LANSING, Mich. — Michigan Public Service Commission Chair Dan Scripps told members of the state Senate Tuesday that the state’s electric grid is “nowhere it needs to be,” as evidenced by the large number and long duration of utility outages that 1 million residents suffered through in February and early March.
Speaking at budget hearing for the PSC before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee, Scripps said the commission will approve regulatory changes to improve utilities’ performance this week. (See Consumers, DTE Energy on the Hot Seat over Michigan Outages.)
On March 24, the commission will take final action to change how utilities pay credits to customers who lose power for extended periods of time. The proposed rules have gotten the go ahead from the bipartisan Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, Scripps told the subcommittee.
Scripps spoke to the subcommittee after the PSC held public hearings about the outages in Jackson, home of CMS Energy (NYSE:CMS) and Dearborn, a suburb of Detroit, home of DTE Energy (NYSE:DTE).
Commissioners heard a wide variety of complaints from customers about the outages. Scripps told the subcommittee the PSC has had a major focus on outages for the last several years. The state suffers from too many outages and outages that last for too long, he said.
“We have a significant amount of work to do,” Scripps said.
An audit to investigate the state of Michigan’s utilities and how to reduce the number and duration of outages should improve the situation, he said. The PSC issued the bid request last week and hoped to have a decision on a company to conduct the audit by the end of April.
The PSC ordered the audit in October, prompting one senator to ask why it took so long to issue the bid request. Scripps said it was the first time the PSC had sought an audit, and the commission needed time to develop the questions and areas it wanted to focus on. Even so, Scripps said, he was surprised at how long it took. It was “eye opening,” he said.
Sen. Sylvia Santana (D), who represents Dearborn, said she hoped the PSC would act on the audit’s recommendations — which are not expected before April 2024 — before considering any rate hike requests by the utilities.
The subcommittee chair, Sen. Mary Cavanagh (D), asked if the PSC would consider requiring more lines to be put underground to help reduce outages. Utility executives have also said they will look at moving some lines underground.
Scripps said there was no single fix for reducing outages, but that moving lines underground — especially in some areas where it may be cheaper than trying to keep vegetative growth controlled — could be an option.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: This story has been updated with comments from MISO.]
NEW ORLEANS — FERC Commissioner James Danly paid a surprise visit to MISO’s Board of Directors meeting Thursday following a snag in the RTO’s new capacity accreditation process that will delay the planned April capacity auction.
Danly urged MISO’s leadership to “recommit” to market fundamentals. He said the grid operator must ensure that its prices incent resource adequacy and that it follows “steady, deliberate” changes to its tariff.
MISO will experience high capacity prices when scarcity conditions are present, Danly said.
“As the old saying goes, the solution to high prices is high prices,” he said.
FERC issued a show-cause order to the RTO on March 17, directing it to recalculate a systemwide capacity ratio used to validate accreditation values for planning resources or explain why it shouldn’t have to (EL23-46).
MISO said it will recalculate seasonal accredited capacity ratios but doing so will likely delay its first four-season auction. Its original unforced capacity to seasonal accredited capacity ratio erroneously counted some previously excused planned outages against some generators’ availability. (See FERC Order May Delay MISO’s 1st Seasonal Capacity Auction.)
Danly discouraged MISO from “chopping and changing” its market design, saying reactionary alterations make it “rationally impossible” for market participants to respond to and prepare for structural changes. He said his advice extended to other grid operators.
MISO told RTO Insider after the meeting that Danly’s appearance was coordinated weeks prior between it and FERC, though it did not tell stakeholders he was coming. The RTO said that as a rule, it does not place addresses from FERC commissioners on its meeting agendas. It also said that when it scheduled Danly’s visit, it had nothing to do with its seasonal capacity auction.
MISO CEO John Bear said staff will ensure stakeholders have enough time to understand the recalculated ratio and how it affects thermal resources’ accreditation before running the auction.
The recalculated ratios are expected to result in “reduced accreditation values for individual market participants and on an aggregate basis,” MISO says.
During an Advisory Committee meeting Wednesday, Jim Dauphinais, an energy consultant representing multiple MISO end-use customers, said it’s important that the grid operator back up and make sure it’s using correct values in the auction. He said while it was “unfortunate” how it played out, FERC’s order and subsequent delay illustrates how untested market changes can cause disruptions when systems and people aren’t prepared.
“Quite frankly, we don’t know if our seasonal construct is working,” Dauphinais said.
The U.S. Department of Energy this week released three reports assessing how the U.S. can decarbonize its economy by 2050 through massive development and deployment of clean hydrogen, advanced nuclear reactors and grid-scale energy storage.
The agency’s Pathways to Commercial Liftoff reports make broad assessments of the current state of the three technologies, which the Biden administration believes will be needed for decarbonization. The study projects the minimum technological advances that must be made by 2035 to attain the 2050 benchmarks.
The documents are also intended as a first step toward encouraging comprehensive communication between DOE and the nation’s industries as the agency sets technology standards and develops funding programs.
“These reports are intended to reinforce dialogue with the private sector, and DOE will be seeking continuous feedback from industry as these reports are updated and revised over time,” the reports’ authors write in an introduction.
Lucia Tian, a senior adviser to the DOE’s chief commercialization officer, reinforced the message during a Tuesday webinar arranged to promote the release of the reports.
“These liftoff reports represent a department-wide initiative to strengthen engagement between the public and private sectors to accelerate the commercialization and deployment of key clean energy technologies,” she said.
The compilations are intended to “create a common fact base” and chart what DOE and industry determine will be the best ways to achieve commercial success of the technologies by midcentury, she added.
The publication of the reports comes three weeks before the agency’s application deadlines for industry and local governments vying for federal matching grants and the designation as a “hydrogen hub.”
DOE has set aside $7 billion to invest in six to 10 regional projects designed to generate clean hydrogen close to where industry will use it, such as in steelmaking, oil refining and concrete manufacturing. DOE has said it intends to award matching grants to hub applications it judges to have the best chance of success.
That funding and the billions that will follow to develop the “liftoff” of clean hydrogen and other energy technologies come out of the Investment and Jobs Act in 2021 and Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, which together will direct billions of dollars in funding and tax credits to projects designed to move the economy from fossil fuels to renewable energy.
The legislation was also intended to identify and assist critical, emerging technologies, said David Crane, director of the newly created DOE Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations.
“These ‘Liftoff’ reports in many respects [reflect] the clear intent of Congress to expand one of DOE’s traditional missions of funding the demonstration of new energy technologies at scale [to] funding demonstration projects that will provide enduring value to American energy consumers because they are commercially and financially viable,” Crane said.
Citing hydrogen as an example, Crane said the government’s objective is to “de-risk hydrogen hubs to the extent necessary to attract private sector project sponsors.”
“Consistent with the entire history of the American energy industry, these hydrogen mega-projects are going to be developed built and operated by the private sector, not by the federal government. The clean energy transition will be private sector-led and government-enabled,” Crane said.
Vanessa Z. Chan, chief commercialization officer and director of DOE’s Office of Technology Transition, addressed the importance of advanced energy storage to the continued deployment of renewable energy.
The Biden administration’s goal is to deploy 10 to 15 GW of additional storage capacity annually by 2035, she said, a target that will not be achieved without the development of a supply chain. DOE’s goal is to reduce the cost of long-duration energy storage (LDES) by 90%.
“LDES is critical to the clean energy transition and has enormous potential to really help support the high renewable penetration because it helps overcome intermittency when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing, while simultaneously improving our grid resilience,” Chan said.
“LDES technology is still maturing, and investors are still cautious. There are over 100 LDES providers spanning a wide range of technology types, which are vying for this market. That is exciting because it gives a sector a lot of shots. To get to liftoff, the LDES technologies are going to require public and private investment to drive down costs,” she said
‘Clear Value Proposition’
Jigar Shah, head of the DOE’s loan program office, estimated the nation will need to build and deploy 100 to 200 GW in new nuclear capacity by 2050.
“I think advanced nuclear has a clear value proposition as a clean, firm power source to complement renewables on the path towards decarbonization,” said Shah, adding that he believes 10 new reactors must be ordered by 2025 if advanced nuclear is going to play a meaningful role.
Clockwise from top left: David Crane, Clean Energy Demonstrations; Lucia Tian, Office of Technology Transitions; Vanessa Chan, Technology Transitions; and Jigar Shah, Loan Programs | DOE
Shah also said the deployment of new reactors will create “high-paying jobs with concentrated economic benefits for communities most impacted by the energy transition such as coal communities,” a reference to DOE suggestions that small modular reactors still under development will be safe enough to locate on the grounds of former coal-fired power plants, which has existing connections to the electrical grid.
DOE’s Commercial Liftoff of Advanced Nuclear keeps nuclear power in the mix and looks for ways to stimulate new construction. The report says the U.S. nuclear industry has the potential to “scale to 300 GW by 2050 — driven by deployment of advanced nuclear technologies.”
But the study also finds that development is currently stymied, a situation that puts overall decarbonization goals at risk.
“Utilities and other potential customers recognize the need for nuclear power, but perceived risks of uncontrolled cost overruns and project abandonment have limited committed orders for new reactors,” the report said.
ISO-NE touted its role in New England’s clean energy transition on Tuesday as it announced the finalized results of Forward Capacity Auction 17, for the 2026-2027 procurement period.
Non-emitting generators secured nearly a quarter of the auction’s total obligations, the RTO said.
“The 7,620 MW of obligations secured by these resources represents an 11% increase over the 6,844 MW of obligations secured by non-carbon-emitting resources in the 12th Forward Capacity Auction, held in 2018,” the grid operator said in a press release.
Solar and wind generation accounted for 3.5% of all obligations in FCA 17, and battery storage accounted for another 3.5%.
In that vein, the auction may also signal that an end to the use of coal for generation in New England is near: The region’s last remaining coal-fired plant, Merrimack Station in Bow, N.H., submitted a dynamic delist bid and did not win a capacity supply obligation.
In its detailed explanation of the auction, the grid operator said that its reviews of delist bids, including three permanent ones totaling 12.5 MW and two retirements worth 7.8 MW, did “not show the need to retain for reliability any resources”; all of the bids were therefore accepted.
Among the significant delist bids were two oil units at the Middletown plant in Connecticut and the Millennium gas plant in Massachusetts.
ISO-NE also confirmed that the clearing prices it listed in its initial announcement were accurate: $2.59/kW-month in all zones and import interfaces except for the New Brunswick interface, which cleared at $2.551.
WASHINGTON — The energy transition still presents some key hurdles that need to be overcome for it to occur successfully, speakers said at Electric Power Supply Association’s (EPSA) Competitive Power Summit on Tuesday.
“We need to think broadly about how we can collaborate to ensure reliability,” EPSA President Todd Snitchler said. “We’re looking at working through a period of energy expansion, not merely passively watching an energy transition.”
Getting to 100% renewable power plus electrifying key new areas of demand such as home heating and transportation means the industry will have to build more supply than it has now as it cleans up its generation stack, he added.
“Reliability has been a top priority for as long as competitive markets have been in place, but competing interests from policymakers and regulators have drawn attention away from that first responsibility,” Snitchler said.
NERC CEO Jim Robb noted that the industry has been through a number of high-profile events in recent years that have kept his organization busy, from winter freezes to physical attacks on grid infrastructure.
“Many of the issues and challenges that we’re starting to see are really coming at us through the generation side of the business, which is a little bit different than what we dealt with when the ERO was originally stood out in the mid-2000s,” Robb said. “And those issues are particularly around fuel supply and energy production.”
The key challenge facing the grid is reliably transitioning to a more intermittent resource mix while preserving the key reliability services that traditional, synchronous power plants provide. The grid’s dependence on natural gas and the lack of coordination were “exposed in Technicolor” during the outages in Texas and its neighboring states in February 2021, Robb said.
“Managing the pace of this transition is going to be key to being able to navigate it successfully,” Robb said. “And we’ve seen, through our reliability assessments, a steady decline in the risk profile of the sector of the last five years. And that’s in spite of a very strong aggregate performance, but the risks are clearly growing.”
Extreme weather is becoming more commonplace, and that has huge impacts on demand, especially in markets that use electricity for heat.
“Once the temperature drops to a point where heat pumps can perform, and you switch to electric resistance heating, the demand goes pretty much vertical,” Robb said. “That I think is going to be one of the main headlines coming out of our inquiry into Winter Storm Elliott,” referring to the storm that led to outages in the Southeast over the holidays late last year.
The changing grid also means that weather has a greater impact on generation, as too little or too much wind can knock out power from that renewable resource, or snow and clouds can block sunlight from reaching solar panels.
NERC has recently implemented winterization standards that it started after a cold snap in 2018 and were updated after the winter storm of February 2021.
Robb said that NERC needs to step up the pace of developing new standards so it can adequately respond to the changing grid, but efforts at streamlining the standards development process hit a snag earlier this month when a set of proposed changes to the organization’s Standards Processes Manual (SPM) failed on its first ballot. He said that industry stakeholders had not been particularly constructive in that effort.
“Our goals here are to speed the process, eliminate low value-added time sinks; actually maintain stakeholder engagement, stakeholder ownership of the outcomes; and we do want to give the board the authority to set meaningful deadlines to move things along,” Robb said.
The proposed SPM changes included creating a tiered system of comment periods, under which the initial 45-day comment and balloting periods would be followed by shorter comment periods. Another significant change would have removed the requirement for a final ballot to confirm the results of the most recent successful ballot, if the standard drafting team (SDT) felt that no further “substantive changes” were needed. (See NERC Standards Process Changes Headed for Public Comment.)
The changes were approved by NERC’s Standards Committee in January, following an order issued by the Board of Trustees at its November meeting. Trustee Sue Kelly said in December that the board was trying to address concerns that NERC’s “deliberative” standards development process was not keeping up with the increasingly rapid pace of industry change. (See NERC Board Member Argues for Increased Authority.)
Industry rejected the proposed SPM changes by a significant margin, with 118 votes against and 76 in favor. Some commenters, such as the Northern California Power Agency (NCPA), said the revisions did not adequately address issues of “due process, openness and balance of interests, [which] are already problematic under current SPM rules.” NCPA also complained that “SAR [standard authorization request] drafting teams do not always appear to make an effort to resolve SAR objections” as the SPM currently requires.
Commenters also objected specifically to the proposed shortening of later ballot periods, with Andrea Jessup of the Bonneville Power Administration pointing out that “industry subject matter experts are all very busy and … need the full 45 days to allow time for” full review. Jessup said that reducing the time for comments “would likely cause less industry participation” in the process.
Referring to the idea of eliminating the final ballot, the Midwest Reliability Organization’s NERC Standards Review Forum said that “only language approved by industry should be considered by the Board of Trustees for approval,” a view echoed by multiple commenters. NCPA said it could only agree with the proposal if the SDT makes no changes to the standard that passed the final ballot, explaining that “one person’s … idea of ‘not making a substantive change’ may not always be consistent with entities that voted for the proposal prior to … change.”
LS Power Sees Much Work Ahead
LS Power Generation President Nathan Hanson argued that the industry was just getting started on the transition to cleaner energy.
“If you really step back and think how much progress we’ve really made facilitating the transition, either on the regulatory basis or even legislatively, I don’t think we’ve really made any ground, and we’re basically a year closer to having to manage the issues that are showing up at the grid in California and Texas, or PJM and New England, over the Christmas period,” Hanson said.
That changeover needs to happen in a reliable and affordable way to avoid any customer revolts, he added.
“We have legislation and regulations that are going to allow as many renewables into the space as we can. The question is … can you manage the grid when you do that?” Hanson said. “And I would argue we’re on the tip of being able to manage it effectively even right now.”
Keeping existing plants running is the cheapest way the industry can keep on balancing the grid, but that value is not coming through in many markets, leading to retirements of resources that could help maintain reliability even if they are only run rarely.
Robb also called out the RTOs, saying that they need to revisit their market rules in light of recent issues the industry has faced.
“RTOs really need to revisit their market rules and create some way through market incentives and compensation to synthetically recreate the obligation to serve that guided this industry for such a long period of time,” Robb said. “We allow too many decisions to be made based on probabilities, economic returns, the likely scenarios going forward; and those are great. And those work for 99% of the time. It’s that 1% though; if we get outside of that, we get into real trouble.”
Shell’s Comer Endorses the US Approach to Energy Transition
Shell Energy Americas President Carolyn Comer said her firm was well poised to move on the energy agenda and offered praise to the U.S.’ “carrot-heavy” policy approach to guiding the energy transition.
The main issue is getting clean sources of energy to scale up because as that work continues, demand is going to grow, with 2 billion more people expected by 2050 and demand for power expected to double globally in that same period, she said. Sometimes the arguments get too simplistic, such as pitting the transition to clean energy against affordability.
“I would argue, actually, if we don’t clean up our act and we don’t deal with climate change, or we don’t tackle the environmental stresses that we’re causing, the cost will be greater than the cost of investing in clean technologies in the first place,” Comer said.
While there is usually no line item on a power bill, customers are paying for catastrophic climate events from wildfires in the West to the deep freeze that led to days of outages in Texas in 2021, she added.
The Inflation Reduction Act will help the industry move on the transition with a number of “carrots” in the form of tax breaks and other forms of investment in clean technologies.
“I think it’s the right way to go because it protects the industrial base at the same time as we actually embark on an accelerated energy transition,” Comer said. “And so, I think it’s actually kind of leading the world from that perspective.”
Calpine has the largest geothermal fleet in the world, a collection of more than 350 wells with a nameplate capacity of about 1,590 MW, which CEO Thad Hill says the company is hoping to expand. But, in a “fireside chat” with EPSA CEO Snitchler, Hill said he does not see geothermal as a game-changer for the energy transition, as building new capacity, specifically closed-loop systems, will be expensive.
At the same time, Hill does see carbon capture as one of the new technologies that will be critical in reaching national and some state-level decarbonization goals, and Calpine hopes to lead the sector as it develops.
Turning to the summit’s key theme of reliability, Hill said, the lessons of the February 2021 winter storm in Texas — including the need for better forecasting and gas-electric coordination — have been addressed, but challenges still lie ahead.
“We’re in a very different era now. We’ve got a lot more intermittence. Our traditional definition of what was reliable [is changing],” he said. “Now we have a huge amount of other qualities of risk. We need to talk about reliability from a brand-new standpoint. We’re beginning to see that in every single organized market in the country right now.”
Compensation for reliability is already being rethought, but further changes may be needed as new intermittent renewable energy comes online, Hill said. “A system … based on how capacity got measured [is not] going to work when you’re putting in tens of thousands of megawatts of super-subsidized resources that make sense — almost regardless of the market conditions — to build economically,” he said. “So, we’ve got to think through how we’re going to compensate that.”
He pointed to PJM’s proposals for capacity accreditation as a potential solution, as well as more performance-based compensations schemes now being discussed across the industry.
“I happen to think you should get hammered if you don’t perform,” he said. “But then you should be able to bid some chance risk into the capacity price you’re going to receive in the market.”
Hill also sees the increase in corporate clean energy goals and procurement as a positive sign for independent power producers in competitive markets. Innovation on the generation side and the customer side could provide the best way to keep costs down, and he sees rate design, in particular, keeping non-bypassable charges on the low side, as a critical factor.
“I actually think you know, on this construct, we’re actually aligned more with our customers, our large customers,” he said. “The more non-bypassable charges we have, the less room there is for innovation … whether it’s behind the meter, generation [or] storage.”
The Biden administration last week launched a $2.5 billion program to fund EV charging stations across the nation, but the state of Nevada doesn’t plan to apply.
Instead, the Nevada Department of Transportation will support applications from local governments and other entities that apply for the funding.
The new funding, through the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Charging and Fueling Infrastructure (CFI) discretionary grant program, is a complement to the federal National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program. (See DOT Opens New Round of IIJA Funding for EV Chargers.)
All 50 states plus Puerto Rico and D.C. submitted NEVI plans last year, which the Federal Highway Administration approved in September. The goal is to create a national network of public EV charging stations. Nevada is receiving $38 million in NEVI funds.
“At this point, Nevada is looking to spend the NEVI funds. We are not looking to apply for discretionary grants,” said Kandee Bahr Worley, NDOT’s division chief for sustainability and emerging transportation. “We’re hoping that our MPOs, [metropolitan planning organizations] our cities, our counties and other entities would be reaching out for those funds for projects that they’re putting together.”
Bahr Worley said NDOT is willing to write letters of support for funding applicants, offer grant-writing assistance “and hopefully win those grants and bring that money into Nevada.”
Bahr Worley’s comments came during a Southwest Energy Efficiency Project (SWEEP) webinar last week on funding opportunities for EV infrastructure in Nevada.
Travis Madsen, SWEEP’s transportation program director, said that Nevada is one of the top 10 states when it comes to EV market share. Last year, nearly 10% of light-duty vehicle sales in Nevada were EVs. Close to 50,000 light-duty EVs will be on Nevada’s roads by the end of the year, he projected.
“Nevada is well on its way in the journey toward transportation electrification,” Madsen said.
Interstates, U.S. Highways
With the growing number of EVs comes the need for more public charging. Efforts to build a statewide charging network in Nevada got underway with the Nevada Electric Highway program, which funded about 30 EV charging stations.
The NEVI program will build on that work, and Bahr Worley gave an overview of Nevada’s NEVI progress. In the first year of funding, NDOT will focus on the state’s six interstates: I-15, I-80, I-11, I-580, I-215 and I-515.
Two new charging stations are planned — in Carson City and in either Jean or Primm along the I-15 corridor. Three other stations, in Moapa, Carlin and Wells, will be upgraded to meet NEVI standards. The program requires at least four charging ports per station with a power output of at least 15 kW each.
The second year will focus on U.S. highways 50, 395, 95 and 93. Those highways, along with the interstates, are designated alternative fuel corridors, which are the NEVI program’s priority.
In some cases, NDOT is requesting exceptions from NEVI program requirements to space charging stations 50 miles apart and locate them no more than a mile away from the highway. Bahr Worley noted that Nevada highways run through some unpopulated areas.
“Not only do we not have population, we do not have electricity at certain areas,” she said.
And NDOT is concentrating its efforts on areas outside of NV Energy territory. The utility, whose territory covers much of the state, has its own transportation electrification plans, mandated by Senate Bill 448 of 2021.
Nevada is also talking to Tesla about its plans, announced last month, to open some of its charging stalls to non-Tesla EVs.
One listener asked whether NEVI funds would be available for charging stations along state highways, some of which are heavily traveled.
Bahr Worley said that’s a possibility, if money is leftover after the charging network along U.S. highways and interstates is built out.
CFI Flexibility
The newly launched CFI discretionary grant program is another possible funding source for charging sites on state highways.
The program has two components. In the Corridor Program, funding is reserved for EV charging infrastructure along alternative fuel corridors, such as interstates and U.S. highways.
But the Community Program provides more flexibility, with funding available for EV charging stations on any public road, at public buildings or parks, or at publicly accessible parking facilities owned or managed by a private entity.
Entities that are eligible to apply include states, local governments, MPOs, special districts or authorities with a transportation function, public and state colleges and universities, and tribal governments.
In the first round of CFI funding, $700 million will be available. The application deadline is May 30. A webinar on March 22 will cover more details.
Both the NEVI and CFI programs were established through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). Other programs expanded under IIJA also offer funding for EV charging, infrastructure planning and workforce development.
To help sort out the various federal funding options, the Electrification Coalition has developed a tool called the EV Funding Finder.
Webinar speaker Will Drier, a policy manager with the Electrification Coalition, said the tool includes information such as matching-fund requirements and whether money from different funds can be combined or “stacked.”
The tool includes case studies on different transportation electrification scenarios, such as a city that plans to electrify its fleet.
More information on the EV Funding Finder is available here.
The U.S. must change its permitting processes to deploy the $2 trillion allocated for energy in last year’s industrial policy bills and ensure the emissions reductions needed to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, speakers said during a webinar hosted by Our Energy Policy Wednesday.
Rep. Pete Stauber (R-Minn.), whose Northeast Minnesota district is home to the nation’s biggest reserves of key clean energy industry minerals such as nickel, cobalt and platinum, said a proposal to speed up approval of mining permits has made it into House Republican bill HR 1, which is expected to move to a floor vote in the coming weeks. (See Republicans’ Opening Offer on Permitting is Missing Electric Tx.)
“We have yet to move earth at all on those resources,” Stauber said. “In fact, we have one mining proposal on year 20 of permitting and litigation. Think about that: a proposal to mine the minerals needed for clean energy is being held up for 20 years.”
Without tapping those resources and many others, renewable energy goals will not be attained, he said.
“We are dealing with an incredibly complex permitting landscape that’s influenced by an extraordinarily dynamic regulatory landscape that is — across federal, state [and] local levels — often uncoordinated,” said Karen Hanley, senior vice president at the Permitting Institute. “And when we’re talking about ‘rising tides lift all boats,’ we’re looking for good governance in the permitting process itself.”
Much of the conversation on the Hill has been dominated by the National Environmental Policy Act, which Hanley noted is just one of 65 federal laws and regulations that impact permitting, on top of many more rules from the states and local government.
“Where policy comes into play, we consider that to be a separate discussion; the process itself should not be used subjectively to pick winners and losers,” Hanley said.
The permitting process must weigh the benefits of an infrastructure project against its impact on the area where it is built, other speakers said.
“It’s all just a matter of trade-offs,” said Paul Phifer, director of permitting and development at Attentive Energy. “I mean, all permitting to me is an expression of our values. So, it’s an expression of risk management.”
Phifer’s firm is a subsidiary of French oil major TotalEnergies, which is developing an offshore wind project off the coast of New York. It would make sense for Congress to change the permitting laws to reflect some of the new tradeoffs faced by energy development now, he argued.
Setting the Tone
Much of the conversation on rule changes has focused on “categorical exclusions” that would give energy projects of preferred types or in specific areas an easy path through the process if they have limited environmental impacts, said Hanley. The Coast Guard must review some offshore projects, but it has a checklist it can apply to execute such categorical exclusions that ensure it has double checked that its oversight is not needed for specific projects, she added.
Accelerating the permitting process does not necessarily require a raft of new laws but rather Congress being clearer about how they are to be implemented, Phifer said.
“That’s the kind of thing that sets the tone that I would say that filters down … through the federal agencies even to the states, as opposed to tweaking and making minor regulatory revisions across the 65 laws that Karen mentioned,” Phifer said.
Getting any changes through Congress this year will require bipartisanship, with both chambers closely divided and controlled by different parties.
“I think there’s interest on both sides of the aisle, in particular, in long linear projects,” Hanley said. “I think there’s a recognition that where our energy needs are, isn’t necessarily the same places where the sources are, or the generation can be.”
Communities located between areas with energy resources and bigger sources of demand must often deal with projects that provide them little benefit, which brings up many complexities.
The issue of permitting has been debated for years, and Hanley expects lawmakers to insert many of their older proposals into the package. But she thinks there is opportunity to move forward on a package that addresses “fundamental process corrections” that do not eliminate necessary environmental protections.
“Obviously, all industries have their own little pet asks that they would like to see included in a package like that,” said Emily Wong, American Petroleum Institute’s director of federal relations. “But I think it’s been pretty clear from our discussion today, that we’ve all identified a lot of the same big-picture issues. And it’s certainly our hope, at API at least, that there’s enough agreement there for us to see something move across the finish line.”
December’s winter storm and early February’s cold snap challenged the New York grid, causing outages and operational flow orders, but they did not cause any emergencies, NYISO told the Operating Committee last week.
Temperatures this winter were higher than normal, with the average temperature in Central Park during January being 43.5 degrees Fahrenheit, nearly 10 degrees over the 1991-2020 average. This January ranked highest in terms of average hourly temperature (37.5 F) among all years since 2011, and there were only 11 days in the month with a peak load of more than 20,000 MW, with the average since 2011 being 26.
But the two extreme weather events caused temperatures to drop rapidly. Aaron Markham, NYISO vice president of operations, noted that on Dec. 24, it was 50 F at noon in both Albany and New York City; by 8 p.m. that night, it was 15 F. Both natural gas pipelines and gas-fired generators experienced forced outages during the December storm because of frozen production wells and compressor stations.
Still, peak load only reached 22,004 MW during the storm, partly because, Markham said, it coincided with the Christmas holidays, which happened to be over the weekend. Conditions were tighter during the February cold snap, with the peak load of the season occurring on Feb. 3 at 23,369 MW, just shy of NYISO’s forecast of 23,893 MW. Temperatures dropped to as low as ‑2.3 F on Feb. 4, averaging 16.5 and 9.5 on Feb. 3 and 4, respectively.
However, Markham noted that there was little precipitation during the February event, and gas supply interruptions and plant outages were less than during the storm.
Markham also highlighted that significant amounts of stored fuel was burned during the two events, concerning the ISO about replenishments for next winter. NYISO also heavily relied on oil-fired generation during the peak periods, with oil supplying 23% of power during the peak hour; gas supplied 24%. Gas prices in Iroquois Zone 2 reached $135.50/MMBtu on Feb. 5.
Nevertheless, NYISO was able to operate through the two events without calling on demand response resources or issuing any emergency actions, such as voltage reductions or public appeals for conservation.
Ann Arbor City Council voted unanimously Monday to begin negotiations with DTE Energy (NYSE: DTE) immediately on a new gas franchise agreement aligned with the city’s A2ZERO plan to reach carbon neutrality by 2030.
DTE’s 30-year franchise agreement, which allows the utility to use the city’s rights of way and provide gas service to its residents, expires in 2027 but can be revoked by the city before then.
The resolution authorizing the renegotiation process (R-23-101) directs city staff to “ensure that any new or amended proposed franchise is aligned, to the fullest extent possible, with the city’s A2ZERO goals and best practices regarding uses of the city’s rights of way, without compromising the ability of community members to heat or cook in their homes and businesses.”
It notes that local governments, including Chicago, Salt Lake City and San Diego, have “successfully advanced affordability, equity, and clean energy goals” in their franchise negotiations.
City Sustainability Director Missy Stults has said the city is also watching efforts in Massachusetts to replace gas service with district-level geothermal systems to provide heating and cooling.
Ann Arbor Mayor Christopher Taylor said negotiating a new agreement made sense, and is, “consistent with the wishes of Ann Arbor voters who overwhelmingly passed a proposal in November to provide more clean energy choices and reduce dangerous pollution. Using clean, renewable energy to heat our homes and businesses will improve public health, reduce dangerous pollution that causes asthma, cancer and lung diseases, and save lives.”
City officials also said they will hold public listening sessions to get feedback from city residents as officials move forward with the negotiations. No dates for those public meetings have been set.
DTE spokesman Chris Lamphear said the utility “looks forward to having productive discussions with Ann Arbor leaders as we plot a course toward a cleaner energy future, which is a goal we both share. We are pleased to see the city continuing to collect feedback from its residents and businesses on the best paths forward, and we believe we can explore a range of possibilities that ensure the Ann Arbor community continues to have the safe and affordable energy it needs for decades to come.”
Lamphear said the company is working to reduce carbon dioxide and methane emissions in natural gas by 80% by 2040. With its renewable energy sources and local participation in the company’s MiGreen program, Lamphear said DTE has helped Ann Arbor reach 30% of its overall carbon reduction goal.
Ann Arbor has taken the most aggressive actions to reach carbon neutrality in Michigan. It has considered a local ordinance prohibiting new buildings from using natural gas but not acted on the proposal.
The city finds itself in a bit of a conundrum because it also is looking to develop new housing and has given initial approval for plans for a major housing development that would use natural gas for heating, drawing opposition from some city residents opposed to continued gas use.
DTE has said it would oppose a city ban on using natural gas in new construction, and Republicans in the Michigan legislature have introduced a bill barring local governments from preventing the use of natural gas.
FERC on Tuesday approved a MISO system support resource (SSR) agreement that will keep a Wisconsin coal plant operating for reliability purposes.
Under the agreement, Manitowoc Public Utilities will continue to operate its Lakefront Unit 9 coal-fired unit, effective Feb. 1 (ER23-914).
In a separate order, the commission questioned Manitowoc’s request for $1.03 million in monthly compensation for the plant, saying it might be overcharging customers for the one-year SSR. FERC established hearing and settlement judge procedures to settle the matter (ER23-977).
MISO told the commission that it would face unresolved thermal overloading and steady-state voltage issues on 12 constraints if Lakefront 9 was permitted to suspend operations as scheduled. The 63-MW unit began operations in 2006 and serves load in Manitowoc, Wis. MISO said there weren’t any nearby resources available to redispatch, viable transmission reconfiguration options, or enough demand-side management to avoid an SSR. (See MISO Proposing 2nd SSR Agreement for Retiring Coal Unit.)
FERC found that the RTO had no “feasible alternatives that could resolve the identified reliability problems … to avoid the need for the Lakefront Unit 9 SSR agreement.” The grid operator uses the agreements to keep generators online past their retirement dates as a last-resort measure for system reliability.
Manitowoc intended to suspend the unit and convert it for renewable fuel sources. It said it plans to bring the unit back to full commercial operation by the end of January 2026 “when the alternative fuel source becomes available in sufficient quantity.”
The municipal utility said it needs more than $1 million to cover operations and maintenance labor expenses, administrative expenses, non-labor maintenance expenses, site security, insurance, carrying charges and various fees and taxes.
Wisconsin Public Service and WPPI Energy protested Manitowoc’s proposed amount, arguing the utility showed no basis for its cost projections and estimates.
WPPI said Manitowoc used “unsubstantiated forecast inputs” in its cost-of-service model, “impeding the commission and consumers from undertaking a proper evaluation of the proposed charges.”
FERC agreed. It said its preliminary analysis indicated that Manitowoc’s requested amount might be unreasonable.
The SSR designation is MISO’s second within a year. In October, it received FERC permission to instate an SSR agreement for Ameren Missouri’s 1.2-GW Rush Island coal plant. The commission also cast doubt on the reasonableness of the monthly compensation in that proceeding. (See FERC: Rush Island Plant’s Extension Essential to MISO Reliability.)
