The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last week affirmed its June order reducing the return on equity (ROE) for the New England Transmission Owners (NETOs), ordering the companies to provide refunds from Oct. 1, 2011.
The commission decided in June that it would begin using a two-step discounted cash flow methodology for electric utility ROEs, similar to that used for natural gas and oil pipelines. Ruling in the New England case, the commission said the new “zone of reasonableness” for ROEs was 7.03-11.74%. (See FERC Splits over ROE.)
The commission said in the June order that it lacked the evidence needed to decide one of the inputs to the two-step DCF methodology: the appropriate long-term growth rate to use.
In the “paper hearing” that followed, FERC said all parties agreed that gross domestic product (GDP) is the appropriate long-term growth rate and that the commission properly calculated the GDP growth rate in this case at 4.39%.
The commission last week unanimously agreed, finalizing the tentative ROE of 10.57% it had assigned.
The NETOs, which include Northeast Utilities, Central Maine Power, National Grid and NextEra, were ordered to provide refunds, with interest, within 30 days for the 15-month period.
The refunds represent all excess revenues the NETOs received since the complaint was filed in October 2011, a period in which the utilities were getting paid an ROE of 11.14%.
The case resulted from a 2011 complaint by state consumer advocates and attorneys general throughout New England, which alleged that the NETOs’ 11.14% base ROE was unjust and unreasonable because capital market conditions had changed since the base ROE was established in 2006.
FERC split 3-1 over its first application of the new formula, tentatively setting the ROE for New England transmission owners at three-quarters of the top of the “zone of reasonableness,” a departure from the prior practice that used the midpoint in the range.
The previous zone ranged from 7.3% to 13.1%. Thus, although the commission chose a higher position within the range, the reduced top end resulted in a decrease from the NETOs’ previous ROE.
Public Advocate Warns About Risk of Third-Party Contracts
Bonar
Public Advocate Dave Bonar is warning Delmarva Power & Light customers to check their contracts with third-party electricity suppliers to make sure they’re not at risk for winter price spikes. “It’s important people don’t get trapped into paying variable rate at the time of year when they use the most electricity,” he said.
Bonar is concerned that many customers with fixed-rate agreements are unaware the contracts may convert to variable-rate deals without notice at the end of their terms. The Public Service Commission is considering a new rule that calls for suppliers to notify customers no fewer than 30 calendar days before a fixed-price contract ends. Other rules under consideration call for simpler marketing language.
“We were really hoping to have this wrapped up before winter gets here,” Bonar said. The commission hasn’t acted on the proposed rules yet. New Jersey’s Board of Public Utilities recently approved stricter rules for generation suppliers after an onslaught of customer complaints last winter.
DNR Chief: No Fracking Permits Issued Unless Ordered by Court
Miller
Department of Natural Resources Director Marc Miller said his office won’t issue any permits for oil and gas drilling until the legislature approves new fracking rules.
The state legislature’s Joint Committee on Administrative Rules said it won’t act on a proposed set of fracking regulations until Nov. 6. If no action is taken by a Nov. 15 deadline, the rulemaking process must start from the beginning.
The DNR drafted the rules after holding months of hearings and receiving more than 30,000 public comments. The legislative committee has had the rules since August. Miller said that without approved rules, his office will issue no permits without a court order.
Brad Richards, executive vice president of the Illinois Oil and Gas Association, said mineral owners are growing impatient and may sue to force the state to act. “We’ve already lost some companies to all these delays and undoubtedly we’ve got some folks who are at the breaking point,” he said.
Indiana should place a renewed focus on energy-efficiency programs to help reduce growing demands for power, according to a Utility Regulatory Commission report.
The report, issued at the request of Gov. Mike Pence, outlined the state’s future energy needs and estimated that the state faced a short-term need for 1,450 MW of new generation and 3,600 MW in the long term.
Pence said he requested the report to help lawmakers draw up energy efficiency standards and mandates.
Environment Secretary Says State Not Resisting EPA
The state has accepted a $300,000 Energy Department grant to help it meet the Environmental Protection Agency’s new carbon emissions regulations at the same time as the attorney general has joined a lawsuit fighting the rules.
Kentucky is one of 12 states that have joined in a lawsuit objecting to the EPA’s regulations proposed in June. At the same time, the state accepted the DOE grant to help it set up a way to monitor methods to meet the EPA goals.
Energy and Environment Secretary Len Peters said the attorney general, and not Gov. Steve Beshear, is waging the legal battle. Peters said the state has been working to reduce carbon emissions for years and is using energy-efficiency programs to help. “That’s one of the reasons we wanted the additional dollars, to help us do those sorts of things,” he said.
Michigan utilities are on track to meet the state’s 10% renewable portfolio standard by the end of next year, but three lawmakers have introduced legislation to repeal the standard.
House Bill 5872 was passed in 2008 and has garnered strong support among residents, according to recent polls. Some studies suggest that renewables could provide up to 30% of the state’s energy needs in the near future.
The bill comes after Ohio has frozen its renewable mandates to allow further review. The sponsors of the Michigan bill – Rep. Tom McMillan, Rep. Ken Goike and Rep. Ray Franz, all Republicans – were part of a group that unsuccessfully attempted to repeal the state’s RPS in 2012.
Renewable energy advocates are outraged.
“I think this is bad news for Michigan,” said Michigan Environmental Council Policy Director James Clift. “If you look at the economic development boost we’ve gotten from renewables and the new interest we’re seeing, it really is a step backwards.”
“It’s another example of the conservative lawmakers being grossly out of touch with not only the Michigan public, but with their own base as well,” said Nic Clark, state director for the Michigan chapter of Clean Water Action.
The Senate Environment and Energy Committee is considering a bill that calls for 80% of New Jersey’s electricity supply to come from renewable sources by 2050.
Senate Bill 2444 calls for 3,000 MW of offshore wind energy supply by 2030 and 4,500 MW by 2050. The current target is 1,100 MW by 2020. But offshore wind projects are currently at a standstill because the Board of Public Utilities hasn’t set ratepayer subsidies. One small offshore wind farm has received federal support.
Proponents of the bill say they hope it will spur more support from future administrations. “We are talking about policy over the next 36 years,’’ said David Pringle, campaign director of New Jersey Clean Water Action. Renewable power advocates say the Garden State has reliable wind resources off its coastline.
The Public Utilities Commission ruled 4-3 that utilities can continue to charge customers a 6.9% tax, even though the state legislature recently cut the corporate tax from 6.9% to 5%. The commission’s vote was down party lines, with the three dissents coming from its Democratic members.
“There is no set end to this over-collection, which will continue indefinitely each year until each utility’s next general rate case,” the three Democrats wrote in their dissent. “Even then, ratepayers will never be refunded the over-collected funds; the utilities have simply been afforded an unearned gain at the expense of North Carolina ratepayers.”
The ruling gives utilities the option to adjust rates and sets an Oct. 24 deadline for them to decide. Republican commission members said the over-collections are negligible for individual bills, but the Democrats said the state’s four utilities would generate an additional $21 million a year.
“The overall effect of these changes represents a substantial increase in consumers’ bills,” the Democrats wrote. “For those who struggle to pay utility bills in a challenging economy, every cent counts.”
PUCO Asks Supreme Court to Dismiss AEP’s Net Metering Suit
AEP Ohio wants the state Supreme Court to release it from rules requiring it to pay for power fed back into the grid by net metering customers who are enrolled with competitive power suppliers. The Public Utilities Commission has asked the court to dismiss the suit.
PUCO’s net metering rules mandate that AEP pay all customers for their surplus power, typically generated by small solar or wind setups. But AEP has argued that if those customers are served by third-party suppliers, and not AEP’s own generation, then AEP shouldn’t be bound by the rules.
AEP argues that the rate they must credit customers can be higher than its costs, including capacity charges. “The reality is that the energy delivered back to the grid by a customer-generator may not necessarily offset the peak demand that the utility has to meet or reduce the costs associated with serving the customer-generator,” the company argues.
PUCO argues that the rule, though passed by the commission, hasn’t been approved by a legislative committee and is not yet final, so a court challenge is premature.
Fracking Triggered Earthquakes Months Before State Notice
A new study suggests hydraulic fracturing triggered hundreds of small, unnoticeable earthquakes in eastern Ohio late last year, months before the state first linked seismic activity to the much-debated oil-and-gas extraction technique.
The report, which appears in the November issue of Seismological Research Letters, identified nearly 400 tremors on a previously unmapped fault. That included 10 quakes of magnitudes of 1.7 to 2.2 – intense enough to have temporarily halted activity under the state’s new drilling permit rules had they been in place at the time, but still considered minor.
The legislature is taking steps to renew a provision in the pubic utilities code that makes it easier for gas and electric companies to disconnect service for non-payment during the winter.
The law called Chapter 14, passed in 2004, relaxed state rules prohibiting winter shutoffs by allowing utilities to disconnect nonpaying customers whose incomes are 250% higher than the federal poverty level. The law is set to expire next year. The bill is expected to be returned to the House this month to consider modifications made by the Senate.
Customer advocates think extending the law is a bad idea. “Instead of targeting the bad actors, Chapter 14 has ensnared vulnerable low-income households that are simply too poor to afford to pay their utility bills on time every month,” Community Legal Services of Philadelphia said in a statement.
Governor’s Energy Plan: More Solar, Wind, Natural Gas
McAuliffe
Gov. Terry McAuliffe formally unveiled his energy plan for Virginia last week, advocating more renewable sources such as solar and wind, as well as traditional resources including natural gas.
McAuliffe said the state’s economy can’t rely on the continued flow of federal defense dollars that have sustained Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads. But an energy-based economy could be the solution.
“Folks, those days are over,” McAuliffe told an audience of energy entrepreneurs, business representatives and environmentalists. “We need to build a new Virginia economy.”
The energy plan, which goes to the General Assembly, was filed with the Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy two weeks ago.
Exelon Generation is joining with two other companies to build what they are calling an emission-free natural gas-fired power plant.
Exelon is partnering on the project with CB&I, an energy infrastructure company in The Woodlands, Texas, and technology commercialization firm 8 Rivers Capital of Durham, N.C., under the name NET Power. The $140 million, 50-MW plant, which will incorporate carbon-capture technology, will be built in an undisclosed location in Texas.
Using an 8 Rivers technology called Allam Cycle, the new plant will be radically different from conventional combined-cycle plants, which use waste heat to make steam that turns a turbine. Much of the steam’s energy potential is lost when it is condensed.
Pure Oxygen
The Allam Cycle uses natural gas as a fuel. But instead of using air as part of the combustion process, it uses pure oxygen, which eliminates emissions such as nitrogen oxides.
The Allam Cycle uses another byproduct of typical combustion, carbon dioxide, as a type of fuel itself. Rather than having to expend energy to capture CO2 as in other carbon-capture processes, the Allam Cycle collects the CO2, pressurizes it into a liquid and uses it to turn a Toshiba-designed CO2 fluid turbine, instead of a steam turbine. When the power plant is done with the CO2, it is pipeline-grade material ready either for sequestration or to be sold off for industrial uses.
“The by-products of combustion in this system are high pressure CO2 and a small amount of water,” NET Power Spokesman Walker Dimmig said.
“This technology is a potential game-changer in reducing carbon emissions from power generation,” Exelon President and CEO Chris Crane said.
The consortium can’t look to other models of this technology. “This is a true, first-of-a-kind demonstration of a brand new technology,” Dimmig said in an interview Friday. “The first commercial facility, which will be 295 MW, is in the planning stages. Following successful demonstration at this small-scale plant, we of course hope to build many, many more of these.”
Dimmig said he anticipates the Texas plant to be commissioned in 2016.
Holy Grail
Carbon capture is the Holy Grail in low-emissions power generation, but previous attempts have been over budget and behind schedule. Perhaps the most well-known is the FutureGen project, a coal-fired plant using integrated gasification combined-cycle technology, combined with carbon capture and storage. After funding battles and significant cost overruns, FutureGen, which was announced in 2003, is still not operational.
Another carbon-capture project is being built by Southern Co. with engineering and construction firm KBR Inc., in Kemper County, Miss. Originally estimated to cost $2.4 billion, latest estimates for the plant are $5.5 billion. Construction began in 2010. It is projected to go operational in May 2015, a year behind schedule.
How will NET Power avoid these pitfalls?
“First, FutureGen and Kemper are full-scale commercial facilities of a much larger size than this 50-MW facility,” Dimmig said. “Second, this plant has been under design for nearly four years, and we believe we have a very strong handle on costs. Finally, while novel, this is a far simpler process that uses far less piping and exotic alloy as compared to those other projects.”
Dimmig wouldn’t say if the plant must be sited near oil and gas wells, the typical sequestration sites used in carbon-capture plans, to be economically viable. Exelon, too, declined comment on where it planned to site similar plants if the NET Power plant turns out to be a success.
While many stakeholders still have misgivings about it, PJM’s Oct. 7 revisions to its Capacity Performance proposal appear to have won over Independent Market Monitor Joe Bowring.
Bowring said last week that PJM’s revisions have addressed his most significant concerns and that he now supports it. “I think what PJM’s doing here is an excellent idea,” he said during a discussion at the Organization of PJM States Inc.’s annual meeting. “My disagreements or differences are now points of detail instead of major points of principle.
“I think it’s important to keep that in context,” he added, prompting laughter, “as I go through criticizing it mercilessly.”
At a meeting with stakeholders Wednesday, PJM Executive Vice President for Markets Andy Ott said PJM plans to “evolve into a single [Capacity Performance] product over time” after a transition of “a few years” with the current Base Capacity product. That addresses one of Bowring’s central concerns — that multiple products could create opportunities for economic withholding.
Ott said PJM staff is still working out the details of a transitional mechanism. “More discussion could occur without having to decide that in the short term,” he said.
Bowring said a transition is “appropriate. These are very significant changes that are being dropped on the market in a very short period of time. But if we create a second product … sometimes it’s very difficult to get rid of them. They create those who make money from them, people who support them in the stakeholder process,” he said.
At the stakeholder meeting, Ott left the door open to reconsidering the plan’s insistence that all new resources be Capacity Performance. Consultant Tom Rutigliano of Achieving Equilibrium and Judith Judson of Customized Energy Solutions said advanced energy storage might not qualify as Capacity Performance but would still be valuable to PJM as Base Capacity.
“If you’re saying they can’t [qualify as Capacity Performance] we’ll have to think about it,” he said.
Next Steps
Stakeholders must inform PJM by Oct. 21 of the coalitions they have formed to address their concerns about the proposal. The coalitions’ briefing papers are due Oct. 28.
The coalitions will make their cases to the Board of Managers, which will decide what changes are ultimately filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, at an “Enhanced” Liaison Committee meeting in Philadelphia Nov. 4.
Earlier this month, the board received letters of protest from Environment Ohio, which said the proposal is “disruptive and unfairly penalizes renewable energy and energy efficiency,” and two Pennsylvania state representatives, who said it “is likely to significantly increase costs for ratepayers without delivering on its promise for increased reliability for a number of years.”
Reps. C. Adam Harris and Kevin Boyle urged PJM to “find a less disruptive alternative.”
Late yesterday, the D.C. Circuit Court granted a stay until Dec. 16 on its ruling voiding the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s Order 745. The stay will give FERC, through U.S. Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli, Jr. , time to file a petition for certiorari with the Supreme Court. FERC Chairman Cheryl LaFleur said that the decision whether to seek a Supreme Court hearing will be made by Verilli. LaFleur said FERC’s direct authority to initiate legal action ends at the circuit court.
RTO Insider will have updates as the story develops.
DR Providers Push Back on PJM EPSA Response
Marji Philips of Direct Energy (L) and Andy Ott of PJM (R)
CHICAGO — Demand response aggregators told PJM officials last week that the RTO’s proposed response to a court ruling narrowing federal jurisdiction over DR is overly broad and will reduce the resource’s role in the markets.
On Oct. 7, PJM issued a white paper in response to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals’ May 23 ruling (Electric Power Supply Association v. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) that overturned FERC Order 745. Although the order addressed FERC’s authority over DR in the energy markets, FirstEnergy responded to the court ruling by filing a complaint seeking to have DR excluded from the May 2014 capacity auction.
To avoid legal vulnerabilities, PJM proposed eliminating DR as a capacity supply resource and instead having load-serving entities offer DR and energy efficiency to reduce their capacity obligations. (See Awaiting FERC Action, PJM Floats ‘Trial Balloon’ on DR Post-EPSA.)
Boston: Demand Response’s Role Secure
“We believe in our heart that DR has a role in our future,” PJM CEO Terry Boston told the Organization of PJM States Inc. (OPSI) annual meeting last week.
In a panel discussion at the meeting, Katie Guerry, vice president of regulatory affairs for EnerNOC, contended the EPSA ruling does not require any changes to the capacity market. “Capacity is a uniquely wholesale product, unlike energy,” she said, adding that FERC has ruled that capacity is not just and reasonable without DR. If DR is removed from capacity, she said, “every ratepayer’s bill will go up, whether they participate in demand response or not.”
Marji Philips, director of RTO and federal services for Direct Energy, said eliminating DR that has already cleared in capacity auctions would be “a travesty to customers. The demand response is there. It exists. It’s been called on. And by ‘poofing’ it [making it disappear] and saying we can’t match it up so therefore we don’t have the capacity when you do have it, seems to be a very poor way of doing this.”
Stu Bresler, PJM vice president of market operations, said PJM’s proposal was intended to eliminate the uncertainty of a future court ruling that might force the RTO to rerun its auctions. “The last thing PJM wants to do is to ‘poof’ away a reliable asset we’ve already procured,” Bresler said.
At a stakeholder meeting Wednesday, Bresler was unable to answer a question from Mike McMahon of the Illinois Citizens Utility Board about how much of PJM’s demand response could qualify under the RTO’s proposed Capacity Performance product. (See related story, Revised Capacity Performance Plan Wins Bowring’s Support.) Bresler predicted a “significant quantity of DR” would qualify but added, “I don’t have a good number for you.”
From Supply to Demand Side
The PJM proposal would change DR from a supply-side resource to “putting it on the demand side of the equation,” where it can shift the demand curve to the left, Bresler explained. “If the price goes above [the level bid by LSEs] their obligation is reduced.”
While praising PJM for making a proposal, Guerry said its proposal may quash innovation and result in “less choice, higher prices and less operational flexibility.”
More than three-quarters of DR comes via curtailment service providers, such as EnerNOC. Replacing CSPs with LSEs and bundling DR with supply contracts will result in a loss of transparency and customer choice, Guerry said. “The reality is [LSEs] have a business model. More DR lowers the value of their hedges,” she said.
West Virginia Consumer Advocate Jackie Roberts also questioned the feasibility of PJM’s proposed reliance on LSEs.
“If LSEs wanted to be in that market they’d be in that market. They’re not,” she said. [States are] “not capable of that behind-the-meter demand response. That’s why CSPs have that role.”
Not necessarily, according to Philips, who said Direct Energy is partnering with smart thermostat maker Nest Labs to provide DR to residential customers in Texas. “There are LSEs that do want to play in the market,” she said.
Technology Will Prevail
Former Ohio Public Service Commissioner Paul Centolella said technology can help DR overcome the obstacles posed by EPSA. “The technology that is available today is sufficiently speedy, sufficiently granular, that actually you can do much more than what we’ve seen from demand response resources to date.”
Centonella said thermostats such as Nest — which he said is increasing its market penetration faster than the first and second generations of the iPod — can enable “automated customer choice.”
Google purchased Nest for $3.2 billion in February. “Apple has its own strategy. New players are coming into this market from Lowe’s and Best Buy. This will probably really significantly change power markets,” he said.
“Just like Kayak can help you choose the least expensive airfare or Pandora can match your musical preferences, these devices can select the least expensive time in which to use power and they can match a customer’s preferences for savings and comfort.”
CHICAGO – State officials and generation owners promised last week to challenge the assumptions the Environmental Protection Agency used in its proposed carbon emission rule, saying the agency’s cost calculations are too low and its projections for energy efficiency and generator performance too high.
The EPA’s proposed rule was the subject of two panel discussions at last week’s annual meeting of the Organization of PJM States Inc. (OPSI). Members debated whether the EPA has authority to impose emission restrictions “beyond the fence line” of generating plants, discussed the role of PJM and other RTOs in leading a regional compliance effort, and agreed on the need for a reliability “safety valve.”
West Virginia Consumer Advocate Jackie Roberts said the EPA’s estimate that the regulations will increase rates by only one-half cent per kWh are not credible. “I’m having trouble accepting that,” she said. “The costs of the program are going to be enormous.” Roberts said the costs will be regressive, falling particularly hard on the poorest in West Virginia, itself the eighth poorest state in the U.S.
Ohio Public Utility Commissioner Asim Haque said his state’s comments on the rule will include ProMod analyses that show the regulations will cost its consumers billions. “We’re going to submit what we think will be a very strong set of comments that will describe our concerns about the Clean Power Plan. We will not speculate, pontificate or spew rhetoric. We are going to provide true data that support conclusions that we can assert that will effectively work against the [EPA’s] math.”
Kentucky Public Service Commissioner James Gardner said he feared his state might be forced to shutter coal generators on which it has spent $4.5 billion in retrofits to comply with the EPA’s mercury and cross-state air pollution rules.
But Maryland Public Service Commissioner Kelly Speakes-Backman said Maryland and the other eight states in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) cap-and-trade system have seen less than a one-half percent increase in residential, commercial and industrial ratepayers’ bills while reducing carbon emissions 40% and achieving economic growth of 7% between 2005 and 2012.
“We are living proof that a mechanism that’s based on market dynamics can work and it can work to the benefit of our ratepayers and our environment at the same time. Those are not two mutually exclusive issues,” she said.
“If you’re concerned about electricity prices — which I hear a lot of people are — I would encourage you to go out and lock in for the next 15 or 25 years the record-low wind prices so you will know exactly what your electricity prices will be under the Clean Power Plan,” said Tom Vinson, vice president of federal regulatory affairs for the American Wind Energy Association.
Heat Rate, Capacity Factor & Energy Efficiency
John Coleman, vice chairman of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, complained that the EPA did not give his state credit for being an early adopter of renewable portfolio standards and failed to acknowledge the economic impact of shutting down coal-fired generation. “A 32% reduction for Pennsylvania is very significant. In fact it’s probably to the point of being unachievable,” he said.
John McManus, vice president of environmental services for American Electric Power, said the industry can achieve only a 1-2% improvement in heat rates, far below the 6% the EPA assumes. “If you’re giving away 4% of your fuel price because you’re just not paying any attention, that’s not a very smart way to operate, so we think they’re very aggressive there.”
He also challenged the EPA’s assumption that gas generators can achieve 70% capacity factors. While some of AEP’s combined-cycle plants run as high as 70%, to “run all of them year after year at 70% — that’s another question,” he said.
Darren MacDonald, director of energy for Gerdau Long Steel North America, said the rules threaten the viability of his company, which transforms scrap into steel. MacDonald said the company has had to squeeze out energy waste to remain competitive globally. “We’ve been looking for high-hanging fruit for years,” said McDonald.
EPA Authority ‘Outside the Fence’
McDonald said the EPA has no authority to regulate emissions “outside the fence” of electric generators. Virginia State Commerce Commissioner Mark Christie agreed: “I haven’t heard anyone say EPA can regulate outside the fence,” he said, asking: can the EPA force states to increase their RPS targets?
Speakes-Backman said the issue is a “false premise” for states that choose a mass-based compliance.
She noted that RGGI is limited to fossil fuel generators of 25 MW and above. “We are not going outside the fence,” she said. “But if we have energy-efficiency improvements [and] renewable energy that reduces the amount of generation from those affected units, then we’re complying.”
Start Planning for Wind
Vinson said PJM and other RTOs need to begin planning transmission for new wind generation to meet the EPA targets, saying “We know some version of carbon regulation will stand” after the anticipated court challenges, he said. “In our view, 111(d) is clearly a public policy requirement [under FERC Order 1000] that needs to be planned for,” Vinson said.
Vince Hellwig, senior policy advisor at the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, agreed that officials need to begin planning based on the preliminary rule.
But Hellwig said that the EPA’s proposal won’t give states credit for energy efficiency until 2020. With Michigan’s RPS due to sunset in 2015, Hellwig said some have asked the legislature “why shouldn’t we wait [to renew it] until we get credit for it?”
RTOs’ Role
Hellwig said his state’s compliance is complicated because it is split between PJM and MISO. “How are we going to deal with being in two different ISOs? We don’t know yet,” he said.
Ohio’s Haque called on PJM to be proactive in recommending a path forward for its member states. “PJM has to tell states how to best manage and craft plans based on the reality of the marketplace in which we live,” he said.
“There’s no one better suited than a regional transmission organization to [determine] how that would work,” concurred Speakes-Backman.
Craig Glazer, vice president of federal government policy for PJM, said the RTO is working with other members of the ISO/RTO Council (IRC) to draft a consensus response to the rule, similar to the one that helped persuade the EPA to add a reliability “safety valve” to its Mercury and Air Toxics Standard (MATS).
PJM CEO Terry Boston urged state officials to include a call for a safety valve in their comments on the carbon rule. “We have gotten nowhere with EPA” on the issue, Boston said.
AEP’s McManus noted the emission targets don’t change after the final rule is issued next June. “That doesn’t make sense to us. There has to be an opportunity for a mid-course correction” if, for example, a state loses a nuclear plant to an extended outage.
Environmental Dispatch
State officials sparred over whether the EPA rule will require PJM to replace its security constrained economic dispatch (SCED) with “environmental dispatch.”
Ohio’s Haque said the rule is “effectively masked environmental dispatch.”
Speakes-Backman disagreed. “It wouldn’t work. That’s not what’s being proposed in the guidelines,” she said.
Glazer said PJM could use run-time limits on individual generators as a “back door” way to implement emissions rules. But he said “true environmental dispatch” – stacking units by emissions rate irrespective of cost – “is really something of a nightmare” that would threaten cost discipline and disrupt investment signals. “You’d have the reliability and environmental dispatch sort of at war with each other.”
Former Ohio Public Utility Commissioner Paul Centolella suggested a market-based solution, noting that a cap-and-trade program was able to reduce SO2 emissions for a much lower cost than most had projected.
Michigan Public Service Commissioner Greg White said a market-based solution would be the cheapest way to achieve compliance. But he said such a response would require agreements between states and action by the Michigan legislature.
“How we get there, I have no idea,” he said. “I’m not the decision maker. Not even close to the decision maker.
A Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff report says that the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada would, “with reasonable expectation,” meet safety requirements.
The 781-page report was ordered when the license for the facility was still under consideration, back in 2008. Since then, the Obama Administration halted work on the project, about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners welcomed the report and urged the administration and Congress to support the continued review of the facility’s license application. NARUC noted that consumers of nuclear energy have contributed billions of dollars over the past 30 years to fund a repository. “Our government owes it to them to finish the job.”
But opponents said the report did not fully consider all the probabilities that could affect safety. “It’s a pretty meek endorsement,” said Robert Halstead, director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects.
Duke Files for FERC Approval of NCEMPA Asset Purchase
Duke Energy Progress has asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to approve its $1.2 billion buyout of the North Carolina Eastern Municipal Power Agency’s shares of several Duke power plants.
NCEMPA is selling its stakes in four Duke Energy Progress power plants — about 700 MW at two coal-fired plants and three nuclear units. If the deal is approved, Duke will be the sole owners of the Roxboro Unit 4 and Mayo Unit 1 coal plants, and the Brunswick Units 1 and 2 and Harris Unit 1 nuclear stations. All of the plants are in North Carolina.
Duke also entered into a 30-year power-purchase agreement to supply wholesale power to the 32 municipalities represented by NCEMPA. The terms of that agreement were not released.
Duke will also need regulatory approval from North Carolina, South Carolina and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Lockheed Martin Claims Breakthrough in Fusion Power
The magnetic coils inside the compact fusion (CF) experiment are critical to plasma containment, as pictured in this undated handout photo.
Defense contracting giant Lockheed Martin made big waves last week when it announced it had made a technological breakthrough in creating a power source based on nuclear fusion. It said the first reactors — small enough to fit in the back of a truck — could be ready in a decade.
The Lockheed research team, headed by Tom McGuire, has been working on the project at the company’s Skunk Works, its top secret research facility in California. McGuire told Reuters that its designed 100-MW reactor would be about 10 times smaller than current reactors.
The company said it planned to build and test a fusion reactor in the next year, and then construct a prototype within five years. The method, long sought after by researchers, attempts to capture the energy released during nuclear fusion, rather than nuclear fission. Nuclear fusion occurs when atoms combine into more stable forms and is inherently safer. Fusion reactors would use a deuterium-tritium fuel and not produce any radioactive waste.
EPA Fines DOE for Missing Hanford Cleanup Deadlines
The Environmental Protection Agency is fining the Department of Energy up to $10,000 for every week it fails to start removing radioactive sludge at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation on the Columbia River in Washington state.
The DOE had agreed to start the storage basin clean-up by Sept. 30 at the nation’s most contaminated nuclear site, where plutonium was produced. But it missed the deadline, blaming federal budgeting issues. The EPA said it will start the fine at $5,000 for the first missed week before fining the department $10,000 for each additional week of delay.
The DOE had requested a deadline extension but was denied by the EPA.
Last 44M Acres in Gulf Opened to Energy Exploration
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is opening the last unleased areas in the central Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas exploration, it announced last week.
The lease sale, to take place in New Orleans in March, will mark the seventh such sale under the Obama Administration’s five-year Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program. The first six sales offered more than 60 million acres and produced $2.4 billion in federal revenue.
The blocks to be leased off Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama run from 3 to 230 miles offshore, in water from 9 feet to 11,000 feet deep. The bureau estimates the 44 million acres could produce 460 million to 894 million barrels of oil and 1.9 trillion to 3.9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
Jeff Baran is sworn in as a NRC commissioner by Chairman Allison M. Macfarlane (right) as his wife Michelle Yau looks on. (Source: NRC)
Jeff Baran was sworn in as a member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and will serve until June 30, 2015, the remainder of William Magwood’s term. Magwood accepted a position with the Paris-based Nuclear Energy Agency.
NRC Chairman Allison M. Macfarlane administered the oath of office. “We have substantial work ahead of us and I am confident that Jeff will make a valuable contribution to our mission,” she said. Baran was staff director of Energy and Environment for the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce, and had NRC oversight duties in that position.
Cove Point Opponents File Rehearing Request with FERC
A group of environmental and customer advocates filed a motion seeking a rehearing of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s approval of the Cove Point LNG export terminal, saying the agency’s OK was based on an inadequate environmental review.
Earthjustice, representing groups such as the Sierra Club, Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper and the Chesapeake Climate Action Network among others, also filed a motion to stay, hoping to stop initial construction at the site on the Chesapeake Bay in southern Maryland.
“In neglecting to prepare a thorough review of the environmental impacts of Dominion’s controversial project, FERC is prioritizing the desires of a powerful company over the health and safety of the people of Calvert County, Marylanders and communities throughout the Marcellus Shale region,” Earthjustice Associate Attorney Jocelyn D’Ambrosio said.
The Tennessee Valley Authority has completed the nation’s first nuclear backup facility built in response to the 2011 disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi facility.
The fortified facility, serving the TVA’s Watts Bar Nuclear Plant in Spring City, Tenn., is an $80 million bunker protecting pumps and generators. It was built on bedrock with 18-inch concrete walls and designed to withstand earthquakes, fires and even a missile attack.
The TVA is the first U.S. utility to finish a backup center. Many other nuclear sites in the U.S. are either planning such facilities or already building them, in response to orders from federal regulators.
DOE Funds Combined Heat, Power Project at Aberdeen
The Department of Energy is helping to fund a 7.9-MW combined heat and power (CHP) project to replace the aging steam plant at the Army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. CHP, also known as cogeneration, uses a single station to provide both electricity and heat, usually in the form of steam.
The DOE will replace the facility’s steam plant, which is being decommissioned in 2016, with a CHP plant that will provide 86% of the site’s steam needs and 50% of its electricity. The project will also develop standard protocols — including design, air permitting and electrical interconnection — that can be replicated at other defense facilities.
Other projects included in the DOE’s $2 million in funding are a 13.7-MW plant at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston and the National Science Foundation’s Arctic Program at Thule Air Force Base in Thule, Greenland.
Low-Carbon Energy System Could Save Trillions, Study Says
Transitioning to a low-carbon energy system could free up trillions of dollars of investment capital, spurring economic growth, according to a report by the Climate Policy Initiative.
The report estimates the worldwide cost of building and maintaining low-carbon energy systems and transportation systems. A second section of the report calculates the economic costs of decommissioning existing fossil fuel assets. It concludes the transition could free up $1.8 trillion for investment between 2015 and 2035.
It said concentrating the phase-out on coal assets could provide the largest emissions cuts with the least financial loss.
“Our analysis reveals that with the right policy choices, over the next 20 years governments can achieve the emissions reductions necessary for a safer, more stable climate and free up trillions for investment in other parts of the economy,” CPI senior director David Nelson said. “This is even before taking into account the environmental and health benefits of reducing emissions.”
Xcel Energy says changing environmental regulations are forcing it to shut down the 232-MW coal-fired units at Black Dog power plant in Burnsville, Minn.
Xcel told MISO last week that the Black Dog plant has been a cost-effective, reliable energy resource for more than 60 years. “But there is a cost associated with the modifications needed to operate these coal units under new federal air emission rules. Retiring the units will benefit our customers by not only avoiding those costs but also reducing emissions.”
A 300-MW natural gas-fired plant at the site will remain in operation. The two coal units will go dark in April.
Dynegy issued $5.1 billion in debt just before bond yields increased to their highest levels in a year, lifting the prices of the underlying notes.
“They priced the deal in the middle of the carnage and prices popped right after the sale,” Andy DeVries, a CreditSights analyst said the day of the offering.
September saw a sell-off of junk-rated bonds – investors pulled $2.3 billion from funds that buy high-yield bonds in the week ending Oct. 1, according to Lipper data. Dynegy offered its bonds in three tranches, or sections: five-, eight- and 10-year notes.
FirstEnergy says a recent report that contends the company is struggling to remain viable is “misleading and biased.”
The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis’s report said the company is too dependent upon aging coal generation and is relying upon ratepayer subsidies to “reverse a deepening spiral of debt service and revenue declines.”
But FirstEnergy spokesman Doug Colafella said last week that the company “has taken significant actions —particularly in the past 12 months — to improve our financial position, lower our cost structure and position the company for more stable and predictable growth through our regulated holdings, and overcome the lingering effects of the recession as well as challenging capacity and energy markets.”
“We believe the strategies we have put in place, together with our commitment to operational excellence and financial discipline, will provide long-term value and predictable, sustainable growth to our investors,” Colafella said.
The chief planning official for the grid operator took issue with an environmental group’s claim that continued operation of a generating plant in New Jersey would be a threat to the system.
At issue is the planned switch from coal to natural gas for the B.L. England plant in South Jersey. New Jersey Sierra Club Director Jeff Tittel, citing a PJM report, told area reporters that continued operation of the plant would be a threat to system reliability.
Just the opposite, PJM’s Steven R. Herling, vice president of planning, told Tittel in a letter.
“Recent media statements attributed to you about reliability and cost impacts associated with the B.L. England generating units remaining in service are based on a misunderstanding of PJM Interconnection’s planning process,” Herling wrote. “Simply put, the continued operation of existing generating units at the B.L. England site, absent the addition of significant amounts of new generation, is not projected to result in reliability problems.
“Our transmission-planning process is very complex, dynamic, and — as a consequence — can be misunderstood,” Herling continued. “I would have been very happy to explain the process and underlying facts to help you avoid confusion and would be willing to clarify PJM’s study results at any time.”
Tittel stands by his group’s claims and said PJM was changing its story at the behest of utilities. “They’re trying to spin it any way they can,” he said.
Dominion’s Surry Plant Shuts Down Due to Malfunctioning Sensor
Dominion Resources’ Surry Unit 2 tripped and shut down unexpectedly last week after a sensor mistakenly detected a problem in the reactor protection system, the company announced. The reactor, in operation since 1973, went offline at about 8 a.m. Oct. 13.
“It did just what it was supposed to do,” Dominion spokeswoman Bonita Harris said. “Nuclear plants are designed to shut down automatically when that happens.”
The plant returned to service two days later. The plant last had an unscheduled shutdown in April 2011 after it was hit by a tornado.
Operators of Southern Co.’s Joseph M. Farley Nuclear Plant in Alabama shut down Unit 2 after a lightning strike on a transmission line Oct. 14. The plant was already in the process of going offline for a refueling outage.
Each of the two Farley units requires refueling every 18 months, a process that takes about a month. About 900 Southern employees and 800 contractors will be involved in the effort. Farley Unit 1 remains in service, the company said.
Top 25 US Companies Continue to Increase Solar Installation
(Source: NRG Energy)
The top 25 companies in the U.S. for embracing solar power installed 28% more capacity last year as equipment and installation prices continued to drop, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association.
Since 2012, the 25 companies — including Target, General Motors, Kohl’s and Walgreens — have doubled the amount of photovoltaic capacity installed on their facilities, from 279 MW in 2012 to 569 MW as of August, according to the trade group’s annual report.
SEIA spokesman Ken Johnson said the 30% Solar Investment Tax Credit helped maintain an impetus for the industry’s growth.
MISO industrial customers will get a full hearing on their bid to reduce transmission rates by $327 million a year.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Thursday ordered an evidentiary hearing on the industrials’ complaint that the 24 MISO transmission owners’ base return on equity (ROE) — 12.38% except for ATC, which has a base ROE of 12.2% — is unjust and unreasonable.
The complaint “raises issues of material fact that cannot be resolved based upon the record before us and that are more appropriately addressed in the hearing and settlement judge procedures,” the commission ruled (EL14-12).
The commission rejected an attempt by the transmission owners — including Ameren, Duke Energy and Entergy — to dismiss the complaint on procedural grounds.
FERC opened the door to fights over the maximum allowable ROE in June, when it changed the way it sets return on equity rates for electric utilities that’s now more akin to the process it uses for natural gas and oil pipelines. Ruling in a case involving New England transmission owners, FERC tentatively set the “zone of reasonableness” at 7.03-11.74%. (See related story, New England TOs to Pay Refunds in ROE Case.)
MISO’s industrial customers say the base ROE for MISO TOs should not exceed 9.15%, citing “significantly changed economic circumstances since the base ROEs were first established.”
The commission rejected the industrials’ challenge to the use of capital structures that include more than 50% common equity.
“Complainants have not demonstrated that MISO TOs, individually or collectively, do not meet the requirement of the commission[’s] three-part test, failure of which would call into question the justness and reasonableness of using their actual capital structures for ratemaking purposes.”
The plaintiffs are six groups of industrial customers, including Illinois Industrial Energy Consumers, Indiana Industrial Energy Consumers, Minnesota Large Industrial Group and Wisconsin Industrial Energy Group.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed regulations on carbon emissions would increase electric bills and harm reliability, Virginia State Corporation Commission staff members said in comments filed last week.
SCC staff said EPA’s “arbitrary, capricious, unsupported and unlawful” plan could cost Dominion Virginia Power customers alone between $5.5 billion and $6 billion. “Contrary to [the EPA’s] claim that ‘rates will go up, but bills will go down,’ experience and costs in Virginia make it extremely unlikely that either electric rates or bills in Virginia will go down,” staff said.
The EPA’s proposed regulations, announced in June, call for a 30% reduction in carbon emissions from the country’s existing power plants’ 2005 levels by 2030, with individual targets for each state. (See Carbon Rule Falls Unevenly on PJM States.) Virginia would be required to reduce its generating plants’ emissions to 884 lbs./MWh by 2020 and to 810 lbs./MWh by 2030.
Stranded Investments
The EPA’s modeling predicts that Virginia utilities will have to retire 2,851 MW of fossil-fuel generation and build 351 MW of wind power before 2020, “a timeframe that compromises reliability,” staff said.
The retirements threaten “several billions of dollars of recent investments in existing coal-fired facilities in Virginia and West Virginia that Virginia ratepayers have only begun to pay off. Much of this investment has been constructed to comply with EPA consent decrees on which the ink is hardly dry,” staff wrote.
Staff also claims the regulation would impose more stringent emission requirements on existing generators than the EPA is requiring in a separate standard for new generation.
While existing plants in Virginia will eventually be limited to 810 lbs./MWh, new coal plants, built with the best available carbon-capture technology, are limited to 1,000-1,050 (depending on the size), while new natural gas plants are limited to 1,100.
“It would be hard to imagine the EPA advancing such a proposal in areas that are more familiar to everyday life,” SCC staff said. “Would it be rational to require the current owners of automobiles or lawnmowers throughout Virginia, for example, to meet an emission standard that is 26% more stringent than required for the production of new cars or lawnmowers that must use the best available technology?
“Turning regulation on its head in this way — requiring older, but still useful equipment to meet a standard that the EPA admits cannot be achieved even by entirely new equipment — is a recipe for stranding prior investments and requiring significant additional investment.”
Reliability Impact
SCC staff said that they analyzed Dominion’s 2013 integrated resource plan as a reference to estimate the cost of complying with the EPA’s rule. One of two scenarios in the IRP, the Fuel Diversity Plan, calls for the addition of a third unit at the utility’s North Anna nuclear plant. (See SCC: Dominion IRP Lacks Analysis of Nuclear Plans.)
This plan would allow the state to meet its 2030 goal, the SCC staff said, but they altered it to include 69 MW of wind generation and more coal plant retirements than originally called for to meet the interim 2020 goal.
“These retirements are of grave concern because the power plants involved are used today to ensure reliable service to Virginia customers, have years of useful life remaining and cannot be replaced overnight or without regard for impacts on the electric system,” staff said.
Staff said the regulations set “generic and unsupported expectations of levels” of renewable generation and energy efficiency that “are extremely ambitious, almost certainly unachievable and uneconomic under traditional standards.”
Enviros: SCC Staff ‘Playing Politics’
Several environmental groups, however, criticized SCC staff’s assertions as inaccurate.
“The SCC staff analysis is just plain wrong,” said Glen Besa, director of the Sierra Club’s Virginia Chapter. “They’re playing politics with climate change science and they have no business doing that, and they’re bringing discredit on the commission.”
“The SCC staff crossed the line in their hastily submitted comments to EPA and I think they’ll ultimately regret that mistake,” said Dawone Robinson, the Chesapeake Climate Action Network’s Virginia policy director. “I think they misread the rule.”
Specifically, Robinson questioned the use of Dominion’s Fuel Diversity Plan as a way to comply with the regulations.
“SCC staff seems to suggest that in order to comply with the Clean Power Plan, Virginia needs to invest in a third nuclear reactor at North Anna, and that simply isn’t the case,” Robinson said. “Additionally, many of the coal plant retirements and natural gas conversions that the SCC staff suggests will hamper the state … were proposed by the utility before the Clean Power Plan was even released.”
Robinson’s comments echo those made by Cale Jaffe, director of the Southern Environmental Law Center’s Virginia office, to The Richmond Times-Dispatch.
“It appears the staff has misread the rule,” Jaffe said. “Analyses that we have reviewed show that Virginia is already 80% of the way to meeting Virginia’s carbon pollution target under the Clean Power Plan.
“Almost all of those reductions are coming from coal plant retirements and natural gas conversions that the utilities put in place long before the Clean Power Plan was even released.”
The EPA, which will be accepting comments on the proposed rule through Dec. 1, will issue the final rule in June 2015.
