes, maintenance and fuel.
The advocacy group, which has been at odds with PNM for years, said that the utility should have submitted its proposed purchase first to the state commission. PNM said it filed the request in March with FERC, and no public comments were submitted.
Austin Energy Proposes Rate Cut for Most Businesses
Austin Energy has proposed cutting rates for most business customers to reduce revenue by $17.5 million a year.
Austin Energy officials publicly released their suggested rates Jan. 25 in what is shaping up to be a contentious discussion about reallocating costs among different customer classes.
The utility, which has 448,000 customers, says that residential customers as a whole are paying $53 million less than it costs to serve them, while businesses collectively are paying about $62 million more. Its new rates require City Council approval.
Akron Delves into Battery Storage with Solar Project
Smart battery builder Design Flux Technologies, a University of Akron spinoff, is building a battery-management system for a rooftop solar array being built in Akron, Ohio.
The facility will be built by Prism Solar Technology of Highland, N.Y., and will be affixed to the roof of the former B.F. Goodrich Tire plant, a 19th century building that now houses the Akron Global Business Accelerator, a business development organization. Design Flux Technologies is a resident company of the Akron Global Business Accelerator.
The city of Akron’s $173,000 investment in the solar panels and storage equipment is expected to be recovered within five years, with power cost savings estimated between $30,000 and $40,000 annually.
WEC Energy to Replace Retiring CEO with Current President
Leverett
WEC Energy Group announced last week that current president Allen Leverett will succeed Gale Klappa as chief executive on May 1.
Klappa, 65, is retiring and will serve as nonexecutive chairman. Leverett, 49, was recruited to WEC by Klappa in 2003 after the two worked together at Georgia Power in Atlanta.
The incoming CEO said his priorities will include the continued transition of the Integrys merger, working on upgrades as needed to WEC’s natural gas distribution infrastructure and compliance with Wisconsin’s Clean Power Plan strategy.
Nancy Gioia, retired director of global connectivity, electrical and user experience for Ford Motor Co., has been appointed to Exelon’s board of directors, effective Feb. 1.
Gioia, 55, will serve on the generation oversight and finance and risk committees.
In more than 30 years at Ford, Gioia led global electrification efforts, working closely with the Edison Electric Institute and the Department of Energy.
PECO: Smart Ideas Program Increasing Energy Efficiency
PECO Energy customers have received more than $500 million in energy savings, incentives and rebates in the past seven years using the Smart Ideas program, the Philadelphia utility says.
The program provides 15 ways to help residential and business customers save energy and money.
Smart Ideas is part of the company’s effort to increase energy efficiency and demand response capability under the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission’s Act 129, which requires electric utilities to increasingly reduce their customers’ energy usage through 2021.
FirstEnergy: Lake Shore Power Plant to be Demolished
FirstEnergy engineers say the architecturally significant, defunct Lake Shore power plant in Cleveland is too degraded to restore and will be demolished.
The coal-fired plant, which first generated power in 1911, sits on 57 acres overlooking Lake Erie.
FirstEnergy hopes to begin the $15 million demolition in late spring or early summer, and then offer the cleared site for sale. But the utility can’t proceed with demolition until the city’s Downtown/Flats Design Review Committee issues a permit.
$1B Privately Funded Plant will Power 1M Ill. Homes
Competitive Power Ventures plans to open a 1,100-MW combined cycle generating facility in the Three Rivers area of Grundy County, Ill.
The $1 billion CPV Three Rivers Energy Center will consist of two General Electric turbines and one steam turbine. It will be fueled by an existing 36-inch natural gas pipeline on the 80-acre site. The site is near Exelon’s Dresden Generating Station in Goose Lake Township.
Construction is expected to start in 2018, with the facility in operation by 2021.
Entergy Names 30-Year Industry Vet to Lead its Nuclear Operations
Chris Bakken will become Entergy’s executive vice president and chief nuclear officer, effective April 6. Bakken replaces Jeff Forbes, who announced his retirement last year, and will report to Leo Denault, Entergy’s chairman and chief executive.
Bakken will be responsible for oversight of New Orleans-based Entergy’s 10 nuclear units at eight sites, which have nearly 10,000 MW of capacity. He will also be responsible for the company’s management services to the Cooper Nuclear Station for the Nebraska Public Power District.
Bakken’s career began in 1982 as a test engineer at Duquesne Light in Pittsburgh. He was most recently executive director for EDF Energy’s nuclear new build group and has also worked for American Electric Power, Public Service Enterprise Group and British Energy.
New England’s winter energy supply crunch could be worse in two years because the closure of the Brayton Point coal-fired plant and the potential retirement of the Pilgrim nuclear plant will come before additional natural gas pipelines can fill the gap.
“The winter of 2017-2018 is the one that worries me the most, because we will have lost Brayton Point at that point, [and] there’s a question mark about whether Pilgrim is available,” said CEO Gordon van Welie during ISO-NE’s annual “State of the Grid” media briefing last week.
About 4,200 MW of existing non-gas capacity — nuclear, coal and oil — is expected to retire by 2019. The 1,517-MW Brayton Point plant will close in early 2017 and the 680-MW Pilgrim plant will close no later than 2019, assuming the plant operates beyond its current fuel cycle, which ends in 2017. (See Entergy Closing Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station.)
The RTO’s performance incentives to make additional generation available won’t go into effect until mid-2018. Two proposed large-capacity natural gas pipelines, Northeast Energy Direct and Access Northeast, won’t be ready to serve New England until 2018 at the earliest.
“This will be a period of vulnerability,” van Welie added.
Non-gas generation is finding it increasingly difficult to compete in the energy market, van Welie said.
“During most of the year, the low price of natural gas is setting the wholesale price of electric energy, so power plants using more expensive fuels are getting squeezed financially. As a result, more and more non-natural gas-fired generators are retiring,” he said.
Van Welie
For the third consecutive year, the RTO will use its winter reliability program, which rewards dual-fuel gas/oil generators.
Meanwhile, higher capacity prices have attracted new investment. Capacity auction revenues have quadrupled from about $1 billion three years ago to $4 billion last year. Since auctions for those supplies are held three years in advance, customers have so far been shielded and will not see those price hikes for another year, he said.
Forward Capacity Auction 10, for the 2018/19 period, will be held Feb. 8. Van Welie said 147 new resources, totaling 6,700 MW of new generation, demand response and energy efficiency capacity, have qualified to participate.
OKLAHOMA CITY — Acknowledging members’ dissatisfaction, SPP CEO Nick Brown promised the Board of Directors and Members Committee that the RTO will complete the oft-delayed Z2 crediting project this year.
“I know the frustration that’s out there. I’ve had meetings with a number of members over the last year,” Brown said in delivering his annual president’s report during SPP’s quarterly board meeting last Tuesday. “Z2 will be the focus of the organization this year, as it has been the focus of the organization the last several years.”
The Z2 project began in 2008 as a result of years of incorrect credits for transmission upgrades. SPP staff told the Markets and Operations Policy Committee on Jan. 12 the project’s complexity and challenges in processing historical data has pushed its expected completion to November of this year. (See Latest Z2 Credit Project Delay Renews Old Frustrations.)
Members have been frustrated with their inability to get an idea of their liabilities or credits.
SPP has resisted giving a rough estimate of the sponsored upgrades. Were staff to provide an estimate, “it would be nothing more than a shot in the dark,” Brown said. “I’m hopeful, and I promise we’re looking at engaging all internal resources to accelerate that [November] date.”
According to the project’s latest schedule, staff will begin processing historical data in late March, concluding the process in late August. The first reports will be submitted and reviewed in August and September, with invoicing beginning Nov. 4.
The software handling the process consists of 58 system components and still requires some manual intervention. Brown pleaded for members’ patience, saying, “We’re on a course to get these calculations performed in this calendar year.
“From [a software] engine perspective, it’s a thing of beauty. From a business perspective, boy it’s complex. We’ve got to work very hard this year to balance the persistence of the effort and the patience to wait for the results.”
Noman Williams, MOPC chairman and COO for South Central MCN, said SPP staff and outside consulting firm Accenture have accelerated the project by adding resources, reassigning work and compressing the testing schedule.
While the Z2 project will consume a significant amount of SPP’s resources this year, Brown said the RTO also will be preparing for several audits, helping its members and states prepare to comply with the Clean Power Plan’s federal rules and dealing with cybersecurity issues.
SPP is set for a SERC audit this year, and Brown said he expects the RTO to be one of the first to be audited under NERC’s new Critical Infrastructure Protection version 5 standards effective April 1. He said staff will expend “a tremendous amount of energy the next several months” preparing for the audits.
“We’re pursuing independent third-party assessments, penetration assessments … to get a sense of comfort we’ve done everything we can do” on cybersecurity, he said.
Brown said the RTO will continue to collaborate with states to prepare for the Clean Power Plan and possible trading plans. He said the “winners” will be able to maximize their assets, while the “losers” will be able minimize the effect on their end-use customers.
SPP’s Market Monitoring Unit is undergoing a FERC audit to assess its independence, said SPP Director Josh Martin, chair of the Oversight Committee.
Unlike most RTO market monitors, SPP’s monitoring unit is housed internally. Martin said the Oversight Committee has finalized a position statement on the unit’s independence.
“It’s a step beyond where we’ve been in the past,” Martin said. “We wanted to be as clear as we can the MMU is an independent entity.”
According to the position statement, “The Oversight Committee is confident that an internal MMU provides both an appropriate level of independence and the level and depth of expertise needed to perform its functions and does so at a more economical cost than an external contractor.”
The committee performs an annual assessment to “ensure the continuing effectiveness of the SPP’s market monitoring approach,” the statement said.
Potomac Economics, which performs market monitoring for MISO, ISO-NE, NYISO and ERCOT, is conducting this year’s review of the Market Monitoring Unit. It also will be supplementing the Monitor’s staff until two vacancies are filled.
Alan McQueen, the unit’s director, will retire at the end of 2016, Martin announced. He said McQueen has offered to stay for a transition period.
Martin said Boston Pacific’s annual “Looking Forward” report will cover retail customer reactions to the cost of transmission facilities, how to pay for transmission used to export power from the SPP region and market effects from the unit’s decisions.
Market Working Group Addressing Monitor’s Recommendations
American Electric Power’s Richard Ross, chair of the Market Working Group, reviewed the group’s plan for addressing MMU recommendations to improve the Integrated Marketplace.
The Monitor identified nine issues in last year’s annual State of the Market report, ranging from quick-start logic and ramp-constrained shortage pricing, to potential manipulation of make-whole payment provisions. The market report was the unit’s first since the Integrated Marketplace’s March 2014 implementation.
The MWG is working on numerous revision requests and has suggested forming a task force. While the group continues to work on some of the items, Ross said the group can always use SPP’s revision-request process separately, if it thinks progress is too slow.
“I don’t agree with everything being done, but that’s to be expected,” McQueen said. “These are complicated issues, but I agree with Richard’s assessment [that] these things are in flight. I agree … these action items are being addressed.”
Board Chairman Jim Eckelberger said the eventual disposition of the items will be on the July agenda, when a final report is expected.
The board approved Tariff revisions, previously endorsed by the MOPC, that will set guidelines for distributing revenues from last year’s settlement with MISO over its use of SPP’s transmission grid. The approval was opposed by Xcel Energy and Golden Spread Electric Cooperative. Dogwood Energy abstained from the members’ vote.
“Whenever we have cross-boundary issues on the Xcel system, we’re following protocols,” said David Hudson, president of Xcel subsidiary Southwestern Public Service. “[SPP] will have to show us why this is preferential to what’s already in the Tariff.”
The Regional Tariff Working Group drafted language to handle revenues accrued during three different phases affecting SPP’s transmission system: pre-Integrated System, with the Integrated System and moving forward. It also revised other Tariff sections to take the new revenue distribution into account. SPP has said it favored allocating the money to transmission owners, with benefits flowing through to the grid’s load.
The board also passed a consent agenda that included seven Tariff revisions, five notification-to-construct modifications and the 2016 SPP Transmission Expansion Plan report (STEP), a comprehensive listing of all the RTO’s transmission projects over a 20-year planning horizon. All were endorsed by the MOPC earlier in the month. (See Markets and Operations Policy Committee Briefs.)
The STEP report consists of 480 transmission upgrades costing $6.1 billion.
Wind Study, Capacity Margin Work Nears Completion
Bruce Rew, SPP vice president of operations, updated the board on the RTO’s recent wind integration study, which indicated it can handle wind-penetration levels of up to 60% with additional transmission and monitoring tools. (See Study: 60% Wind Penetration Possible in SPP.)
The RTO’s first wind integration study in six years projects the grid operator’s wind energy will grow significantly beyond its current 14% of system capacity.
CEO Brown said he was happy to see the study recommend an additional study using phasor measurement unit applications to provide real-time analysis.
“I’m concerned we’re evaluating our current situation with X-ray technology, when MRI technology is available,” Brown said.
Rew said he was optimistic he can bring full results back to the board’s next meeting in April. SPP is holding a two-day wind study summit in Little Rock, Ark., Feb. 17-18 to gather further stakeholder input.
The board also could see final reports and policy suggestions in April from the task forces looking at SPP’s capacity margin and transmission-planning improvements.
“Get your comments in,” Eckelberger urged the board and members, “because we’re going to have some big decisions to make.”
Longtime Member Working Group Chair Retires
Dennis Reed, most recently director of FERC compliance for Westar Energy, was recognized by the SPP board and members with a standing ovation for his 10 years as chairman of the Regional Tariff Working Group. Reed retired from Westar at the end of 2015, but he has promised to remain a presence at SPP meetings through his new venture, Midwest Regulatory Consulting.
Brown said Reed oversaw 16 RTWG meetings and conducted 92 votes last year alone, which he extrapolated to nearly 1,000 votes overall. He also said SPP’s Tariff was only 796 pages in 2005 when Reed first chaired the working group, but today “it’s 5,530 pages of rates, terms and conditions.”
Dynegy, NRG Energy and other independent power producers asked FERC Wednesday to void the power purchase agreements FirstEnergy and American Electric Power have proposed to Ohio regulators, saying the deals fail the commission’s Edgar/Allegheny test regarding affiliate transactions.
PJM, meanwhile, filed an amicus brief with regulators Monday, calling AEP’s assertions that reliability would be threatened if its units retired “a red herring.”
The IPPs and the Electric Power Supply Association jointly filed complaints against the AEP (EL16-33) and FirstEnergy (EL16-34) proposals, saying they were seeking to ensure that “abusive” affiliate power sales contracts do “not evade [FERC] review.”
The Ohio-based companies have proposed PPAs to the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio that would provide a guaranteed return for their embattled generating stations for eight years. PUCO staff has signed on to both proposals.
The complainants said FERC should revoke the waivers it granted AEP and FirstEnergy regarding affiliate power sales to ensure a Section 205 review of the PPAs under the standards the commission set out in its 1991 Edgar Electric Energy Co. (55 FERC ¶61,382) and 2004 Allegheny Energy Supply Co. rulings (108 FERC¶61,082).
The Edgar ruling required demonstration that long-term PPAs utilities sign with their marketing affiliates are reasonably priced compared to alternatives. The commission said such a demonstration could include evidence of competition between affiliated and unaffiliated suppliers or a showing of prices paid by non-affiliated buyers. FERC refined its guidance in Allegheny.
“The fact that AEP has devised, and that the PUCO may approve, a clever scheme to shift costs of this abusive affiliate contract onto consumers does not alter the commission’s statutory duty to protect consumers from the effects of unjust and unreasonable wholesale rates or in any way make it less critical to ensure the integrity of the PJM markets,” the plaintiffs wrote, using nearly identical language in their FirstEnergy complaint.
The complainants cited “fundamental changes in circumstances since the commission granted the waiver that make it unjust, unreasonable and unduly discriminatory to allow AEP Generation Resources to enter into the affiliate PPA pursuant to its blanket market-based rate authorization.”
Quick Action Sought
They asked the commission to act quickly, noting that PUCO may rule on the PPAs as soon as next month and contending the agreements could have a major impact on PJM’s 2019/20 Base Residual Auction in May.
Joining EPSA, Dynegy and NRG in the complaint were the Retail Energy Supply Association and Eastern Generation, a subsidiary of a private equity fund managed by ArcLight Capital Partners, whose generation holdings include an 825-MW natural gas-fired generation facility in Vinton County, Ohio.
The Ohio Consumers’ Counsel filed comments supporting the call for FERC review.
“We expected allegations similar to those made in the complaint that was filed at FERC, and we are confident that the PPA will pass the test,” said FirstEnergy spokesman Doug Colafella.
“FirstEnergy’s Ohio Utilities were granted authority to conduct transactions with our unregulated affiliates after Ohio restructured its electric markets to allow shopping with energy suppliers. This arrangement extends to our proposed purchased power agreement, so absent further FERC orders, separate FERC approval of the PPA is not necessary,” he added. “We carefully evaluated this issue when preparing our filing with the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio — the regulatory agency that is solely authorized to approve the proposed retail stability rider on customer bills associated with the PPA.”
AEP spokeswoman Melissa McHenry said PUCO “is fully able to protect retail customers. So, any allegations that AEP Ohio customers need to be protected from excessive charges are simply untrue.
“The core question for FERC is whether there is retail competition under Ohio law. FERC has determined in other cases that there is competition in Ohio and has agreed that the PUCO is better equipped to make that determination. The AEP Ohio PPA will provide rate stability for all AEP Ohio customers, and they can still choose any supplier for their electricity needs.
“The PUCO has conducted an extensive review process over the last two years to ensure that AEP Ohio customers are treated fairly and benefit from the PPA. The parties filing at FERC should participate in that process instead of appealing to a federal agency for relief at the last stage of the process,” she said.
The plaintiffs said the affiliate PPAs threaten “exactly the harm to both captive consumers and markets that prompted the adoption of [FERC’s] restrictions in the first place,” saying it would “saddle captive Ohio consumers with hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars in above-market costs” and distort prices in the PJM markets by subsidizing the continued operation of more than 6 GW of generation that AEP and FirstEnergy say would otherwise retire.
AEP has said that PUCO must approve or reject the PPA as is, saying it “lacks jurisdiction over the rates and terms” of the agreement. At the same time, the company says it does not intend to submit the agreement for FERC review.
“Failure to review the affiliate PPA would recreate precisely the sort of regulatory gap that the [Federal Power Act] was enacted to fill” in 1935, the plaintiffs said.
‘Greedy Tiger’
To conduct a review of the AEP proposal, the plaintiffs said the commission should first revoke the waiver it granted in 2014 regarding AEP Ohio, a franchised public utility, and its market-based affiliate AEP Generation (ER14-593). Because of Ohio’s retail choice, the AEP companies said in their petition for a waiver, AEP Ohio would not have captive retail customers.
The plaintiffs said that is not true regarding the proposed PPAs because they would be funded by surcharges on all customers within AEP and FirstEnergy’s service territories, regardless of whether they take provider of last resort service from the utilities or purchase from a competitive retail supplier.
“These retail customers could not be more captive with respect to costs of the affiliate PPA[s] if they were locked in a cage with a greedy tiger,” they said.
As evidence that the PPAs would impose above-market costs, they cited the counteroffer Dynegy made to PUCO earlier this month, which the company said would save consumers $5 billion. Exelon also has made a counteroffer it says would be cheaper. (See Next up in Ohio PPA Battle: Dynegy Weighs in.)
The plaintiffs also cited the “enormous” impact the PPAs would have on the PJM markets.
“This case involves the same issue of ‘uneconomic non-exit’ — i.e., subsidized retention of resources that would otherwise have left the market — with which the commission has been confronted in other proceedings. Because capacity markets are designed to convey the price signals needed both to encourage entry of economic new resources and to discourage the premature exit of economic existing resources, it follows naturally that uneconomic non-exit will present the same threat to such markets as uneconomic entry.”
$8 Billion in Excess Costs
The Ohio Consumers’ Counsel (OCC) said it was up to FERC to protect the state’s consumers from excess costs that could top $8 billion.
The counsel cited testimony by its consultant James Wilson, who projected that FirstEnergy’s 1.9 million consumers could each pay about $800 ($3.6 billion total) and AEP’s 1.3 million consumers could each pay about $700 ($1.9 billion) over the eight years of the PPAs.
Dan Doron, spokesman for the OCC, said the costs could be much higher if the power plants fail to clear in PJM’s energy and capacity markets.
PJM Market Monitor Joe Bowring has said the generators should not be allowed to participate using subsidized prices. In testimony to PUCO, Bowring said that the generators would “be returned to the cost of service regulation regime that predated the introduction of competitive wholesale power markets.”
Doron said that if the plants cannot participate in the PJM wholesale markets, “the estimated subsidies could increase to over $1,100, on average per customer, for FirstEnergy consumers ($5.15 billion) and over $1,000, on average per customer, for AEP Ohio consumers ($3.1 billion).”
PJM: Reliability Arguments a ‘Red Herring’
On Monday, PJM filed a 12-page amicus brief with PUCO, criticizing AEP’s assertions that reliability would be threatened if its units retired.
The RTO said new generation has replaced plants that retired in the past, ensuring Ohio continues to meet resource adequacy targets.
“Arguments that approval of the stipulation is needed to ensure reliability in Ohio are wide of the mark and represent a proverbial ‘red herring’ that should not distract from consideration of the issues presented in the record as to the merits of the proposed stipulation itself,” PJM said.
PJM also urged the commission, if it approves the proposal, to clarify that offers from the units must be no lower than their actual cost, without consideration of revenue under the deal.
The RTO also said that the generators’ owners — not ratepayers — should bear any nonperformance penalties under its Capacity Performance construct.
CEO Andy Ott echoed the RTO’s position in a response to several of those who have written letters to PJM’s Board of Managers seeking its intervention against the PPAs.
Timothy R. Eves, vice president of NTE Energy, which is building a 475-MW natural gas generator in Butler County, Ohio, said in a Jan. 27 letter to the board that the PPAs would “undermine confidence in the PJM markets and can lead to a chilling effect on future power plant development.”
He asked PJM “to swiftly take necessary actions at the state-level, RTO-level and at FERC to mitigate this looming harm.”
Oregon Clean Energy, an 860-MW gas-fired generator under construction in Lucas County, Ohio, made a similar appeal in a letter Jan. 22.
Entergy said Wednesday that New York’s proposed incentives for three of the state’s four nuclear sites is too little, too late to save the James A. FitzPatrick plant. The company’s stance appears calculated to provide leverage for its Indian Point plant, which was excluded from the state’s plan.
Staff of the New York Public Service Commission on Monday released a clean energy standard proposal that includes incentives for the state’s upstate nuclear fleet to remain a zero-emissions “bridge” until large-scale renewable generation is in place. Gov. Andrew Cuomo wants the PSC to adopt the CES by June. (See New York Would Require Nuclear Power Mandate, Subsidy.)
“We have advocated for a clean energy standard in New York for several years. Unfortunately, whatever this program may turn out to be, it would not be in place in time to change the outcome for FitzPatrick,” the statement said.
The company in November said it would close the 838-MW plant near Syracuse in early 2017 due to low energy prices and repeated that stance a month later when Cuomo’s offer of incentives became known. (See Entergy Rebuffs Cuomo Offer; FitzPatrick Closing Unchanged.)
“We do not know when the support might become effective, how much it might be, what terms and conditions would apply to receiving support or many other important details. And it appears that those details will not be addressed until later this year, at the earliest. Under these circumstances, we remain focused on safely operating FitzPatrick through the end of its current operating cycle, then safely decommissioning the plant,” the statement continued.
Entergy is advocating the CES be applied to its Indian Point plant in the Hudson Valley, a facility Cuomo has vowed to close due to its proximity to New York City.
“If the state is focused on reducing CO2 emissions, the clean energy standard should apply to Indian Point, which is an essential generation resource critical to the state’s goal of reducing CO2 emissions,” it said.
Exelon, the owner of New York’s other two nuclear plants, was more receptive to the CES plan.
“Our initial impression is that the proposed mechanism to support the continued operation of upstate nuclear facilities as a ‘bridge’ to a low-carbon future could provide a meaningful path to sustain these facilities, which are vital to achieving New York’s clean air objectives,” Exelon said.
The company’s R.E. Ginna plant outside Rochester is likely to close in early 2017 when its ratepayer-subsidized reliability support services agreement expires. Its Nine Mile Point plant, adjacent to FitzPatrick, is also under financial stress.
“The implementation timeline is reasonable. We need to be certain that the mechanism provides the ability to maintain the safety and reliability of these facilities as the primary consideration. The economics of the proposal will be a critical determiner of its success, and we look forward to working with the governor, the PSC and other stakeholders to learn more,” Exelon said.
New York utilities would be required to procure more than 15% of their forecasted load in 2020 from struggling upstate nuclear power plants under a proposal now before the state’s Public Service Commission (15-E-0302).
The staff white paper on a Clean Energy Standard released late Monday also sets a goal of obtaining 29.5% of the state’s energy from renewable resources by 2020. Gov. Andrew Cuomo wants the PSC to finalize the CES by June.
The interim targets are part of Cuomo’s proposal to procure 50% of its energy from “clean” sources by 2030. The nuclear component is an economic lifeline to three struggling plants in western New York while also providing a “bridge” until renewable resources are developed at a mass scale, said Scott Weiner, director for markets and innovation. The three plants provide about half of the state’s nuclear energy; overall, nuclear provides 30% of New York’s electricity. The state’s fourth nuclear facility, Indian Point north of New York City, has been targeted for closure by Cuomo and is excluded from the proposal.
“The closure of the upstate New York nuclear plants due to the current natural gas market prices, and concomitant electric prices, would have a large negative impact on the state’s ability to meet its carbon reduction goal,” the paper states. “If the upstate New York power plants were to close in the near term, New York would have to procure more of its electricity from fossil fuel generating plants, primarily those burning natural gas, resulting in significant increases in carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide and other air pollutants.”
‘Tier’ for Nukes
A new “Tier 3” would be created for nuclear facilities under the CES.
States with a renewable portfolio standard or a CES create tiers to distinguish between different types of clean energy resources and designate load requirements for each. In New York, Tier 1 is reserved for new renewable resources and Tier 2 is divided among existing renewables.
“The use of these three tiers will allow for clear connectivity among CES program elements and desired outcomes,” the proposal states.
Under the proposal, the nuclear requirement would start out at 4.6% in 2017 and escalate yearly through 2020. The mandate would start April 1, 2017, the day that both Exelon’s R.E. Ginna and Entergy’s James A. Fitzpatrick nuclear stations on Lake Ontario are now expected to close.
Ginna is seeking ratepayer subsidies to continue operating temporarily for grid reliability. Entergy announced plans to close the FitzPatrick plant because of low energy prices, and a third plant, Exelon’s Nine Mile Point, is under financial pressure.
All three plants are assumed by the white paper to remain open, although Entergy said last month that the governor’s incentives would not change their plans to retire FitzPatrick. (See Entergy Rebuffs Cuomo Offer; FitzPatrick Closing Unchanged.)
The renewable energy goals also would increase over time, from 26.8% in 2017 and 29.5% in 2020, reaching 50% in 2030. Targets for 2020 through 2030 will be added later.
Nuclear plants would be eligible to earn Zero Emission Credits (ZECs), similar to renewable energy credits (RECs) earned by wind and solar generators. Like RECs, ZECs will be tradable, but the two would not be interchangeable under the plan.
The maximum price of ZECs would be administratively set by the PSC. The white paper said that is intended to counter the potential exercise of market power, because of the limited number of facilities producing nuclear energy.
Prices “should be updated every year based upon the difference between the anticipated operating costs of the units and forecasted wholesale prices. In this manner the commission will be only setting an appropriate and fair value of the environmental attribute and will be acting independent of the actual wholesale prices for energy and capacity in the NYISO administrative market,” the proposal states.
An environmental group that advocates the closure of the plants said the nuclear component of the CES is a “slap in the face to the communities” affected by the plants.
“Nuclear power reactors may not emit carbon dioxide or methane, but that doesn’t make them clean or safe,” said the Alliance for a Green Economy. “The Public Service Commission is writing a blank check from electricity consumers to Exelon and Entergy corporations, owners of the aging upstate nuclear plants. Exelon and Entergy stand to gain hundreds of millions of dollars per year from this policy, while everyday people are left in the cold and the dark.”
A business group supports the overall policy but is worried about its cost.
Darren Suarez, director of government affairs for The Business Council of New York State, said Monday that his group supports the commission’s efforts to “grow renewable energy and conservation measures, and address the challenges of the state’s nuclear generators.”
“However, we remain concerned that the projected savings could vanish quickly, especially if customers are forced to subsidize a costly CES,” he added.
Anne Reynolds, the executive director of the Alliance for Clean Energy New York, said its members have a “keen interest” in the CES. ACENY has no position for or against nuclear power but hopes New York’s moves to keep it in the state’s energy mix are temporary.
“We were glad to see the reference to nuclear as a bridge to a renewables future, but we hope it does not become a permanent bridge that would preclude the development of renewables,” Reynolds said.
New York’s most recent renewable portfolio standard expired in 2014. State regulators have been discussing a revised RPS for months in a so-called large renewables proceeding. Nuclear generation has now been added to the proceeding.
‘Drama’
The nuclear mandate was outlined at Thursday’s commission meeting.
The meeting started with “drama,” as PSC Chair Audrey Zibelman put it, when the Republican-led state Senate hand-delivered a letter to the commission seeking a delay in action on the CES and the creation of a $5.3 billion Clean Energy Fund.
The letter, signed by Majority Leader John Flanagan, his deputy and the head of the energy committee, said action was “premature” on the CEF, another order that’s part of the state’s Reforming the Energy Vision proceeding.
“The CEF is a major fiscal initiative and has the potential to be even larger when taking into account the CES,” they wrote. “While we do not believe the commission is taking the fiscal implications of these initiatives lightly, it is the position of the conference that these proceedings would be strengthened by a real cost-benefit analysis and genuine opportunity for public input.”
The commission held a 38-minute executive session to discuss the letter but decided to proceed. Zibelman was particularly pointed in saying the letter failed to demonstrate any reason for the commission to delay action.
“This petition was filed in 2014 and there has been considerable opportunity for public commentary both in terms of the number of public statements, hearings and meetings … as well as the process before us,” she said. “There’s no question that we have in front of us a very robust record.”
For administrative ease, Zibelman said, the CES has been rolled into the existing proceeding for large-scale renewables (15-E-0302) rather than a new docket.
Two years after the polar vortex, and on the eve of a major snowstorm on the East Coast, FERC last week proposed a uniform “soft” offer cap for all RTOs’ day-ahead and real-time markets (RM16-5).
Under the commission’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, generators’ incremental energy offers would be capped at the higher of $1,000/MWh or an RTO-verified cost-based offer.
Most RTOs and ISOs already cap offers at a hard $1,000/MWh. In December, FERC approved doubling PJM’s offer cap to $2,000/MWh in reaction to the extreme cold of the January 2014 polar vortex, which drove up natural gas prices to the point that some generators could not recoup all of their costs (ER16-76).
PJM members approved the increase in October after a long stand-off. Some members who were originally opposed to the increase agreed to support a compromise proposal, as they predicted it would be a temporary change. (See PJM Members OK $2,000/MWh Energy Market Offer Cap.)
The NOPR would allow generators with cost-based offers that are more than $1,000/MWh to set LMPs. FERC, however, said it is seeking comment on whether it should place a hard cap on these offers and, if so, what this cap should be.
FERC said the current structure may suppress LMPs below the marginal cost of production. “If this occurs, resources may lack an economic incentive to supply power during times when the electric system may need it most. Additionally, if resources cannot reflect their short-run marginal costs in incremental energy offers due to the cap, the grid operator cannot dispatch the most efficient set of resources.”
A standard offer cap would also allow RTOs “to avoid issues that could arise if one region has an offer cap that materially differs from a neighboring region,” FERC said.
“The draft NOPR proposes to make the change to the offer cap applicable to all RTOs and ISOs in order to avoid exacerbating seams issues,” said Emma Nicholson of the commission’s Office of Energy Policy and Innovation. “Otherwise, different offer caps in neighboring regions could result in power flows that reflect the level of the two offer caps as opposed to reliability needs or economics.”
Nicholson also said that the NOPR doesn’t eliminate the $1,000 cap entirely because of feedback from RTO market monitors, who said the cap “plays a back stop role in market mitigation.”
Commissioner Cheryl LaFleur said the NOPR “strikes a good balance … between generally maintaining the $1,000 cap but allowing higher offers that can be verified to set prices.”
“The commission is proposing to take important steps that, in my mind, would increase both confidence and transparency” in the markets, Commissioner Colette Honorable said.
Comments are due 60 days after the NOPR’s publication in the Federal Register.
FERC dismissed a challenge by project opponent Stop the Pipeline to thwart the Constitution Pipeline project and a related compression station in Wright, N.Y. The project is designed to transport shale gas from the Marcellus region of Pennsylvania, connecting with existing pipelines that serve eastern New York and New England.
Amanda Bilek, who has held various positions at the Great Plains Institute since 2008, will become the director of government affairs and communications for the energy think tank.
Invenergy announced it has signed a deal with Google to provide the Internet giant with 225 MW of wind energy. Craig Gordon, Invenergy’s vice president of sales and marketing, said the power will be generated at the company’s proposed wind facility near Lubbock, Texas, and will be transmitted through SPP to Google’s energy-hungry data centers.
Basin Electric Power Cooperative forecasts new load will increase 1,350 MW over the next 20 years, 739 MW lower than its forecast last year.
Public Service Company of New Mexico opened a 9.5-MW solar facility south of Santa Fe, its 15th in the state.
Austin Energy has proposed cutting rates for most business customers to reduce revenue by $17.5 million a year.
Smart battery builder Design Flux Technologies, a University of Akron spinoff, is building a battery-management system for a rooftop solar array being built in Akron, Ohio.
PECO Energy customers have received more than $500 million in energy savings, incentives and rebates in the past seven years using the Smart Ideas program, the Philadelphia utility says.
FirstEnergy engineers say the architecturally significant, defunct Lake Shore power plant in Cleveland is too degraded to restore and will be demolished.
Competitive Power Ventures plans to open a 1,100-MW combined cycle generating facility in the Three Rivers area of Grundy County, Ill.
