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September 6, 2024

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Panelists Discuss Obstacles to Rooftop Solar Installation

The nation’s regulated electric utilities are an obstacle to the growth of home and community solar and will be an obstacle to the Biden administration achieving decarbonization of the nation’s electrical grid by 2035, a major solar developer charged Wednesday.

“I think you’ve got the 20th century playing against the 21st century, quite frankly,” Jeff Weiss, executive chairman of the D.C.-based Distributed Sun, said during a webinar produced by OurEnergyPolicy. It was the launch of a broadside attack on utilities about three-quarters into the hourlong discussion, which was focused on distributed generation and its developing role on the grid.

“I think the utilities are playing a stacked deck of cards because of the way the regulatory system works in most states, Weiss said. “In most states the public service commissions do what the utilities ask them to do. That’s a bad game. It’s not going to help the environment. It’s not going to help environmental justice. It’s not going to build renewable energy. It’s going to slow everything.

“I think that they, writ large, hire a well known advisory services firm … called ‘Stall Hinder & Delay.’”

That utilities may be reluctant to completely transform the nation’s generation and distribution system in less than 15 years is not a revelation. The Edison Electric Institute, a trade group for the industry, pointed out how extraordinarily difficult such a change would be as early as a year ago. (See EEI: Net Zero by 2035 ‘Incredibly Difficult’.)

The straight-from-the shoulder assessment from Weiss came in response to more gentle discussion that began with a comment from Marilyn Brown, interim chair of the School of Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology, on the problem of low-income households not being able afford the cost of home solar.

Discussion moderator Michael Dorsey, a partner with IberSun North America in Michigan, responded, “I’m glad you flagged … some of the dissonance in some approaches with utilities with respect to distributed energy resources. Where do you see this dissonance between [distributed energy] managers playing out?”

Brown said the problem “is all about return on investment when it’s an investor-owned utility,” and added that utilities in vertically integrated markets “have to have a business case for getting engaged and supporting this effort.”

“It’s got to be clear and profitable, or at least neutral, if others are going to take the business and run with it. So I’m very sympathetic to this problem of incentives. I don’t have an answer,” she said.

Looking to delve deeper into the problem, Dorsey asked for a comment from Weiss and from a fourth participant, Garrett Nilsen, acting director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Technologies Office.

“Does the business case trump the overhang of the climate catastrophe?” asked Dorsey. “We wouldn’t want to have only a business outlook and forget about this other existential crisis.”

Nilsen said he would not weigh in on either side of the argument, except to say that the problem is “one of lots of headaches.”

“These are not going to be easy conversations, given the number of parties that are impacted, the number of interests that are entrenched and the number of new interests that want to be playing in the game,” he said.

“It’s not something that’s going to be solved this year or next year, maybe by 2030,” he added. “What’s great is that now we can move to a point from having emotional conversations to trying to figure out how do we dig into the actual data? What does the data tell us about how this works?”

One forecast to which the panelists agreed is that solar will continue to be added to the grid and that the cost of solar technologies will continue to fall.

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New Jersey Lawmakers Push for Equity in Solar, Wind Energy Benefits

New Jersey legislators have advanced legislation to create an Office of Clean Energy Equity and to fund a $20 million a year financing program for state and local government energy efficiency programs.

The Senate Environment and Energy Committee voted 5-0 on Thursday in favor of a bill that would create an office to “promote, guide and oversee the equitable deployment of clean energy, energy efficiency and energy storage programs and technologies” (S336). The program would focus on giving greater access to “overburdened communities,” those that have low-income, minority or tribal residents, or have a large population with limited English proficiency.

The legislation requires the office, located in the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, to create solar and community solar programs that by 2030 benefit 250,000 low-income householders or 35% of the low-income households in the state, whichever is larger.

The bill also would require the board to create 1,600 MW hours of energy storage in overburdened communities and take steps to ensure that clean energy and the process by which it is developed should be accessible to overburdened communities. The legislation requires creation of clean energy workforce development programs for those communities, outreach and recruitment grants to local organizations, and establishing an advisory board that includes representatives of overburdened communities. The office would be funded with 10% of the state’s annual clean energy budget, or at least $50 million.

The bill, which would need the backing of the full Senate and Assembly to get to the governor’s desk, drew the support of a variety of environmental groups, along with the New Jersey State Chamber of Commerce, the Solar Energy Industries Association and the New Jersey State NAACP.

Anjuli Ramos-Busot, director of the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club, called it “critical for New Jersey to include equity as part of its clean energy work.”

“This is imperative so that everyone in our state can fairly access the benefits of renewable energy like solar and wind,” she said. The act, she added, “will help reduce greenhouse gases and co-pollution while saving people money and creating green jobs in communities that are disproportionately affected.”

Funding Energy Efficiency

The committee also backed a bill that would enable the New Jersey Infrastructure Bank to provide loans and financial assistance that state and local governments can use to finance “cost-effective” energy efficiency improvements in government buildings (S419).

The BPU would fund the program, to be known as the Renewable and Efficient Energy Financing program, with an annual allocation of $20 million from the state’s societal benefits charge.

Committee Chairman Bob Smith (D) encouraged his colleagues to see the investment potential of the bill.

“The more renewable [projects] and efficient energy financing that we do, the better off the state’s going to be,” he said. “This is not a freebie; it’s a loan. So, the money comes back to the state.”

In a separate action, Smith re-introduced a bill Thursday that would codify into law parts of Gov. Phil Murphy’s 2019 Energy Masterplan (S1336). They include the goal of putting 330,000 light-duty vehicles on New Jersey streets by 2025; producing at least 35% of the state’s electricity through renewables means by 2025; and ensuring sufficient storage to provide 2 GW of electric power for at least 24 hours by 2035.

Smith introduced the bill in the last legislative session, but although it secured approval of the Senate and the Assembly Environment and Solid Waste Committee and Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, it did not get a full Assembly vote before the session ended in January. The bill was seen as a way to ensure that the state would continue pursuing a clean energy strategy even under future administrations that may be less enthusiastic about the policies in the masterplan. (See Lawmakers Back Putting NJ’s Clean Energy Plan into Law.)

Leaders Urge Haste

Before the advance of the two bills Thursday, BPU President Joseph L. Fiordaliso, in testimony unrelated to the bills, told lawmakers that the threat of climate change is so serious that the cost of fighting it must be accepted. Fiordaliso spoke at a section of the committee hearing set aside for state officials to outline their view of the threat of climate change and what should be done to mitigate it.

“Is clean energy expensive?” he asked. “Yes. But how expensive would it be if we did absolutely nothing?” He added that the benefits of the clean energy “revolution” should be spread across all communities.

“Regardless of location, it is extremely important that all of us have the opportunity to participate,” he said. “Because to mitigate the effects of climate change requires the efforts of each and every one of us.”

Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Commissioner Shawn LaTourette echoed Fiordaliso’s call for urgency.

“We should be doing [clean energy and mitigation programs] and we should be doing them faster,” he said. “Because depending on how fast we do those things, it will determine just how bad it is after 2050.”

In a separate initiative, the Senate Economic Growth Committee on Thursday backed a bill that would require the New Jersey Economic Development Authority to develop a Request for Proposals (RFP) on plans for creating microgrids to support fleets of medium- and heavy-duty electric vehicles (S787). Microgrids could allow the vehicles to continue operating even if the main grid is disabled because of extreme weather events or other disasters.

The RFP, to be developed in consultation with DEP and the BPU, would seek proposals for at least one microgrid in each of the regions served by the state’s five electric utilities Each micro-grid should be designed to support “very high coincident peak vehicle electric load,” the legislation states.

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MISO, SPP Take on 2nd Interregional Planning Effort

MISO and SPP will begin a smaller interregional planning study this year along with their ongoing joint interconnection queue study, stakeholders learned this week.

The study will come in the form of a targeted market efficiency project (TMEP) approach instead of the usual coordinated system plan (CSP), the RTOs announced during Tuesday’s Interregional Planning Stakeholder Advisory Committee. TMEPs are smaller, congestion-relieving cross-border transmission projects already in use between MISO and PJM.

The grid operators last performed a CSP in 2020. Their joint operating agreement requires an interregional study no less than once every two years.

MISO and SPP have undertaken four CSP studies since 2014. Each time, their planners have come up empty in agreeing on beneficial projects despite increasing congestion at their seams. (See 4th Time No Charm for MISO-SPP Interregional Study.)

This year, however, the RTOs will juggle the TMEP study alongside the Joint Targeted Interconnection Queue (JTIQ) study, which last month rolled out a $1.755 billion portfolio of suggested projects. (See MISO, SPP Roll out $1.755B Joint Tx Portfolio.)

The JTIQ is meant to increase system capacity and ease the grid operators’ overcrowded interconnection queues amid shifting resource mixes. It was announced in 2020, around the time that the fourth CSP failed to produce an interregional project.

Missouri Public Service Commission economist Adam McKinnie said his commission appreciated the JTIQ study’s work but pointed out several congested areas remain along the MISO-SPP seam that could use more precise upgrades.

McKinnie and other state regulators have advocated for the smaller-scale TMEP study process for more than a year. (See MISO, SPP Regulators Call for Pancaking Fix, Smaller Projects.)

Evergy’s Katy Onnen asked that the interregional study modeling contain high wind generation scenarios, something the RTOs’ modeling doesn’t currently consider.

SPP’s Neil Robertson reminded stakeholders that the proposed JTIQ portfolio will likely resolve the need for some projects that might otherwise be pursued under a TMEP process.

“I want to remind everyone that we have multiple efforts working in parallel right now,” he said. “With multiple parallel efforts in the interregional planning sphere in play, there’s going to be some overlap.”

Robertson said MISO and SPP have yet to decide how they will model the JTIQ projects in the TMEP process.

“I just really hope you don’t consider the JTIQ a done deal,” McKinnie said, noting that its cost-allocation discussions are not very far along and imply that disagreements might derail projects.

“I’m fine with solutions competing against each other,” he said. “I just urge you to look at issues rather than say, ‘It’s in the JTIQ, therefore it’s a third rail that we can’t touch.’”

Robertson said staffs will not consider JTIQ projects as certainties to include in a base-case model for another interregional study.

Some stakeholders said MISO and SPP might want to pursue smaller TMEP fixes while waiting on big-ticket JTIQ projects’ construction.

The RTOs said they opted for a TMEP study over a CSP partly because neither is performing an economic study as part of their 2022 transmission planning. TMEPs don’t require staffs to conduct production cost modeling.

“We don’t have that synergy this year,” MISO engineer Ben Stearney explained.

Stearney said the grid operators have a framework “starting point, given the existence of the MISO-PJM TMEP.” He said the RTOs and their stakeholders will settle on a TMEP study scope and criteria throughout 2022. The process will be memorialized in their joint operating agreement.

PJM’s and MISO’s version of TMEPs must cost less than $20 million, be in service within three years of approval and, within four years of operation, provide congestion relief equal to or greater than the construction cost. MISO’s and SPP’s TMEP criteria could look different.

The grid operators also said the TMEPs’ targeted study style and smaller transmission projects will help ease their interregional workload, given the ongoing JTIQ. The study is not considered part of either a CSP or TMEP study.

“The reality is that developing the cost allocations around the JTIQ are going to be complex, and we don’t see that happening until 2023,” Stearney said.

MISO and SPP plan to schedule more joint planning meetings in the second quarter.

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New England’s Duck Curve Days Chart Solar Growth

On two mild, sunny days in New England last week, energy demand was at its lowest in the middle of the day, when the thousands of megawatts of mostly behind-the-meter solar installations in the region were at their most effective.

It’s the latest example of the phenomenon first noticed in California and known as the “duck curve,” named after the duck-shaped pattern that occurs from charting power demand and the availability of solar.

Increasingly common “duck sightings” in New England are a signifier of the growth of solar in the region that doesn’t show any signs of slowing down.

On Feb. 11, load dipped to 11,207 MW at 12:55 p.m., according to ISO-NE. LMPs were negative for some of the mid-day period on Friday, hitting a low of $-63.83. Two days earlier, load had hit a low for the day of 11,890 MW at 12:30 p.m.

Midday load in NE 2022-02-09-11 (ISO-NE) Content.jpgMidday load in New England dropped below overnight load on Feb. 9, above, and Feb. 11. | ISO-NE

New England has seen more of these mid-day minimum load days each year since 2018, when it first occurred, according to ISO-NE data. 2019 saw three such days, with 13 in 2020 and 18 in 2021. This year has seen three so far, marking the first time the phenomenon has occurred so early.

The duck curve and solar’s intermittent nature have been known to bring operational challenges to other regions. Grid operators have to quickly ramp up dispatchable resources when the sun goes down and solar output falls, and they might have to curtail solar generation in the case of excess capacity. ISO-NE launched an enhanced real-time fast-start pricing feature in 2017 to try to incentivize resources that can quickly ramp up their output to help address the sharp rise in demand when the sun sets.

ISO-NE spokesperson Ellen Foley said in an email to RTO Insider that the existence of duck curves is notable, but it “doesn’t really define how the system is operated.” The grid operator optimizes commitment and dispatch using the day-ahead market; it then develops an operating plan and manages the power system based on that plan, she said.

Solar Boom

Because of the distributed nature and less predictable qualities of solar, it’s tricky to forecast on a day-to-day basis.

“Forecasting that [load] reduction continues to be a challenge for the ISO; going into the day, we could be forecasting high production from solar PV, only to see more cloud cover or snow lingering longer than expected, which results in the ISO using more traditional generators to replace that energy. Therefore, we are continuously working on updating and improving our PV forecasts,” Foley said.

Solar growth in NE (ISO-NE) Content.jpgSolar growth in New England has repeatedly outpaced forecasts. | ISO-NE

 

But its long-term projections, based on historical trends and state policy, show that solar production will continue to be an increasingly significant presence in New England over the next decade.

ISO-NE’s latest draft forecast of solar development, published on Monday, estimates 11,298 MW of solar generation in the region by the end of 2031, nearly 2.5 times the 4,767 MW installed in New England at the end of 2021.

The RTO’s changing forecast itself is another sign of the rapid solar ramp-up, with this year’s projections for 2030 more than 830 MW above the 2021 forecast.

Massachusetts remains the driver of solar growth in the region, with more than two-thirds of New England’s installed capacity in the Bay State.

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NWPP Rebrands as Western Power Pool

In a move that signifies its expanding reach across the Western Interconnection, the Northwest Power Pool has rebranded itself as the Western Power Pool.

What was once a member-run organization focused mainly on grid reliability in the Pacific Northwest and Intermountain regions, Portland, Ore.-based NWPP (now WPP) has spent the past two years going south — and east.

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Since 2020, WPP has been developing the Western Resource Adequacy Program (WRAP), an initiative conceived to address concerns that Northwest utilities have been increasingly — and unknowingly — drawing on the same shrinking pool of reliability resources. Participants used its interim “matching service” for entities either long or short in the electricity market four times last year, mostly during a record-smashing heat wave in the Pacific Northwest.

But interest in the effort spread quickly to other areas of the West. The WRAP, which is slated to launch a “nonbinding” iteration in the third quarter of this year, has attracted participants from an area spanning British Columbia, south to Arizona and east into South Dakota. Stage 1 of the WRAP will include 26 participants that together represent a summer peak load of about 67,000 MW and a winter peak of more than 65,000 MW.

“With the addition of new participants from the Southwest and the expansive footprint of our existing programs, we are excited to announce a name change that demonstrates our vision,” WPP COO Gregg Carrington said in a statement last week. “The Western Power Pool will continue to offer the excellent services our customers rely on while creating a more inclusive space for Western coordination and collaboration.”

In creating the WRAP, WPP has also been forced to repurpose itself as an organization. Once the WRAP enters its “binding” phase in 2023, the market — and WPP — will become subject to federal oversight and FERC rules.

Anticipating those requirements, WPP has already moved to restructure its governance and prepare to adopt some elements of an RTO, such as the appointment of an independent board of directors. WPP will also establish an RA Participants Committee as well as a Committee of States to ensure that utility regulators have a voice in discussions related to the WRAP. (See RA Program will Require Restructuring of NWPP.)

And while WPP has not signaled intentions to expand the WRAP’s offerings beyond resource adequacy, the market looks increasingly like a possible platform for incrementally developing a Western RTO — one that would compete with CAISO’s stalled regionalization efforts, the ISO’s well established Western Energy Imbalance Market, and SPP’s nascent RTO West and Western Energy Imbalance Service.

WPP last year selected SPP to operate the technical aspects of the WRAP, providing the market’s forward-showing functions, modeling and system analytics, and real-time operations.

In December, SPP revealed plans for broader engagement with WRAP participants through its Markets+ program, a “conceptual bundle of services” that includes day-ahead and real-time commitment and dispatch, and “hurdle-free” transmission service. Those services would be packaged in a way designed to appeal to utilities still unready to commit to a full RTO, SPP said. (See SPP Aspires to Increase its Western Footprint in 2022.)

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Massachusetts Legislators Call for Fossil Fuel Ban in Net-zero Building Code

Massachusetts legislators expressed disappointment Tuesday that fossil fuel use would be allowed under a net-zero building code straw proposal introduced by regulators.

The proposal “didn’t go far enough,” said Sen. Cynthia Creem (D), chair of the Massachusetts Senate Committee on Global Warming and Climate Change.

“The draft net-zero code would not represent a path for cities and towns to restrict the use of fossil fuels in new development,” she said during a committee hearing on the implementation of the state’s climate roadmap enacted last March.

A specialized net-zero code will be part of a three-tier system of building codes authorized by the law. Existing tiers include a base building code and a municipal opt-in stretch energy code. The state is updating the stretch code in consultation with the Board of Building Regulations and Standards, which is responsible for regular updates to the base code. In addition, the law calls for development of a municipal opt-in net-zero code as a third tier.

Tiers 2 and 3 — which apply to new building construction, additions and major retrofits — offer progressively more stringent compliance pathways for energy efficiency beyond the base code. The Department of Energy Resources (DOER) released a proposed update to the stretch code and the proposed specialized code last week for comment.

Compliance with the tiers will be based on the Home Energy Rating System (HERS) index, which scores efficiency between zero and 150, with 150 being the least efficient. Buildings complying with the base code must achieve a HERS rating of at least 55, while Tier 2 compliance ratings would be 42 for buildings that use fossil fuel heating and 45 for buildings with electric heating.

Net-zero code compliance would have the same Tier 2 ratings for buildings with fossil fuel and electric heating, but buildings that include fossil fuel heating must also have rooftop solar where feasible and be pre-wired for electrification.

About 85% of Massachusetts’ municipalities already opt in to the stretch code, and many are interested in upgrading to the net-zero code. A group of 30 town and city representatives sent a letter to the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) last fall in support of a net-zero code that gives municipalities “clear authority to prohibit on-site combustion in new buildings and major rehabilitation.”

Without the option for communities to “actually experiment with going net zero,” the proposed code is a “reversal of legislative intent,” Sen. Michael Barrett, committee vice chair, said during the hearing.

“We wrote language that permitted communities to have a vigorous local debate … before opting in, but we imagined that once they made that decision, they would do so knowing that new construction without a backup fossil-fuel hookup was an option that they could pursue,” he said.

The purpose of the new code, as written, is to “encourage construction of all-electric buildings,” Kathleen Theoharides, secretary of the EEA, said in hearing testimony.

“Dictating certain fuels be used or certain things be banned is not innovation; it’s a requirement,” she said. “What we’re doing is creating a code that requires the most energy-efficient building envelopes possible, as well as additional things that … allow for experimentation.”

Creem would like to see the administration update the proposed code so that it is a “fossil-free option” for municipalities. But the proposal, Theoharides said, balances energy efficiency, cost and emission reductions, while seeking to ensure an orderly transition.

“The challenge with letting some people come off of gas … is that you leave customers on the gas system who are the least able to make the change and end up bearing the brunt of the cost for the remaining gas system as we transition away from it,” she said.

The DOER will accept comments on the straw proposal for the updated stretch code and new net-zero code through March 9, followed by public hearings over the summer. The final language for both codes is due in the fall.

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Biden Admin Launches Drive to Decarbonize US Industrial Sector

The White House on Tuesday continued its execution of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) with a new group of requests for information (RFIs) and guidance documents, this time aimed at hard-to-decarbonize industrial products, including steel, aluminum and concrete.

The Department of Energy issued two RFIs, one on the IIJA’s $8 billion allocation to develop four clean hydrogen hubs across the country, and a second on the $1.5 billion in funding for research and development for clean hydrogen manufacturing and recycling.

The White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) also issued draft guidelines for federal agencies on “responsible deployment” of carbon capture, utilization and sequestration (CCUS) projects. The IIJA provides $3.5 billion for CCUS demonstration and pilot projects and another $2.5 billion for low-interest loans for CO2 pipelines.

Other initiatives outlined in a White House fact sheet include:

  • the creation of a Buy Clean Task Force to “harness the federal government’s massive purchasing power to support low-carbon materials made in American factories”;
  • a new Technology Innovation Advisory Committee charged with “creating a comprehensive strategy to lower the carbon footprint of America’s industrial base”; and
  • trade policy being developed with the EU to keep “dirty steel” out of U.S. and European markets and limit steel dumping.

“The industrial sector is … central to tackling the climate crisis, as it is currently responsible for nearly a third of domestic greenhouse gas emissions,” the administration said. “By helping manufacturers use clean energy, efficiency upgrades and other innovative technologies to reduce emissions, the administration is supporting cleaner industry that can produce the next generation of products and materials for a net-zero economy.”

“With industries moving quickly to adopt and deploy carbon capture technologies, federal agencies can play a key role in ensuring that projects are done right and in a way that reflects the needs and inputs of local communities,” CEQ Chair Brenda Mallory said. The new guidelines are a first step toward CCUS “deployment in a manner that is environmentally sound and that cuts cumulative pollution in nearby communities.”

The hydrogen RFIs are part of DOE’s Hydrogen Shot, another initiative aimed at reducing the cost of clean hydrogen by 80% over the next decade, from the current price of about $5/kg to $1. According to the RFI on hydrogen hubs, “co-locating large-scale clean hydrogen production with multiple end uses can foster the development of low-cost hydrogen and the necessary supporting infrastructure to jumpstart the hydrogen economy in various market segments, create both near-term and long-term jobs and tax revenues for regional economies, and realize emissions-reduction benefits.”

The IIJA requires that the four hubs must each be located in different areas of the country; use different fuels, including natural gas, renewable energy and nuclear; and demonstrate applications in different industries: electricity, transportation, industry, and residential and commercial heating.

“Clean hydrogen is key to cleaning up American manufacturing and slashing emissions from carbon-intensive materials like steel and cement.” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a statement. The goal is to help make “scaling up this clean, affordable energy source a reality for the United States.”

CEQ Guidelines

The guidelines for carbon capture and storage recognize the complex challenges that will be involved in permitting these projects. A demonstration project on federal land could trigger environmental assessments under the National Environmental Policy Act, Endangered Species Act and the Clean Air Act.

For example, to streamline permitting, the guidelines suggest that agencies develop “programmatic environmental reviews … where such analyses can facilitate more efficient and effective environmental reviews of multiple projects while maintaining community engagement.”

For building out a network of pipelines for CO2 transport and sequestration, the guidelines call for “close monitoring and enforcement of existing regulations and development of new tools to monitor and improve safety while also reducing the number of incidents that result in leakage of carbon dioxide.”

Jessie Stolark, policy and member relations manager for the Carbon Capture Coalition, said the clean industry initiatives reflect “broad, bipartisan support for the economywide deployment of carbon management technologies and further [underscore] President Biden’s commitment to utilizing carbon management as a critical tool to decarbonize heavy industry and manufacturing.”

“Federal investment in industrial decarbonization is key to American prosperity and to putting domestic industry firmly on the path toward deep emissions reductions, retaining and creating high-wage jobs, and continued technology leadership and economic competitiveness,” Stolark said.

On Thursday, DOE and the Department of Transportation announced the first round of state allocations for the $5 billion in the law to help states deploy electric vehicle chargers along main transportation corridors. (See States to Get $615 Million for EV Charging from IIJA Funds.)

DOE also released state guidelines for applying for the money, and the White House has issued a 465-page guidebook to help the states navigate all the IIJA funding opportunities.

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Survey Captures Driver Discontent with EV Charging Stations

Electric vehicle drivers in California say they’re having trouble using public charging stations, either because the station is not working, the driver isn’t a member of the charging network or there are other issues with payment.

Those are some of the findings of a new report from the California Air Resources Board (CARB). The report is a technical review of the agency’s Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE) Standards, a regulation adopted in 2019.

CARB held a workshop on Tuesday to discuss the report’s findings.

The technical review included a survey of 1,290 California drivers to find out what barriers they face at public EV charging stations and what payment methods they have access to.

Among survey respondents, 575 drivers identified membership requirements as a barrier, including not having a charging network membership or not wanting to create one.

Charging station operability issues were a barrier for 439 respondents, while 209 drivers said payment was a problem.

Respondents listed several other barriers: 224 drivers said the stations were too expensive; 164 said they’re too complicated; 121 said they’re too hard to find.

And one workshop participant pointed to additional charging station issues. Charging hoses don’t reach the car or won’t release when the charge is completed, the participant said. The screens are impossible to read when the sun hits them.

“The list goes on,” the participant said in comments read by the workshop moderator. “If the station does not deliver the charge, it is useless to the driver, no matter the reason.”

Stephanie Palmer, an air resources engineer at CARB, said the agency is aware of the problems. Some of the issues are outside the scope of the technical review, she said, but will be researched by CARB and the California Energy Commission as part of other programs.

EVSPs Surveyed

Electric vehicle service providers (EVSPs) and credit card companies were also surveyed as part of CARB’s technical review.

The network providers rely mainly on contactless “tap” technology for charging station payment, according to the report. The use of tap-enabled cards is growing in the U.S., but the cards currently account for only a small percentage of cards in use, the report said. In contrast, EMV chip payment cards are widely used.

None of the EVSPs surveyed accept cash at their charging stations.

Several of the EVSPs that participated in the survey said their national uptime ranges from 95% to 98%. The report noted a possible contradiction between the responses of EVSPs and drivers who encountered charging station operability issues.

“The data from the two surveys suggest there may be a disconnect between what drivers are experiencing and what the EVSPs are reporting, and more work is needed to understand this issue,” CARB said in its report.

One workshop participant said that CARB needs to define “uptime,” which station operators may define as times when there is power to the station.

“This does not mean the station works and is able to provide the asked-for energy,” the participant said in a comment read by the moderator. “There are so many ways it can fail.”

Palmer said CARB plans to explore the issue further.

Payment Requirements

CARB adopted the EVSE Standards regulation in 2019 to fulfill a mandate of Senate Bill 454 of 2013.

The standards are intended to reduce barriers to accessing public charging stations.

“Everyone should be able to use electric vehicle charging stations in a secure and reliable way,” CARB said in explaining the background of the regulation.

The regulation applies to all EVSPs operating publicly accessible Level 2 or DC fast chargers in the state. It doesn’t cover private EV charging, including charging networks run by Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) or Rivian.

Requirements regarding payment methods took effect recently or have not yet taken effect.

Under the regulation, DC fast chargers installed on or after Jan. 1 of this year must accept EMV chip-enabled cards and mobile payments. Those requirements will also apply to Level 2 chargers installed on or after July 1, 2023.

All EV charging stations, whether existing or newly installed, must meet the payment requirements by July 1, 2033.

The regulation also includes a requirement for EV charging stations to allow payment by members of an EVSP network as well as by non-members.

Under the regulation, EVSPs must post all fees associated with a charging session. And a sticker at each charging station must state the voltage and amperage capabilities of the unit.

Next Steps

CARB will accept public comments on the technical review through 5 p.m. on Feb. 28.

CARB staff plans to present the report to the agency’s board in April. Staff’s recommendation is to monitor compliance with the EVSE standards regulation without any changes to the regulation at this time.

But the CARB board could decide the regulation needs updating and launch a rulemaking process.

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Former Commissioners Preview Year Ahead for FERC

FERC has undertaken an ambitious agenda for this year that will face numerous headwinds from administrative challenges, not least of which remains the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

A panel of former FERC commissioners provided their insight into those challenges during a webinar hosted by the Energy Bar Association’s Northeast Chapter and moderated by RTO Insider co-publisher Rich Heidorn Jr.

At the top of FERC’s agenda is its Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on transmission planning and cost allocation. Chair Richard Glick said last week that he hopes to have a final rule out of the proceeding by the end of the year, but former Chair Joseph T. Kelliher, now an arbitrator with dispute resolution firm FedArb, was doubtful that could be achieved because of the scope of the docket. (See related story, Glick Aiming for Final Transmission Rule by End of Year.)

But former Commissioner Nora Mead Brownell, co-founder of consulting firm ESPY Energy Solutions, said that “given the current set of circumstances that we face … it’s time to be bold. … We are not really getting the environmental, economic or equity outcomes that meet the threshold that we’ve learned to expect. We have a transmission grid that is old; that is vulnerable; that is not achieving what we need to do to deliver a grid for the future.”

Among the practical challenges to reaching any final rule is a staffing shortage, she said. “There’s been an enormous amount of staff turnover; there’s lots of open positions. I think we all need to be arguing for increasing hiring. We need to be supporting the efforts to recruit people. And we need to give them the tools that they need in order to do the job.”

Another challenge remains the COVID-19 pandemic, which has kept commissioners and their staffs working remotely. Former Chair Neil Chatterjee, now senior adviser at Hogan Lovells, noted that Commissioner James Danly was confirmed by the Senate in early March 2020, just before Chatterjee transitioned the commission to telework as the pandemic began. Thus, Chatterjee had never held an open meeting in-person with Danly as a commissioner, nor did he with current commissioners Allison Clements and Mark Christie.

This week’s open meeting will mark two years since the commission last held an in-person open meeting. Chatterjee said that makes it difficult for commissioners and their staffs to get to know each other personally and, therefore, work toward consensus on controversial dockets. Glick had intended to resume limited in-person meetings, with only staff and members of the press in attendance, last year, but the surge in COVID cases from the Omicron variant of the virus delayed that plan.

On Wednesday, after his keynote speech at the National Association of State Energy Officials’ annual Energy Policy Outlook Conference, Glick told RTO Insider that, though he would like to resume in-person meetings “as soon as possible,” the case rate in D.C. is still too high.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, D.C.’s case rate per 100,000 residents as of Monday was 180.94; any rate above 100 is considered “high.” The district has reported an average of 182.4 cases a day over the past week.

“We’re all sort of adept at virtual communication these days, but so much is lost in that process,” Chatterjee said. “And when you’re trying to negotiate something as complex as reforming transmission policy, it’s hard to do it virtually.”

Finally, since the beginning of the Trump era of U.S. politics, the commission has seen a partisan divide in its decisions and debates that has alarmed many observers.

Chatterjee said that working virtually does not help heal that divide. Kelliher agreed, saying that filings constitute 85% of the commission’s workload, leaving the remainder of time for discretionary work, such as initiatives. But the commission has become less efficient processing filings, leaving less time to work on big issues, he said.

“When I was chairman, we’d meet every week, one on one, no staff, and we would talk about big things that are what I thought the commission had to act on in the next three months,” Kelliher said. “We wouldn’t do something big unless we knew, ‘What’s the center of gravity? And is this a productive exercise?’ And then once we knew, then the order would be written up, versus writing up an order, flinging it down the hallway virtually, and then seeing what the reaction is. It’s just much more efficient.”

Brownell said that partisanship may be the new normal, as “it’s a reflection of what’s happening in the larger world.”

Regarding the transmission ANOPR, she said, “I think it would be great if they could get to unanimity, but when you have people who may believe it’s their job just to disagree, maybe that’s just not possible in today’s world.”

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States Outline Energy Challenges, Infrastructure Opportunities

WASHINGTON — Louisiana’s Jason Lanclos is both excited and anxious over the funding opportunities in the long-awaited Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA).

“When you start looking at the sheer amount of data and programs and funding that’s in [the bill], it’s extremely intimidating,” said Lanclos, director of the Technology Assessment Division in the state’s Department of Natural Resources. “But I think that there are also a tremendous amount of opportunities.”

For that reason, Lanclos said, he is grateful for his ability to compare experiences with other state energy officials, as he did during a panel discussion at the National Association of State Energy Officials’ (NASEO) Energy Policy Outlook conference Friday.   “I think that that’s where you kind of have validated that, ‘Hey look, I’m not in this alone. There are other states who are facing the same things and having similar challenges.’”

Lynn Retz, director of the Energy Division at the Kansas Corporation Commission, echoed Lanclos. “Don’t ever hesitate to tap into your neighbors, your co-workers or colleagues here, because I’m not [ashamed] to call someone, send an email, beg, borrow steal their stuff,” she said. “Adapt it to what works — it’s called being resourceful.”

The discussion, which Lanclos moderated, identified states’ commonalities while also highlighting unique challenges faced by some, such as remote Alaskan communities and the islands of Hawaii.

Hawaii: Six Independent Grids

Scott Glenn, chief energy officer for the Hawaii State Energy Office, noted that his state has six standalone grids. “Each island has only the electricity produced on that island for its use and reliance. We don’t have any cables connecting the islands or cables or anything,” he said.

“We’re kind of looking at this money as an opportunity to really change things,” he said. With about 60% of the state’s homes equipped with rooftop solar, the state was well on its way to building out its distributed generation before the infrastructure funding.

Glenn would like to use some of the state’s funding to decarbonize the six- and nine-seat planes that residents use to get from one island to another.

“The main part of their costs for flying between the islands is the takeoff and landing — it’s the jet fuel for that 20-minute flight,” he said. “And so, if we can electrify that, we can lower that cost dramatically.”

One challenge: Hawaii’s smallest islands total only 7 MW of capacity. “They’re not going to be able to charge a plane,” he said.

Glenn cited the importance of stakeholder collaboration. “We’re islands. We try to say, ‘You can’t throw people out of the canoe.’”

He said his office will seek to dissuade multiple parties from proposing competing ideas for the same funding source, “so that we can leverage our limited opportunities to apply for things, and then also better coordinate local match availabilities.”

On the positive side, the state has only have four counties, making coordination more manageable. “We can get all four mayors together in the room [and ask] ‘What are you guys doing?’ So it’s digestible.”

Alaska: Feeling Excluded

Alaska found itself at the bottom half of the electric vehicle funding allocations announced by the U.S. Department of Transportation and Department of Energy Thursday. Its $7.8 million ranked 30th among the states, Puerto Rico and D.C. (See States to Get $615 Million for EV Charging from IIJA Funds.)

“It’s nice to have electric charging for vehicles every 50 miles [as envisioned in the Federal Highway Administration’s  guidelines for the EV infrastructure program],” said Curtis Thayer, executive director of the Alaska Energy Authority. “But if you don’t have any power for 100 miles, you’ve got a problem. And there’s no way of getting three-phase power in there when the transmission line is at least 20, 30 miles away.”

Some 200 rural villages were excluded from funding “because there was complete exclusion for any of the rural villages … that are not part of the National Highway System,” he said.

The state also is finding it difficult to obtain federal funding to shift from fossil fuels. “For us to introduce more renewables, we’re going to have to upgrade the transmission lines that we have. We have currently 138 [kV] serving a lot of Alaska; we want to upgrade to 230 [kV]. … But we’re a little too small for the 500 kV.

“We are too small for some of the funding available or too big for other money,” he said.

Kansas: Messaging is Key

Kansas’ Retz was thrilled to announce to her colleagues that her energy office within the state Corporation Commission recently doubled in size.

“Most of you know I have been an office of one. Well, they just allowed me to hire one more person. So now I’m an office of two,” she said, prompting applause and laughter from the crowd at the Fairmont hotel in Georgetown.

Retz said she will be focusing on reaching rural communities with programs such as small business energy audits and a program to benchmark the energy efficiency of K-12 school buildings.

She’s also working to help add EV charging to Department of Wildlife and Parks’ facilities whose infrastructure has been neglected.

Because her office is within the KCC, Retz said she is not permitted to “establish policy” but can “help facilitate” policy discussions. “So it is bringing all of these state stakeholders to the table and knowing who to recognize and make those introductions. Because what I’ve also found is I have people at Wildlife and Parks who wanted to talk about the infrastructure at the facilities that hadn’t reached out to our Department of Transportation. So part of my role is literally with those stakeholders figuring out who should be at the table to have those conversations and facilitating those conversations. And then making those introductions that cross other state lines as well.

“You didn’t really want to talk about [EV charging] prior to this, just simply because of the political climate,” she said. “I have to be careful about the terminology that I use and how I message the programs that I’m going to move forward.”

Using the federal funds and being able to do so quickly, is “going to be critical,” she added. “If I get some of it launched off early, others will have no clue what I’m doing, and I’m going to be too far down the road to do anything about it,” she said.

Michigan: Flexibility Essential

Robert Jackson, director of the energy office in the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy, said state officials are focused on meeting Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s 2050 carbon neutrality goals while also making their programs as flexible as possible in case of a change in administration or program priorities.

The state is creating workgroups to help guide efforts to win Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grants. Michigan still has energy efficiency programs from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), but that funding, he said, was “prescriptive.”

The state initially targeted its EE and renewable energy program toward small businesses, in response to the decline of the auto industry in the state. “We needed to provide these businesses with funding in order to change their focus … and to retool them to become more efficient,” he said. “But that money can only be used for that purpose now.”

Lanclos agreed with Jackson’s recommendation for flexibility. He recalled an economic development roundtable he did in Louisiana with the Committee of 100 for Economic Development. “A lot of the conversation was on depoliticizing climate — in other words, trying to bring in plans that can survive [changes in] administrations.”

The state is considering whether hydrogen or carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) can help decarbonize its industrial sector.

“With us, our biggest challenge is with industry,” he added. “We have these high-intensity, high end-use industries that use a lot of power. And so working with them and trying to make sure that folks like that are at the table when you’re crafting these plans, is really, really important.”

South Carolina: Office of Resilience Looks beyond Flooding

Lanclos said the IIJA has forced state energy officials to work with agencies and organizations that “are a little bit out of our comfort zone, or that we don’t work with every day.” He cited opportunities to increase his office’s engagement with the Louisiana Public Service Commission on efforts considering offshore wind and hydrogen.

South Carolina also is seeing greater interagency collaboration, said Sara Bazemore, director of the state energy office within the South Carolina Public Service Commission’s Office of Regulatory Staff.

The state recently created an Office of Resilience in response to legislation that focused on threats from flooding.

“It was a great effort with different agencies coming together and going, ‘Oh, we’ve already done a report on that. How about I summarize that?” she said. Although flooding was the initial legislative mandate the office is now taking a broader view to consider the resilience of critical energy facilities, said Bazemore.

Pennsylvania: Looking to ‘Scale Out’

David Althoff Jr., director of the energy programs office in the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, said ARRA allowed the state to begin to “scale up” its renewables with funding for projects such as a 3-kW solar array at the Philadelphia Zoo. “Now we have like 15 GW of solar in the PJM queue. That’s scaling up. But scaling out, you know, is probably harder: How are we going to get this out to communities? Because that’s really where it needs to go, in my view.”

In Pennsylvania, that means 67 counties and 2,700 municipalities — and the need for an “army” of clean energy workers, Althoff said.

“This is a lot of money. You’re not going to be able to do it yourself,” he said. “… That $62.5 billion, that’s not all coming to state energy offices. Some of that’s going to our [departments of transportation]. Some of that’s going to community and economic development. Ultimately, I think we’re gap fillers … sort of like, you know, like batteries and bacon — it makes it all better.”

“To some degree we’re on a ‘hearts and minds’ tour,” he continued. “The point is, is that where the battle will be won on clean energy? That is how people connect with it, you know — at their home, in their communities at their school.”

Connecticut: ‘Well Positioned’

Vicki Hackett, deputy commissioner of energy in the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, said her state is “really well-positioned” to take advantage of the IIJA.

“We’ve done a fair amount of planning and policy development,” she said. “And the needs that we’ve identified and begun to address are very much aligned with the act, so we have existing programs and some that are in late stages of development that we can leverage.”

She noted that the state Public Utilities Regulatory Authority has opened several grid modernization dockets and said the state’s modeling indicates that energy storage “will play an increasingly significant role in ensuring the reliability of the grid and minimizing wasted generation as we continue to employ offshore wind in New England.

“The existing transmission system needs to be upgraded and expanded to meet the regional energy capacity additions that are needed to achieve our goals and other states’ goals,” she said. “We’ve also identified retention of our nuclear facilities as a critical factor in reaching our decarbonization goals while maintaining reliability as load balancing technologies evolve.”