Below is a summary of PJM’s proposed changes to the incremental auctions. Alternative proposals are also described where they differ from PJM’s plan or current rules. See the matrix for full descriptions.
Capacity Resource Deficiency Charge:
Under current rules, bidders who fail to deliver on promised resources must pay a capacity resource deficiency charge equal to the higher of 1.2 times the weighted average resource clearing price or the resource clearing price plus $20.
PJM would increase the penalty by about 25% to 38%, according to an analysis based on clearing prices from the 2013 base residual auction (BRA). The strictest proposals would increase that penalty by 50% to 67%, though one of them, by RC Cape May Holdings, LLC, would allow a reduction in the penalty for new resources that met certain development milestones short of completion (see chart in “Capacity Panel to Vote on Arbitrage Fix”).
Number of incremental auctions (currently three):
PJM would retain the final IA, one year before the beginning of the delivery year, with the other two occurring only if needed for PJM to obtain additional capacity due to increases in its reliability requirement.
PJM would release capacity only in the final IA, the only one in which other capacity buyers could participate.
Another proposal, by RC Cape May Holdings, LLC, would reduce the number of IAs to two.
PJM sell offer price:
PJM would continue the current practice — an upward sloping offer curve with starting price determined based on intersection of the variable resource requirement (VRR) curve and vertical line at current commitment level — but the price would be floored at the clearing price in BRA.
RC Cape May would continue the current practice but with a non-zero offer floor at 10% of BRA clearing price.
The Market Monitor would bar PJM from selling any excess capacity.
Allocation of 2.5% Short-term Resource Procurement Target:
Current rules allocate 0.5% each to the first two IAs with 1.5% in the final IA. That would continue under PJM’s proposal, assuming all three auctions are held. If not, the allocation from any cancelled auctions would be carried over to the next auction.
Incremental Auction Settlement Calculation:
Cleared sell offers and buy bids currently settle against the IA clearing price. PJM would continue to clear sell offers against the clearing price. Buy bids, however, would have to pay the clearing price plus the difference between the BRA and the IA clearing prices — eliminating the ability of market participants to profit by selling at a high price in the BRA and buying back at a cheaper price in the IA. “The goal of the settlement adjustment is to eliminate the ability to profit from the IA,” said Stu Bresler, PJM vice president of market operations.
Implementation Schedule:
PJM would implement most changes for all auctions related to delivery year 2017/18, starting with this year’s BRA.
The sell offer price and mitigation changes would become effective immediately upon FERC approval.
The Market Monitor would implement all changes to all future auctions upon FERC approval “with appropriate transition.”
At the annual National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners conference in Orlando last November, the Todd Snitchler Show was one of the hottest tickets.
NARUC gatherings are not known for their production effects or sense of humor, but Snitchler — the moderator of a session titled “The Environmental and Economic Implications of Carbon Restrictions” added a bit of show biz flair. The session opened with a soundtrack featuring Pink Floyd’s Money and a clip from a Will Ferrell movie. The six speakers stood at podiums, debate-style, while Snitchler strode among the audience like Oprah with a handheld microphone.
Snitchler won’t be enlivening any future NARUC conferences. The colorful, controversial chair of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio announced last week he won’t seek reappointment, ending a three-year run during which he championed electric choice and alienated environmentalists with his Twitter posts expressing skepticism about renewable power and climate change. The 43-year-old Republican’s term as head of the 320-person agency ends April 10.
Legacy
Don Mason, an energy attorney and former PUCO member called Snitchler “one of the finest regulators that Ohio has ever had.”
“Wicked smart,” was the way Gov. John Kasich described Snitchler when he appointed him to the commission. Kasich praised the chairman in a statement last week as an “effective leader” and a “fierce defender of the PUCO’s independence.”
The Columbus Dispatch summed up his legacy in less glowing terms, writing, “Snitchler has been part of decisions that angered utility companies, consumer advocates and large businesses, sometimes all at the same time.”
Electric Deregulation
In an interview with RTO Insider yesterday, Snitchler expressed few regrets and said he was proud of his agency’s role in the state’s transition to electric deregulation.
Ohio PUC Chair Todd Snitchler at FERC technical conference on capacity markets, September 2013.
“I think we have moved steadily and consistently into a more competitive posture,” Snitchler said, citing the “dramatic increase” in the number of competitive suppliers and the increased shopping activity by individuals and municipal aggregators. The PUC announced last month that, for the first time, more power customers are buying their power from alternative suppliers than incumbent utilities.
Consumer advocates give Snitchler and the commission he headed mixed marks, acknowledging that electric prices declined since 2009, due to the combined effects of the recession and the influx of cheap natural gas.
“The outgoing chair is very much a devotee of the free market, à la the Texas model, which our organization doesn’t see as very advantageous to consumers,” said David Rinebolt, executive director of Ohio Partners for Affordable Energy. That model forces everyone to shop rather than allowing default service providers, which Rinebolt said forces consumers to absorb marketing costs.
While Ohio law requires default service in electricity, it doesn’t in natural gas. Rinebolt’s group is currently challenging a move to eliminate default service for some commercial gas customers.
Rinebolt praised Snitchler, however, for pushing electric distribution companies to use competitive procurement to obtain energy for their standard service offer.
Sam Randazzo, counsel to the Industrial Energy Users-Ohio, faulted PUCO for allowing utilities to collect “massive amounts” of transition, or “stranded” costs. As a result, he said, Ohio businesses and individuals are paying rates that are much higher than what are reflected in PJM capacity prices.
ALEC
Gov. Kasich appointed Snitchler in January 2011 to complete the term of former Chairman Alan Schriber.
Then a member of the Ohio House of Representatives, Snitchler was, like Kasich, active in the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative group that promotes free markets and reduced regulation. Snitchler was a keynote speaker at an ALEC task force meeting in April 2011 after joining the PUC.
Last year, Ohio legislators battled over legislation backed by ALEC to weaken or repeal the state’s renewable portfolio standard (RPS).
The legislation targeted Ohio’s “25-by-25” standard, which requires power companies to get 12.5% of their electricity from renewables and an equal amount from “advanced energy,” such as fuel cells, “clean coal” or new-generation nuclear power by 2025.
The legislation stalled in committee in December in the face of opposition from stakeholders including the Ohio Manufacturers Association and the Ohio Office of Consumers’ Counsel.
Snitchler and PUCO took no public position on the legislation. But he has made clear his misgivings about renewable power in frequent Twitter postings.
Tweets
The Columbus Dispatch reported a year ago that among more than 1,000 tweets from the previous year, “Snitchler did not once share anything positive about renewable energy.”
Among the tweets: “After [Hurricane] Sandy no one lined up for wind turbines,” and the “‘green’ religion is taking over from Christian religion.”
He also shared posts expressing doubts about climate change, quoting a report that noted that “the Himalayas and nearby peaks have lost no ice in past 10 years.”
On another occasion, he re-tweeted a story from the Communist Party newspaper Pravda, titled “Elites of West have cranked up myth of Global Warming.” Snitchler said he found the article “interesting.”
State Rep. Mike Foley, a Democrat, called Snitchler’s posts “radical.”
“The First Amendment entitles Snitchler to say what he wants. But Ohio isn’t paying Snitchler to do stand-up,” the Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote in an editorial. “Ohio is paying Snitchler to do the judgelike job of setting utility rates. That requires an open mind, not a juvenile one.”
“The guy is a right-wing ideologue and he doesn’t belong in a regulatory body that’s supposed to be impartial and protect the consumers, which he’s not doing,” Henry Eckhart, former commissioner who now represents utility consumers, told the Massillon, Ohio, Independent.
He quoted America’s Natural Gas Alliance so often that one commenter said “on some days @snitch92 might be confused for the ANGA’s feed.”
In fact, Snitchler has expressed concerns about the state becoming overly dependent on natural gas as an electric source, and called for a continued role for coal.
“While shale gas may be a major component in the here and now planning by our utilities there is no doubt coal needs to continue to play a major role in our future generation mix,” he told an Ohio House committee in October.
Snitchler declined yesterday to talk about specific postings or his view of climate change science.
“That’s not been a focus of my effort at the commission,” he said. He acknowledged, however, “You always learn lessons about better ways to communicate, and that was a lesson learned on my part.”
AEP Solar Project
The tweets came to light after Snitchler voted with a 3-1 majority to reject American Electric Power’s proposed Turning Point solar energy project.
The 50 MW project — about 250,000 solar panels on a reclaimed strip-mine — would have been the largest solar farm east of the Rocky Mountains. It had been championed by Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat, during his unsuccessful 2010 reelection campaign against Kasich.
The PUCO staff supported it, saying additional solar capacity was needed to comply with the state’s renewable mandates.
Ohio’s industrial energy users and FirstEnergy Corp. were among those who opposed the project, criticizing the funding mechanism AEP sought — a surcharge on all AEP distribution customers, including those who purchase power from competitive suppliers.
Snitchler joined with Commissioners Lynn Slaby and Andre Porter — now Kasich’s Commerce Department director — in finding that the project sponsors had failed to demonstrate it benefited ratepayers and was in the public interest.
“It wasn’t a question of being anti-renewables or anti-solar,” Snitchler said. “The Ohio Power Siting Board, on which I also served, approved a number of renewable projects, particularly wind, during my tenure.”
Former PUCO Commissioner Cheryl Roberto, now the Environmental Defense Fund’s Associate Vice President of Smart Power, said although she disagreed with Snitchler on environmental issues, she found him “pragmatic” and cooperative.
“I really enjoyed working with Todd,” said Roberto, who left the commission in December 2012. “I think Todd works very hard to understand some very complex and arcane issues.”
Travel Expenses
Snitchler came under criticism this month after the Dayton Daily News reported that the commission spent nearly $35,000 to send the five commissioners and 15 staff members to the NARUC conference.
The Ohio PUC delegation was the largest among those attending from PJM states. The Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission was second with 16 attendees. None of the other state regulatory agencies sent more than seven attendees.
“You don’t need 15 staff people listening to a bunch of lectures,” former PUCO chairman Henry Eckhart told the Daily News. “Get a copy of the handouts and bring it back.”
A PUCO spokesman responded to the criticism by noting that the commission is the fifth largest state regulatory agency in the country.
Voluntary Departure?
Kasich and Snitchler described the end of the chairman’s tenure as Snitchler’s choice. After five years of commuting weekly to Columbus from his Canton-area home two hours away, Snitchler said, he wanted to spend more time at home, particularly with a daughter about to enter her senior year of high school.
Some in Columbus, however, speculated that Snitchler wanted to keep the post, which pays more than $124,000 annually, but was rebuffed by the governor.
“Those folks are wrong,” Snitchler insisted. “I thought long and hard about it…Everybody has an expiration date.”
Snitchler, who previously had a private legal practice, said he hopes to continue working in the energy field but has no landing place yet.
Before his term expires, he hopes to complete PUCO’s investigation into whether the state’s electric utilities have a true separation between their regulated and unregulated sides. A staff report issued last week recommended the commission audit utilities every four years to ensure compliance with code of conduct rules that bar sharing of competitive information between regulated and competitive subsidiaries.
Replacement
Under state law, the five-member commission can have no more than three from any political party. Snitchler’s departure will leave it with a single Republican, Slaby, Democrat Steven Lesser and two members not registered with either party, Asim Haque and Beth Trombold.
Twenty-seven aspirants applied to replace the chairman by last week’s deadline, including two PUCO staffers, former elected officials and several attorneys and engineers. All but two of the candidates are men.
A 12-member nominating council that includes consumer, labor and industry stakeholders will screen the candidates and forward a list of four finalists to Kasich.
PJM’s dispatch of demand response helped avoid the need to shed load during the polar vortex Jan. 7, when the RTO set a new winter demand record of about 141,500 MW.
PJM dispatched DR for both the morning and evening peaks. An estimated 2,029 MW responded for hour ending 1800, according to the graphs released by PJM last week (above). Actual reductions will be known after customer meter data is provided.
AEP Transmission Holding Co. is partnering with AltaLink to bid on the Fort McMurray West 500-kV project in Alberta, Canada. The joint venture was selected by the Alberta Electric System Operator as one of five qualified bidders for the 300-mile project, designed to meet large industrial load growth. The company expects to submit its proposal in November and have a decision late in the year. If successful, the project would be developed by AEP Transmission subsidiary Transource Energy LLC.
The other bidders are NorSpan Partners LP (EPCOR Utilities Inc. and LS Power Associates LP); Alberta PowerLine (Canadian Utilities Limited and Quanta Capital Solutions Inc.); TAMA Transmission LP (MidAmerican Energy Holdings Company and TransAlta) and TransCanada/Elecnor (TransCanada PipeLines Limited and Elecnor S.A.).
Dominion named seven new vice presidents effective Jan. 1. Corynne Arnett became vice president for financial management at Dominion Generation; Michael Frederick vice president for LNG Operations; Lee Katz vice president and general auditor, reporting directly to CEO Thomas Farrell; Mark Mitchell vice president for generation construction; Brian Sheppard, vice president for pipeline operations; Alma Showalter vice president for tax; and Chester Wade, vice president for corporate communications.
New York, Connecticut and a shareholder advocacy group agreed to withdraw their shareholder resolution on the subject after FirstEnergy committed to study and report on ways it could help meet President Obama’s goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions 80% by 2050. The New York State Comptroller’s Office has won other such settlements with utilities, and has outstanding submissions with CMS Energy and Ameren.
Iberdrola USA named an eight-member board of directors as part of a corporate reorganization that structured Iberdrola S.A.’s U.S. business to align with the international company’s other structures. Board member Robert Kump, CEO of Iberdrola USA Networks, has also been appointed chief corporate officer, leading U.S. strategy.
The board, led by Iberdrola Chairman Ignacio Galan, includes four independent members: John Baldacci, former member of Congress and governor of Maine; Jose Fernandez, former assistant secretary of state; Alan Solomont, former ambassador to Spain and Andorra; and Alfredo Ayub, former director general of the Comision Federal de Electricidad in Mexico. Other members are José Sainz Armada, chief financial officer for Iberdrola Group and Pedro Azagra Blázquez, chief development officer for Iberdrola Group.
GDF Suez Energy North America named Eric Bradley senior vice president of strategy. In addition to heading the strategy function, Bradley also will oversee acquisitions and financial analysis, communications, government and regulatory affairs and new business incubation.
Stakeholders will hold a formal vote on measures to eliminate speculation in the capacity market this week after narrowing the proposals from seven to five in a lengthy meeting Friday.
Because clearing prices in incremental auctions (IAs) are usually lower than those in the base residual auction (BRA), participants can profit by selling capacity in the BRA and buying out their commitments in the IAs. PJM and the Market Monitor say such buyouts are suppressing capacity prices and could undermine system reliability.
PJM’s proposed solution (#2 in the matrix) would reduce the number of incremental auctions (currently three) and set conditions eliminating the potential to arbitrage between the BRA and IA.
RC Cape May Holdings LLC (#3), Old Dominion Electric Cooperative (#4), the Market Monitor (#9) and Exelon (#10) adopt some of PJM’s changes but differ in other details. (See “Incremental Auction Proposals Compared”)
Increased penalties for bidders who fail to deliver promised capacity, under proposals by PJM and other stakeholders. (Based on May 2013 clearing prices.)*MAAC includes EMAAC, SWMAAC. **Assumes no reduction for milestones.
All of the proposals would increase the penalties for failing to deliver promised resources. (See chart, right)
An informal poll conducted last week among 41 respondents representing 206 members and affiliates found overwhelming support for reducing speculative offers in the base auction but a split over the urgency of the issue: 59% of votes called for implementing changes in time for this May’s base auction as PJM has insisted; 34% said stakeholders should take more time to vet the issue. About 7% said there was no need for changes.
PJM’s proposal was the most popular proposal, followed by ODEC and the Market Monitor.
At Friday’s meeting of the Capacity Senior Task Force, Calpine (#7) and Duke (#8) withdrew their proposals, with Duke throwing its support behind the PJM plan. Citigroup Energy (#6) had withdrawn its proposal earlier.
Force Majeure
Much of the meeting was spent discussing the Market Monitor’s demand that the new rules bar bidders from buying out of their obligations except under force majeure.
Market Monitor Joe Bowring said the condition wouldn’t be limited strictly to “acts of God.” The reason for buying replacement capacity “has to be out of your control and it can’t be [a] financial” motive, he said.
None of the proposal sponsors were willing to add that condition to their packages Friday although some said they might agree after vetting it with their companies. Stu Bresler, PJM vice president of market operations, said he feared the restriction would be difficult to administer.
“Our concern is the pancaking of a variety of issues,” Griffiths said “We’ve repeatedly asked PJM about the impact of these changes and have been repeatedly told: `We don’t know.’”
Carl Johnson, representing the PJM Public Power Coalition, said the changes could result in “a huge number of megawatts whose price is administratively determined” rather than set by the market.
Walter Hall, of the Maryland Public Service Commission, said the PSC is concerned that PJM may not be able to sell excess capacity in incremental auctions if it refuses to sell below the base auction clearing price, as it has proposed.
Milestones
The task force also discussed the inclusion of development milestones, which Exelon and RC Cape May Holdings LLC proposed using to reduce credit requirements. RC Cape May would also use the accomplishment of milestones to reduce penalties for failing to deliver promised resources.
Hall and a second stakeholder said they supported the concept of development milestones but feared it would make it more difficult to reach consensus. “It just feels like it doubles the complexity of the replacement capacity issue,” the stakeholder said.
The vote on the proposals will run between tomorrow and Friday, with results released next Monday, in time for a first read at the Markets and Reliability Committee Jan. 30. The MRC will vote on Feb. 27, with a Members Committee vote the same day or at a special meeting afterward in time for a mid-March filing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
Bresler said the Board of Managers may file the PJM proposal with FERC even if it does not receive a two-thirds vote in support.
The Planning Committee last week endorsed manual changes implementing PJM’s new capacity import limits.
Reason for Change: Stakeholders approved the limits in November out of concerns that PJM might lack sufficient transmission to accommodate its growing volume of capacity imports. Cleared imports grew from about 3,000 MW to more than 4,500 MW in 2009-2012 before more than doubling to nearly 7,500 MW this year. The limits are detailed in Manual 14B: PJM Region Transmission Planning Process.
Impact: The revised methodology will limit external generation resources in next year’s base capacity auction to 6,200 MW – a 17% drop from the volume of imports that cleared in the May 2013 auction, while also setting five import zones with their own limits. (See Members OK Capacity Import Limit; Prices May Rise.)
PJM will begin pricing at a new interface near the Seneca pumped storage station in Warren County, Pa., beginning Feb. 1.
RTO officials said they expect to use the pricing point when the 451 MW Seneca plant operates in pumping mode. It will only be used to set locational marginal prices when off-cost generation is necessary to provide voltage support for the Seneca plant to pump. It is not an IROL (Interconnection Reliability Operating Limits) transfer interface.
The new interface is comprised mainly of the 230 kV buses and connected generation buses at Seneca, Glade, Forest, Elko and Shawville in the PN transmission zone. (See full interface definition.) Seneca was among 11 hydroelectric power stations LS Power agreed last year to purchase from FirstEnergy Corp.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission, after long and difficult negotiations, signed two memorandums of understanding concerning information-sharing procedures and jurisdiction over regulation of energy trading. But, disappointing some attorneys, the MOUs do not address questions of enforcement jurisdiction, which means answers will have to come from the courts.
President Obama directed the administration to conduct what the White House said was the first Quadrennial Energy Review. It will focus on developing a comprehensive strategy for pipelines and the power grid, with issues including changing markets, aging facilities and cyber threats.
Natural gas-fired generation will account for 26.8% of generation in 2014, down from 27.5% in 2013 because of rising gas prices, according to the Energy Information Administration. Coal’s share will rise this year, from 39.1% to 40.2%. In 2015, though, coal’s share should drop to 38.6% as federal mercury and air toxics regulations take effect.
In its Short-Term Energy Outlook, EIA estimated total generation averaged 11.1 TWh/day in 2013 and projected it would rise 0.3% this year and 1% in 2015. Per-customer consumption will continue to decline with energy efficiency, but industrial users will increase consumption in 2015, EIA predicts.
Now that the Environmental Protection Agency has published its regulations for greenhouse gas emissions from new power plants, the House Energy and Power Subcommittee has set Jan. 14 to vote on a bill that effectively would block it. The measure introduced by subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) requires that a standard for coal units must have been achieved for a continuous 12 months, commercially, by a least six units at different plants. This aims at EPA’s requirement for carbon capture and storage.
The measure also requires a separate subcategory for lignite units. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) introduced a companion bill in the Senate.
Meanwhile, EPA’ Science Advisory Board has scheduled a Jan. 21 teleconference to discuss “whether to review the adequacy of the science” behind the rule.
Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer of California and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island have established the Climate Action Task Force to raise the visibility of the issue. Boxer, who chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee, said the group has a dozen members and the backing of Senate leadership. “[W]e want Congress to take off the blindfolds,” she said.
Four of the five members of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said they believe spent fuel could continue to be stored safely in pools and did not have to be moved to dry storage, which some experts say would be safer. Chairwoman Allison Macfarlane was the only member whose questions at a commission meeting last week indicated she could be open to moving more fuel to dry casks.
Time is growing short for stakeholders hoping to reach consensus on rules banning capacity market speculation before May’s auction.
After two meetings last week, the Capacity Senior Task Force was still debating nine “replacement capacity” proposals — almost as many as the 11 packages the panel was considering when it failed to reach consensus in November.
Since Nov. 21, when the Markets and Reliability Committee returned the issue to the CSTF, the task force has held four meetings, including two last week. (SeeArbitrage Fix Returned to Committee.)
PJM officials want to submit a plan to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission by mid-March in order win approval in time for the Base Residual Auction. The schedule laid out by CSTF Chair Scott Baker calls for a CSTF vote after its meeting Friday, with a first read before Markets and Reliability Committee Jan. 30.
The odds of reaching an agreement may become clearer as a result of a poll CSTF Chair Scott Baker submitted to task force members yesterday.
The poll, which closes at 5 p.m. Wednesday, is an effort to thin the candidates by identifying consensus on core concepts. One question, for example, seeks to measure support for proposals eliminating the ability to profit in cleared buy bids in incremental auctions. The question then seeks to parse support for addressing the issue in time for this year’s auction or whether the task force should take more time to vet solutions.
Versions of this “IA Settlement Agreement” are featured in packages proposed by PJM, J.P. Morgan Ventures Energy Corp., Citigroup Energy and Duke Energy. Taking different approaches are proposals by Market Monitor Joseph Bowring, Old Dominion Electric Cooperative, Calpine, Exelon and Gabel and Associates. Bowring would eliminate replacement of capacity in incremental auctions except for capacity lost to force majeure events.
The poll also will gauge support for using development milestones to reduce credit obligations or capacity deficiency penalties. Another set of questions focuses on proposed requirements that bidders certify their intent to provide physical resources and not plan to buy out of their obligations in the incremental auctions, when prices are much lower than in the BRA.
An earlier poll found 90% support for raising the Capacity Resource Deficiency Charge (currently the greater of 1.2 times the Resource Clearing Price or the Resource Clearing Price + $20). A proposal to make the penalty the greater of 1.5 times the Resource Clearing Price or the Resource Clearing Price + $50 also had strong support at 86%
The same percentage of respondents endorsed changing the PJM sell offer price (currently an upward sloping offer curve with a starting price equal to the intersection of the updated VRR curve and current commitment level). A proposal to switch to an upward sloping offer curve with the starting price floored at the BRA clearing price won almost 73% support, although that could drop in a binding, sector-weighted vote.
Cutting the number of incremental auctions from three to two won 83% support while only 67% backed a cut from three to one.
American Electric Power moved its Ohio generation into a separate subsidiary in December and acknowledged that it could consider selling the assets. “They’re ahead of their pack in terms of jumping on the transmission bandwagon,” said a UBS Securities analyst.
Meanwhile, President and CEO Nick Akins assumed the position of chairman as well.
Jim Rogers’ seven-year run atop Duke Energy ends this month in a rush of industry tributes, legacy look-backs and, like a retiring Super Bowl champion, a trip to Disney World.
“My best guess is that Jim Rogers is someone who wanted to do more toward clean energy than he ever found a way to make happen during his time,” environmentalist Jim Warren said. “I favor that over a more cynical approach that he was more a figment of corporate PR or greenwashing.”
University of Delaware wind power researcher Cristina Archer sees the Great Plains as an ideal place for airborne wind turbines in the summertime because of the presence of something called “wind speed maxima,” strong currents of wind that resemble the jet stream but occur at much lower altitudes.
Airborne wind turbines are devices resembling blimps or gliders that can generate electricity as they are flown like kites in the lower atmosphere. Activity on the concept has accelerated in the past five years with at least 20 startup companies working on various concepts, including Makani Power, which was acquired by Google in May.
