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November 7, 2024

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MISO Stakeholders Request JTIQ Cost Containment Measures

Stakeholders pressed MISO to include some form of cost containment measures for it and SPP’s Joint Targeted Interconnection Queue portfolio, weeks after the RTOs revealed that the cost estimate for the projects nearly doubled to about $2 billion.

The requests came at a June 27 special meeting to firm up the tariff additions MISO will need to incorporate in the JTIQ study and cost recovery details so it can become a repeatable process.

Stakeholders asked MISO to include some oversight or protections against cost overruns on the transmission projects in its tariff edits. MISO staff said while they’ve discussed the possibility, at this point they will likely only consider cost protections for future JTIQ portfolios. However, their position became more fluid as the meeting wore on.

MISO and SPP this month announced the costs estimate for the first, five-project JTIQ portfolio of 345 kV lines rose from a little more than $1 billion to nearly $1.9 billion. The larger figure was sent to the Department of Energy under a funding application for the agency’s Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships program. (See JTIQ Portfolio Cost Estimate Nearly Doubles to $1.9B.)

MISO staff said for the DOE application, transmission owners included recent inflation and supply chain trends and tried to predict sharper routing and regulatory issues for their projects, raising costs. MISO and SPP have also included administration costs not included in the original JTIQ estimate, including FERC filing costs and costs related to the DOE funding application and federal environmental reviews.

Invenergy’s Sophia Dossin said a cap on project costs is important, considering JTIQ cost estimates have almost doubled in two years.

“Even just having a percentage somewhere, even a very high cap that we’re sure we’re never going to hit at least gives generators some sort of certainty,” Dossin said.

Clean Grid Alliance’s Rhonda Peters said some type of oversight on costs is “critical.” She warned that some generation developers might not go through with projects based on the risks of escalating line costs.

“If that dollar-per-megawatt charge is high right off the bat, this is not going to work. If those costs are in the mid-range and then double, then projects that invested significant capital will not be able to go forward,” she said, asking for “some sort of accountability mechanism.”

Some stakeholders said the grid operators and transmission owners might be underestimating the effect that stubbornly high inflation will have on the cost of projects.

MISO staff said the JTIQ portfolio can enable an estimated 28 GW of new installed capacity and should give large groups of interconnection customers lowered transmission upgrade costs and more cost certainty than under its previous affected system studies process.

MISO so far has not shared an estimated range of dollar-per-megawatt charges that individual generation projects might face.

“All the buzz around cost caps, is that going to be considered in the tariff language development? … What’s the upper limit where generation developers will not subscribe to these lines?” Southern Renewable Energy Association’s Andy Kowalczyk said.

“I wouldn’t say anything is off the table. We’re listening very carefully to your concerns, and we’re going to discuss them internally,” MISO counsel Chris Supino said. “If there’s a way to include these without disturbing what we’re working towards in the tariff, we’re going to consider them.”

Kowalczyk said contemplating “an upper limit where people are going to bail on lines” is important because load will temporarily pick up the tab on the first JTIQ portfolio if the first batch of lines don’t have enough subscribers to be fully funded.

The JTIQ study is designed to focus on backbone projects rather than point-of-interconnection network upgrades. Whereas MISO’s and SPP’s previous process used actual generation sites in interconnection queues in affected system studies, the JTIQ leans on the likely interconnection spots of future generation representing multiple queue study clusters from both RTOs.

Until now, MISO and SPP have used affected system studies to identify additional, across-the-seam network upgrades the other might need as a result of new generation connecting close to the seam. And while MISO and SPP until now have identified only network upgrades for a particular SPP or MISO study cycle, the JTIQ study is designed to identify larger and longer-term system needs across seams and across groups of generation projects under study.

At this point, MISO considers its proposal to split JTIQ costs 90% to interconnecting generators with the remaining 10% assigned to load final. It will include that cost allocation in tariff edits.

“There is some disagreement, but we believe this course is settled: JTIQ projects meet the definition of generator interconnection projects,” Supino said.

Supino said MISO and SPP are discussing whether the projects should be a subcategory of interconnection upgrades, but he said it’s undisputed that the JTIQ projects are replacing MISO and SPP’s affected system study process and should be allocated 90% to interconnecting generation and 10% to load. As such, he said JTIQ projects won’t be open to competitive bidding.

Supino said MISO will include a pledge in its transmittal letter to FERC to evaluate cost allocation changes in future JTIQ portfolios. MISO didn’t elaborate on which additional benefits it might consider allocating in the future.

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Solar Property Tax Fix Sent to Whitmer

LANSING, Mich. — Michigan lawmakers on Wednesday approved legislation to circumvent tax assessment fights over utility-scale solar projects, allowing municipalities to charge a flat $7,000/MW annual fee. The Senate overwhelmingly approved HB 4317 and HB 4318 by a 27-10 vote, sending them on to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D).

The two bills — which create a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILT) structure for new solar projects — passed the Michigan House last week.

The bills allow local governments to create solar energy districts in which solar facilities of 2 MW or more would be exempt from property taxes for 20 years in return for the $7,000/MW annual payment.

“The property tax valuation of these facilities has been inconsistent and contentious, at times resulting in litigation between local governments and facility owners,” a legislative analysis of the bills explained. “Some people believe that this litigation burdens local governments and delays the buildout of renewable energy in the state.”

Supporters of the bills said standardizing the tax valuation of solar facilities would avoid such controversies.

Rep. Curtis VanderWall (R), sponsor of HB 4317, told the Senate Energy and Environment Committee on Tuesday the bills resulted from two years of efforts involving local governments, utilities, renewable energy advocates and the Department of Treasury. Whitmer had vetoed similar bills in 2020, saying at the time the Legislature had acted without considering proposals on the issue from the state’s Tax Commission.

The bills will encourage solar development because participating governments will have guaranteed revenue, VanderWall said.

Ed Rivet, of the Michigan Conservative Energy Forum, said the measures could help solar projects avoid some of the problems local governments have had in considering wind projects.

Brian Vanblarcum, director of tax for CMS Energy, told the committee the legislation could end “degrading” controversies between local governments and utilities on developing renewable energy projects.

Local government groups were neutral on the package, however. Judy Allen, with the Michigan Townships Association, said while the package was a big improvement over the 2020 proposals — especially by giving local governments the option to participate in the plan, unlike the 2020 bills, which made participation mandatory — it did not include some provisions those governments wanted, such as indexing the PILT payment amount to the Consumer Price Index.

Laura Sherman, of the Michigan Energy Innovation Business Council, said the bills will support local governments and help renewable energy employment in Michigan. “This legislation can help us further grow our economy while ensuring that communities benefit from increased tax revenues,” she said.

EV Chargers Excluded from ‘Utility’ Definition

Also Wednesday, the Michigan House approved HB 4706, allowing electric vehicle charging station operators to re-sell electricity to EV owners without having to register as utilities.

The bill codifies the state Public Service Commission’s policy exempting EV chargers.

The bill, which passed the House on a 100-8 vote, now goes to the Senate, where passage is expected, as the measure is part of a package of legislation to boost Michigan’s net zero efforts.

Environmental groups, Tesla and General Motors all supported the bill.

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EPA Launches $7B Solar for All Program

The Biden administration’s goal for decarbonizing the power sector by 2035 got a boost Wednesday with EPA’s launch of a $7 billion grant competition to expand residential solar in low-income communities.

“The new grant competition will provide funds to expand existing low-income solar programs as well as develop and implement new Solar for All programs nationwide,” EPA announced. “Solar for All programs ensure low-income households have equitable access to residential rooftop and residential community solar power.”

The funding comes from the Inflation Reduction Act’s $27 billion green bank, the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. The program will award up to 60 grants to states, territories, tribal governments, municipalities and eligible nonprofits for creating or expanding residential solar to low-income and disadvantaged communities. EPA said it will guarantee that participating households save a minimum of 20% on their total electricity bills.

“For too long, overburdened communities on the front lines of the climate crisis have been left behind and locked out of clean energy investments and climate solutions,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said. “This historic boost in solar investments will advance millions of residential solar projects nationwide, protect people and the planet, deliver environmental justice, save families money and create good-paying jobs.”

The deadline to apply is Sept. 26. Grants will be provided in three tiers, “calibrated to the number of households the applicant intends the program to serve,” EPA said: $25 million to $100 million; $100 million to $250 million; and $250 million to $400 million.

Regan announced the launch in Vermont, alongside Sen. Bernie Sanders. The announcement coincided with a webinar produced by D.C.-based OurEnergyPolicy examining the problems that have slowed or stymied the administration’s growth targets for solar.

Noting that to meet the administration’s objective, the industry will have to triple annual deployment in the next few years, David Murray, director of solar policy at the American Clean Power Association, asked panelists to describe the reforms that will be needed.

Ed Scarborough, vice president of development at Distributed Sun, said permitting needs to be streamlined and standardized across the country.

“The backlog of transmission interconnection applications has become a major roadblock for new projects, in part because utilities and transmission line operators are also upgrading the grid,” Scarborough said. “The queues also are very crowded right now, and there’s just a tremendous number of projects in the queues, many of which will never actually be implemented. We need to see some work to clean up those queues so that the viable projects can get through the process much faster.”

Meghan Nutting, vice president of government and regulatory affairs at Sunnova Energy, said permitting rules vary by state and sometimes even within a state. She said Congress should end that.

“There are a couple of things Congress can do … all the way down to the state and very local level. One of the big things for distributed systems, sort of similar to large-scale systems, is permitting. Permitting is inconsistent across states; across even individual [localities] having jurisdiction within an individual state,” she said.

A battle between Congress and the administration over tariffs on imported solar panels has pumped up uncertainty. At this point, most solar panels are still imported, Murray said.

Garrett Nilsen, deputy director of the Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Technologies Office, agreed but said the situation will improve.

“The Inflation Reduction Act does give us a line of sight to seeing manufacturing … be repatriated to the United States, and we’ve seen dozens of manufacturing announcements representing over 100 GW of manufacturing capacity across the entire supply chain,” Nilsen said. “And of course, it’s going to take a little bit of time for these capacities to come online as people need to site their facilities and start to just start to build things out. But we’re working closely with the manufacturers, with the National Renewable Energy Lab and [with] others to help support those who want to manufacture in the United States.”

EPA solar

Clockwise from top left: David Murray, American Clean Power Association; Meghan Nutting, Sunnova; Garrett Nilsen, DOE Solar Energy Technologies Office, and Ed Scarborough, Distributed Sun. | OurEnergyPolicy

“The problem is a stop-start reaction to this continuing back-and-forth on tariffs for foreign goods,” Scarborough responded. “Developers need certainty going forward in their supply chain. And I would say it’s more than just the panels; it’s the inverters. It’s all the other things and … adding batteries.”

“Now, we are concerned about battery supplies and even the underlying minerals, [and] the amount of connectivity done to supply those going forward. Part of what we need is some type of roadmap on the availability of all the components of the supply chain, the rules and regulations around them, and trying to [get free from] this reactionary approach that we’ve been subjected to over the last couple of years,” he said.

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California Study to Delve into EV Charging Challenges

Electric vehicle drivers encounter a wide range of issues when they visit public charging stations, and researchers from the University of California, Davis, plan to delve into the causes of charging failure through a three-year study of thousands of chargers.

The California Energy Commission this month approved a $953,168 contract with UC Davis to conduct the study.

Researchers will test 3,600 or more public EV chargers across California, including in rural and urban areas and low-income and disadvantaged communities. They will create a standardized charger-testing procedure that can be used in future studies and will make comparing data from different studies easier.

Dustin Schell, an air resources engineer at CEC, called the study “the largest single attempt to understand the reliability of the public charging network that CEC staff are aware of.”

“This agreement will help fill a major gap in our understanding of the actual reliability of EV chargers operating in California,” Schell said during a commission meeting.

CEC has been supporting the state’s transition to electric vehicles through funding EV charging infrastructure projects.

CEC Chair David Hochschild said the study is “an incredibly important step.”

“Charger reliability is fundamental to our strategy, and I think even the perception of not having a reliable network itself is very damaging,” Hochschild said.

‘Uptime’ Debated

Schell said charger reliability is often gauged by “uptime,” which is generally considered to be the percentage of time the charger is operational and available to deliver electricity upon customer request.

But uptime is only one piece of the puzzle.

“A large number of documented failures-to-charge occur when the charger is in an apparent operational state,” Schell said.

Gil Tal, director of the Electric Vehicle Research Center at UC Davis, said EV charging companies receive a digital signal from their public chargers indicating the unit is operational. The companies use that data in reporting their charger uptime.

But an EV driver might not be able to charge due to a variety of reasons, said Tal, who is leading the CEC-funded study. The charger could be blocked by another vehicle or, as was the case along mountain roads last winter, by a pile of snow.

The connector might be dented because someone ran over it, Tal said. Or troubles with the payment system may stop a driver from charging.

“The story is much more complicated than just on and off,” Tal told NetZero Insider.

The study will assess the ability to charge a variety of EVs at different charging stations. The focus will be on DC fast chargers. Students at UC campuses across the state will be trained to test the chargers.

The charging of Tesla vehicles at Tesla stations also will be evaluated. And Tal said he hopes to be able to test charging of non-Tesla EVs at Tesla charging stations. Tesla announced in February that it would make at least 7,500 chargers in its network available for non-Tesla EVs by the end of 2024.

UC Davis will provide interim reports to the CEC each year as well as a final report. Based on their findings, researchers will recommend ways that charging providers can improve the reliability of public chargers.

Bay Area EV Charging Studied

The UC Davis study follows a report on EV charging reliability from UC Berkeley researchers last year.

The study, headed by David Rempel, looked at 657 chargers at 181 charging stations throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and found 22.7% were non-functioning. Reasons included unresponsive screens, failure to start charging, payment system issues, network failures or broken connectors.

In another 4.9% of chargers, the cable was too short to reach the inlet on the EV.

The researchers said their findings “appear to conflict” with the 95% to 98% uptime reported by charging station operators.

Tal at UC Davis called the earlier study “really important.”

“Now we need to go to the next level and do it in a more rigorous way,” he said.

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White House Sets 2025 Cybersecurity Priorities

Cybersecurity will remain a high priority for the White House in the near future, particularly at critical U.S. infrastructure facilities, according to a memorandum issued to heads of executive departments and agencies by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on Tuesday.

The memo is intended to guide agency heads planning cybersecurity investments as they create their fiscal 2025 budget submissions. In it, OMB Director Shalanda Young and acting National Cyber Director Kemba Walden identified five priority areas, consistent with the five pillars of the National Cybersecurity Strategy the White House issued in March. (See “Zero-trust, Cybersecurity’s New Focus,” Texas RE Board/MRC Briefs: May 17, 2023.)

OMB and the Office of the Cyber Director (ONCD) plan to review the agencies’ budget submissions for gaps in addressing these priorities and provide potential solutions, in addition to suggestions for the agencies’ future-year budget planning. A separate memo will address cybersecurity research and development priorities.

Public-Private Collaboration Emphasized

Defending critical infrastructure against cyberattacks is the first priority identified by OMB and ONCD. This section includes guidance related to strengthening and modernizing federal defenses, enhancing the security stance of private-sector infrastructure operators, and improving “baseline cybersecurity requirements” by ensuring that “the most capable and best-positioned actors in cyberspace serve as effective stewards of the cyber ecosystem.”

As part of the latter guidance, federal regulators are “strongly encouraged to consult with regulated entities” about the most effective cybersecurity requirements and resources to accomplish security goals. The budget submissions should ensure that requirements use current cybersecurity frameworks and consensus standards whenever possible and that baseline cyber standards are flexible enough to be applied across infrastructure sectors and adapt to malicious actors’ changing tactics and capabilities.

Scaling public-private collaboration is another component of this initial section, with emphasis on the role of sector risk management agencies (SRMA) in leading the response across various sectors. SRMAs were established in the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act to support sector risk management, assess sector risk, manage sector coordination, facilitate information sharing, support incident management and contribute to emergency preparedness efforts. The Department of Energy is the SRMA for the electricity sector.

The memo tasks SRMAs with developing plans to “mature [their] capabilities” and improve their processes for collaborating with critical infrastructure owners and operators on risk identification and mitigation. The organizations are also asked to consider their capacity for adding specialized cyber analysts to evaluate sector needs and improve government processes for intelligence and information analysis.

Cybercrime

Other priorities identified in the memo include countering cybercrime and ransomware actors by organizing staff to investigate and disrupt criminal activity before it affects critical infrastructure, as in the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack of 2021. (See Colonial CEO Welcomes Federal Cyber Assistance.) Agency heads are encouraged to ensure their organizations participate in interagency cybercrime task forces.

The memo’s third priority asks agency heads to show their ability to ensure accountability and security through the procurement process. Priority four urges agencies and departments to highlight their planned cyber workforce investments, considering the ongoing challenges in both the public and private sectors with “recruiting, hiring and retaining [cybersecurity] professionals.”

The fourth priority also requests information on organizations’ preparations for the coming generation of quantum computing devices, which are expected to pose significant threats to existing data encryption practices.

Finally, agencies whose mandates include overseas cybersecurity activities should explain how they work with foreign partners to prepare for cyberattacks, including strengthening public- and private-sector capabilities, and to ensure global supply chains for information, communication, and operational technology products and services remain secure.

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Constellation Gives Details on First-in-nation Pink Hydrogen Production

Constellation Energy on Wednesday gave an update on the hydrogen production demonstration project at one of its nuclear plants in New York.

The first-in-the-nation production of “pink” hydrogen — generated through electrolysis powered by nuclear energy — began March 7 and is generating data about producing the cleaner-burning gas without generating emissions along the way.

The Nine Mile Point hydrogen project can generate up to 531 kg of hydrogen per day with a 1.5-MW draw: 1.25 MW for the electrolyzer, and 250 kW for its associated equipment.

The two nuclear reactors on site consume only about 80 kg in operation. What to do with the remaining capacity is the subject of a separate demonstration project backed by New York state that is expected to go online in 2025 and explore the potential of hydrogen fuel cells as a long-duration energy storage mechanism.

The electrolyzer project is scheduled to end Oct. 1, four years after it gained conditional approval. Constellation is looking at scaling up operations with the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Laboratories to demonstrate how electrolyzers might participate in power markets.

Constellation’s Bob Beaumont, who managed the installation of the electrolyzer and associated equipment at Nine Mile Point, gave an update Wednesday in a DOE webinar:

    • Planning the project was a bowl of alphabet soup: NERC, NYISO, EPA, Nuclear Regulatory Commission and New York Department of Environmental Conservation regulations all had bearing on what was built.
    • The project is running just shy of its $14.4 million budget.
    • Weekly operations checks take four to five worker hours; quarterly maintenance about 20 worker hours; and annual maintenance about 20 worker hours.
    • A quarter mile of cable was needed to power the electrolyzer, and it had to be buried several feet deep because of severe winters.
    • The extreme cold — as low as -20 degrees Fahrenheit — caused valves to begin to leak and revealed a need for special sealing materials.
    • The potential blast radii of the electrolyzer and the hydrogen storage tank in the event of a lightning strike or terrorist attack had to be evaluated because of the proximity of the two reactors; the system was placed out of the security zone and away from the safety systems. Also, the amount of hydrogen being stored on-site did not change, so a modification of NRC permits was not needed.
    • The system was designed to automatically shut down and vent itself if it is hit by seiche waves off Lake Ontario during a storm or after an earthquake.
    • The process draws about 2 gallons of water per minute from the local municipal water system, runs it through consumer-grade softeners and carbon filters; and passes it through a reverse osmosis filter and a set of resin filters to reduce its conductivity to the right level; too much conductivity leaves impurities on the membranes, too little thwarts the electrolyzer.

Future Fuel

Hydrogen, which burns without producing greenhouse gas emissions, is potentially a key tool in fighting climate change. It could serve as a form of energy storage and is viewed as an alternative power source for industries and applications that otherwise would be hard to decarbonize.

But the cost of production currently is a barrier to wider use. DOE made reducing that cost by 80%, to $1/kg, the central goal of the first of its Energy Earthshots in 2021.

Interest is keen in green hydrogen — derived from renewable resources — because producing greenhouse emissions to generate hydrogen limits the net benefit of burning that hydrogen instead of fossil fuel.

Pink hydrogen is produced with emissions-free nuclear power and, in some processes, with the excess heat generated by nuclear fission.

Beyond hydrogen’s potential role in the clean energy transition, operators of boiling-water reactors such as the two at Nine Mile Point use it steadily to prevent corrosion inside the reactors and as a coolant for the rotors on the generators.

Constellation partnered on the Nine Mile Point demonstration project with Nel Hydrogen, manufacturer of the electrolyzer membranes, and the National Renewable Energy, Argonne and Idaho national laboratories.

DOE hydrogen demonstration projects are underway at three other nuclear power stations nationwide.

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California Duck Curve Getting Deeper

Increasing solar capacity in California pushed the belly of the state’s “duck curve” to new lows this spring, putting stress on the grid and challenging CAISO operators, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said in a post last week.

Charting the state’s net load — the demand that remains after wind and solar are subtracted — produces the duck curve. Its neck and tail represent times in the morning and evening when demand rises but solar is weak or offline. Its belly represents the middle of the day when abundant solar steeply reduces net load.

From March to May, net load hovered around zero between noon and 2 p.m. and briefly dipped into negative territory, according to an EIA chart based on CAISO data. That first happened in spring 2022, but the chart shows it occurring more this year. (See CAISO’s New Renewables Record Falls Hair Short of 100%.)

The deepening duck belly has drawbacks and benefits, EIA said.

“As more solar capacity comes online, conventional power plants are used less often during the middle of the day,” it said.

CAISO statistics show that solar power peaked on May 23 at more than 15,000 MW, exceeding a 14,000-MW peak in May 2022. (The ISO later saw a new record for solar production of 15,718 MW on June 13.)

That can stress the grid and upend traditional economics, EIA noted.

“The extreme swing in demand for electricity from conventional power plants from midday to late evenings, when energy demand is still high but solar generation has dropped off, means that conventional power plants, such as natural gas-fired plants, must quickly ramp up electricity production to meet consumer demand,” it said.

“That rapid ramp up makes it more difficult for grid operators to match grid supply (the power they are generating) with grid demand in real time,” EIA said. “In addition, if more solar power is produced than the grid can use, operators might have to curtail solar power to prevent overgeneration.”

In addition, the “dynamics of the duck curve can challenge the traditional economics of dispatchable power plants because the factors contributing to the curve reduce the amount of time a conventional power plant operates, which results in reduced energy revenues,” EIA said.

The upside is that the duck curve has “created opportunities for energy storage,” EIA said. “The large-scale deployment of energy storage systems, such as batteries, allow some solar energy generated during the day to be stored and saved for later, after the sun sets. Storing some midday solar generation flattens the duck’s curve, and dispatching the stored solar generation in the evening shortens the duck’s neck.”

California has been rapidly adding battery storage to the grid in recent years in response to evening shortfalls.

Battery storage in CAISO has grown from 0.2 GW in 2018 to 4.9 GW in April 2023, and operators plan to add another 4.5 GW in-state by the end of the year, EIA said.

California’s experience with the duck curve has been spreading to other areas, including New England, it noted. (See New England’s Duck Curve Days Chart Solar Growth.)

“In addition, a duck curve is becoming visible at the national level in the United States,” EIA said.

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ISO-NE Announces Election of New Board Member

ISO-NE announced the election of three candidates to its board on Wednesday, including new board member Craig Ivey and the re-election of current board members Brook Colangelo and Mark Vannoy.

ISO-NE board member Brook Colangelo | ISO-NE

Ivey is a former president of Consolidated Edison and is a longtime electricity industry veteran.

“Craig brings extensive expertise in utility operations and a commitment to innovation to the ISO New England Board of Directors,” CEO Gordon van Welie said in a press release. “His knowledge will support our mission of ensuring a reliable and efficient regional grid throughout the clean energy transition.”

Tasked with overseeing the RTO, the ISO-NE board consists of 10 members serving three-year terms. The nomination process for the board includes current ISO-NE board members, as well as representatives of NEPOOL and the New England Conference of Public Utilities Commissioners.

ISO-NE board member Mark Vannoy | ISO-NE

Elected members are prohibited from having a financial stake in the region’s wholesale electricity markets.

Ivey will replace retiring board member Roberto Denis in October. Denis previously worked for NV Energy and Florida Power & Light.

Re-elected board member Colangelo will begin his third and final term in October and is currently the chief information officer for Waters Corp.

Vannoy, president of Maine Water, is entering his second term. He previously served as the chair of the Maine Public Utilities Commission.

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Checking in on Clean Energy at the Massachusetts Legislature

As Massachusetts’ 2023 legislative session heats up, the state is looking to use its new Democratic trifecta to build on two omnibus climate bills signed in 2021 and 2022.

Top legislators and policy makers have highlighted expediting clean energy permitting and siting processes, boosting clean energy infrastructure, reducing electric rates, decarbonizing the gas distribution network and addressing issues related to the role of competitive residential electric suppliers as some of the top priorities for 2023.

Rep. Jeff Roy, co-chair of the joint House and Senate Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy (TUE) Committee, told RTO Insider that reducing the time it takes to bring clean energy projects online is a major goal of this legislative session.

“Right now, for somebody to get a permit to build some infrastructure, they have to go to a state agency, then they have to go to a local agency, a conservation commission, a planning board, design review, any number of bodies that are out there, to jump-start the process,” Roy said.

The TUE Committee played a major role in passing wide-ranging climate bills in the past two years but has faced a recent divide between the House and Senate representation in the Committee over the balance of power between the two branches. The House and Senate members of the Committee have been holding separate legislative hearings.

Lawmakers say they remain focused on crafting policy. Asked whether the divide will hinder the Committee’s ability to legislate this session, Roy responded “absolutely not.”

Sen. Mike Barrett, the Senate TUE co-chair, echoed Roy’s interest in expediting the grid infrastructure permitting processes in the state but expressed his desire for more information on the specific obstacles holding up clean energy projects.

“I’m wary of bills that try blunt-force approaches, and there are many of them,” Barrett said. “These bills purport to reform the process simply by imposing time deadlines. They don’t otherwise display any particular understanding of the underlying nuances and they’re not deregulatory in the sense that they pinpoint a cause of delay and remove it.”

In April of this year, Gov. Maura Healey’s administration created a state Commission on Clean Energy Infrastructure Siting and Permitting, tasking it with drafting recommendations by the end of this year on administrative, regulatory and legislative changes needed to speed up permitting and siting processes.

Roy also has filed a bill to create an electric infrastructure permitting office, which would work to expedite the permitting process for electric utility projects necessary to enabling decarbonization. The office would issue consolidated permits to cover all state and local authorizations required to build and operate electric infrastructure and would be required to make a final decision on applications within seven months of application.

“What we’re trying to do,” Roy said, “is move the community input back to the beginning of the process, give folks an idea of what they’re trying to do and how it’s going to help them, and then streamline the permitting process, so it runs parallel. So, you’re doing your local permitting in parallel with your state permitting, and you can shorten the length of time the process takes.”

He noted the massive increase in infrastructure that will be necessary simply to enable electric vehicle owners to reliably charge their vehicles in the state, citing a 2022 study conducted by National Grid which found that a significant number of highway charging locations will require as much or more electricity than a typical sports stadium.

While state lawmakers look to streamline project approvals, representatives from several municipalities and environmental organizations — including the City of Boston, Gas Transition Allies and 350 Mass — are pushing to increase access to Department of Public Utilities (DPU) adjudicatory proceedings, supporting a bill that would require the DPU to allow municipalities, state legislators, relevant non-profits and groups of more than 10 ratepayers to participate as full parties in DPU proceedings.

Cathy Kristofferson of the Pipeline Awareness Network of the Northeast testified to the TUE committee that her organization has repeatedly been denied full-party status by the DPU, despite receiving such status in New Hampshire.

“We have stopped trying,” Kristofferson said, adding that the DPU has consistently denied full-party status to other non-industry organizations like the Conservation Law Foundation and the Sierra Club.

National Grid opposed this bill in written testimony submitted to the TUE Committee, saying that the result of the legislation would be that “the siting of energy facilities would become more difficult, more contentious, more political and possibly more frequently appealed.”

The Future of Competitive Electric Supply

Another major focus of the legislative session has been the role of competitive electricity suppliers in the state. A report released earlier this year by the Massachusetts Office of the Attorney General found that competitive suppliers cost residents of the state over $500 million between 2015 and 2021, compared to the cost of the default supply service.

House Bill 3196 and Senate Bill 2106 would move to ultimately ban competitive residential electricity suppliers in the state, and are supported by the Healey Administration, the attorney general’s office and the City of Boston.

“It is egregious that we allow this industry to continue to harm and prey upon people that are really struggling,” said Attorney General Andrea Campbell. The attorney general’s office’s recent report on competitive suppliers found low-income customers and residents of color to be disproportionately affected by these added costs.

Campbell said enforcing existing regulations and targeting individual predatory suppliers is extremely time- and resource-intensive and is a distraction for the office’s other priorities.

“We don’t take it lightly to ban an entire industry,” Campbell said. “They have chosen not to follow regulations, and when we try to go after them it is very difficult … some go out of business, enter bankruptcy, so we can’t even get those resources back to offer the restitution to these consumers that they deserve and are entitled to.”

Barrett indicated he’s open to eliminating competitive electric suppliers in the state, while highlighting the need to reform the default utility service.

In contrast, Roy said he would prefer to pursue reforms instead of an outright ban.

“Truthfully, I’m not a fan of putting the competitive suppliers out of business because of a few bad apples that are out there,” Roy said, calling for more oversight and policing from the attorney general’s office and DPU.

“I think the good players in this space have a lot to offer,” Roy said.

Gas System Emissions and the Role of Public Power

“In general, I’d like to move some costs off of consumers’ monthly electric bills that more properly belong on their monthly gas bills,” Sen. Mike Barrett told RTO Insider.

Barrett said the state needs to move away from its reliance on natural gas to meet its emissions goals, adding that by shifting some costs from electric rates to gas rates, the state could provide an economic incentive for the adoption of electrified heating systems.

“I’ve felt for a long time that natural gas prices are unduly low, because of course we don’t have a price on carbon,” Barrett said. “Getting the price of natural gas right would mean accounting for all the pollution impacts for which it’s responsible.”

Roy agreed with the need to transition away from natural gas but said reducing the state’s dependence on the fuel will be an extended process, and that the safety of the gas system needs to be a priority.

“We’re going to have to transition, obviously, away from fossil fuels, but that’s going to take some time,” Roy said. “How we do that? I want to look at the possibility of using some blended fuels that will lower the emissions in the meantime. And I do believe we need to replace any piping that is dangerous and is hazardous to human life and property.”

Concerning who is allowed to build and operate gas system alternatives like networked geothermal, Barrett said he wants to ensure that utilities are not given another monopoly in the state.

“There’s no reason why networked geothermal should not be public power, much as a municipal light department represents public power,” Barrett said. “Public power always needs to be part of the conversation.”

Featuring an even more expansive view on the role of public power, House Bill 3679, introduced by Rep. Mike Connolly, would create a task force to study the potential for a public takeover of the state’s investor-owned utilities, echoing the ongoing push for consumer-owned electric utilities in Maine (See Maine Voters to Decide on Upending Utility Landscape in 2023.)

“With the man-made climate disaster looming over the future of our planet, we must reorient each and every sector of our economy toward sustainability and equity,” Connolly wrote in his testimony supporting the bill. “We can’t do that effectively or quickly enough with corporate entities such as National Grid and Eversource extracting profits from our electric and gas utility customers and exerting their influence over policy decisions. With this legislation, we wish to start a process for considering how we can pursue new models of public ownership, where consumers, utility workers, and our environment are all given the ultimate priority.”

Concerning such an expansive public takeover of the state’s gas and electric utilities, Barrett expressed concern about the amount of money that likely would be spent by the utility industry in opposition to any serious effort to bring utilities under public ownership.

In Maine, a 2023 ballot measure to initiate a consumer takeover of the state’s electric utilities has been meet with millions of dollars in opposition funding. Avangrid — the parent company of Central Maine Power — has spent over $13 million as the main funder of a group called Maine Affordable Energy, founded in opposition to the ballot measure.

The Massachusetts legislative session extends until Nov. 4, and the TUE Committee has hearings scheduled through late September. As recent climate bills in the state have come together late in the session, discussions over new climate, utility and energy legislation could extend well through the fall.

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ACORE Report Highlights Billions of Dollars in PJM’s Generator Queue

Billions of dollars and thousands of jobs are tied up in PJM’s generator interconnection queue, which could be unlocked if the RTO efficiently reformed it, the American Council on Renewable Energy said in a report released Wednesday.

The report, “Power Up PJM,” found that moving forward with just the changes already approved by FERC could lead to $33 billion in investment and 199,000 job-years, defined by ACORE as the full-time equivalent of one job for one year. (See FERC Approves PJM Plan to Speed Interconnection Queue.)

If PJM had proactively developed sufficient transmission capacity as well as enacting the revisions, it could have enabled another 100,000 job-years and $17 billion in additional capital investments in the next four years, according to the report.

PJM is just starting to implement the changes, which will move its queue from a first-come, first-served serial process to a first-ready, first-served cluster study approach, said Noah Strand, ACORE policy associate and a co-author of the report.

“Under this first-come, first-served approach, each project withdrawal would prompt a restudy of the preceding applications without the departing project in the model,” Strand said on a web conference with reporters.

That worked when the queue was mainly hooking up new natural gas plants located relatively close to load, but now it needs to connect many more renewable projects that are often farther away from load — meaning they face higher interconnection costs, as transmission planning does not account for future generation.

“Data has shown that renewables pay disproportionately high upgrade costs relative to conventional fuels such as natural gas,” Strand said. “And those costs have multiplied in recent years, sometimes enough to exceed the costs of building the projects themselves.”

Often developers do not find out how much they will have to pay for upgrades until late in the process, which can kill off otherwise commercially viable projects, he added.

As of March, the queue had grown to more than 2,600 projects totaling 260 GW; about 85% of those were renewables — enough to replace all the generation in the RTO, Strand said.

The queue data in ACORE’s report does not reflect offshore wind because of the use of FERC Order 1000’s State Agreement Approach, which has been used by New Jersey and is likely to be picked up by Maryland, Strand said. (See NJ BPU Backs Plan for 2nd Grid Upgrade Process with PJM.)

Based on how much is in the queue and the historic completion rates of planned projects, a reasonable estimate is that PJM will add about 34 GW of new renewables as it implements the approved changes in the next few years, Strand said.

“We don’t expect that 100% of the renewable projects in PJM’s queue will be completed, but our report holds that the development of new transmission is key to increasing the number that do get built, namely if PJM opts for the large-scale, high-voltage lines that are most needed,” Strand said.

Getting that long-range transmission built would require additional changes to PJM’s process, which are the subject of a pending Notice of Proposed Rulemaking at FERC. (See FERC Issues First Proposal out of Transmission Proceeding.)

But getting the needed transmission buildout will require more than FERC action, with the American Clean Power Association’s Brendan Casey saying congressional action is required.

“I think permitting reform is essential, especially when we talk about long-range transmission,” Casey said. “Some of these projects are taking 10 to 20 years from inception to start construction, and it’s just not sustainable.”

Getting transmission built out to meet some state policies in an RTO as diverse as PJM will be tricky, with 13 states that have varying levels of commitment to combating climate change. But several speakers on the webinar argued that the economic benefits highlighted in ACORE’s queue report are enough to entice any state to build out transmission.

“The projects waiting in PJM’s queue have economic benefits to offer all states and all communities where they’re being developed, red or blue. That’s one piece,” the Rocky Mountain Institute’s Katie Siegner said. “And the electricity cost benefits of these increasingly affordable new generation sources is another piece that should incentivize a bunch of different stakeholders across party lines and across different states to come together to figure out transmission planning.”

A PJM spokesman responded that the RTO “reformed its interconnection queue process with stakeholder approval in record time” and will implement the new rules on July 10.

While the RTO has a large queue, it also noted 44,000 MW of resources, which are mostly renewables, have already cleared the study process, but have yet to be built. Those projects are running into delays elsewhere such as the supply chain, financing, siting or other regulatory issues. “The queue is really not the current issue,” PJM said.