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November 15, 2024

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Xcel Energy Beefs up Wildfire Mitigation Plans

Xcel Energy says it relies on industry best practices and its own experience in beefing up wildfire mitigation plans for its operating companies.

In Colorado, where its affiliate faces nearly 300 lawsuits after the 2021 Marshall fire destroyed more than 1,000 homes, killed two people and caused more than $2 billion in property damage, Xcel recently filed a $1.9 billion wildfire mitigation plan that updates the previous one. It will serve as a template for wildfire mitigation plans in Texas and New Mexico and the company’s other states.

“I’m really proud of what we’re going to accomplish on the operational side to provide the real-time risk reduction that we need today to give us the time to make the necessary enhancements and system resiliency and hardening for our system over time,” Xcel CEO Bob Frenzel told financial analysts during the company’s second-quarter earnings call Aug. 1.

The Colorado plan integrates industry experience, incorporates evolving risk assessment methodologies, adds new technology and expands the scope, pace and scale of programs reducing wildfire risk, Frenzel said. It also benefited from the “hard work of the people that have come in front of us in California,” he said.

“We expect to dramatically reduce our wildfire risk based on their experiences and doing some of the lessons learned from all of those organizations. But that shouldn’t be taken as anything other than a huge focus that we also have in Texas and in [New] Mexico around our plans there,” Frenzel said.

Xcel has been linked to February’s Smokehouse Creek fire in the Texas Panhandle, the largest in state history. It has acknowledged its infrastructure likely started the fire. The company plans to file a resiliency plan in Texas for its Southwestern Public Service subsidiary later this year.

The Minneapolis-based company reported second-quarter earnings of $302 million ($0.54/share), as compared to the same period a year ago of $288 million ($0.52/share). Xcel’s ongoing earnings reflected the recovery of increased infrastructure investments and warmer than normal weather, partially offset by increased depreciation, interest charges and operations and maintenance expenses.

The company reaffirmed its year-end guidance of $3.50-3.60/share. It has met year-end expectations 19 straight years.

Xcel’s share price closed at $59.75, up 2.5% after the earnings release.

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‘Operational Surprises’ Contributed to CAISO July 2023 Emergencies

CAISO’s own systems may have contributed to a set of “operational surprises” that forced it to declare a series of energy emergency alerts in July 2023, a member of the ISO’s Market Surveillance Committee (MSC) said July 30.

“It is our understanding that CAISO/Western EIM operators were surprised by near-real-time changes in the CAISO/Western EIM supply demand balance on July 20 and July 25, 2023,” MSC member Scott Harvey, a consultant at FTI Consulting, said during a presentation at the MSC’s monthly meeting. “There are also indications that CAISO systems and operator actions may have contributed to operational surprises for Western EIM balancing area operators.”

High levels of self-scheduled exports out of CAISO’s balancing area to support stressed conditions in other parts of the West prompted the ISO to issue an EEA 1 on July 20 and EEA watches on July 25 and 26. (See CAISO DMM: High Exports to Southwest Led to July EEAs.)

On July 20, CAISO was close to being unable to deliver exports that had received hour-ahead awards, though no load was ultimately curtailed. But on July 25, the ISO was unable to award several thousand megawatts of self-scheduled exports.

As a result, CAISO imposed import limits from the WEIM into the CAISO balancing authority area between July 25 and Nov. 16, leading to increased transmission congestion in the 15-minute market and lower prices in the five-minute market, the ISO’s Department of Market Monitoring said in March. (See DMM: CAISO Transfer Limitations During Q3 Heatwaves Led to Price Disparities.)

Although the DMM previously said it was unclear why CAISO chose to implement transfer limits through November, Guillermo Bautista Alderete, CAISO’s director of market performance and advanced analytics, provided additional color by identifying two key market issues. The first, he said, was an inaccurate display of dispatchable capability in the market, where information presented to operators showed an imprecise calculation of storage resources, impacting operators’ ability to take proactive action.

“One of the purposes of that display and that information is to project how the ramp capabilities position for the near future,” Alderete said. “If they see that the ramp capability is getting thinner and thinner, they may start taking action rather than applying load conformance.”

The second was related to scheduling and tagging processes. When clearing transactions in the WEIM between Oregon and California, a change in practice led to double counting, which exacerbated congestion and kept flexible ramping product (FRP) “stranded in the north.”

Additionally, export reductions projected in the hour-ahead scheduling process (HASP) led to uncertainties in the real-time market due to exports not materializing.

“We had about 2,400 megawatts of additional demand that HASP was not projected as having to meet, and now the [real-time dispatch] has to meet that extra obligation in real-time,” Alderete said.

The issues weren’t fully addressed until Nov. 16, when the ISO stopped imposing transfer limits.

MSC Questions Flexiramp, HASP Structure

The “operational surprises” associated with July’s events also included problems identified with HASP and CAISO’s flexible ramping product (flexiramp).

While the role of HASP has “evolved dramatically” since it was implemented in 2014, the structure has not, Harvey said.

The HASP originated as a tool to schedule interchange transactions between CAISO and adjacent balancing areas in conjunction with the scheduling of CAISO balancing area resources. While HASP still serves that role, it “has developed into an hourly spot market for the purchase of capacity to meet the [WEIM’s] resource sufficiency evaluation,” Harvey said.

In 2014, almost all imports and exports scheduled in HASP were with balancing areas that didn’t belong to the WEIM. As of July 2023, nearly all imports and exports scheduled in HASP sourced or sank within the EIM.

As a result, stakeholders questioned the implications of the resource sufficiency evaluation of HASP transactions included in WEIM base schedules but not clear in HASP.

“A core issue is that when CAISO clears HASP to schedule hourly interchange between … CAISO and other Western EIM balancing areas, day-ahead market exports that do not clear in HASP improve the CAISO resource balance relative to the day-ahead market, appearing to increase supply in both … CAISO and the Western EIM,” Harvey’s presentation said.

“However, market exports that do not clear in HASP may be included in the base schedules of EIM entities,” it said. “The current HASP structure models the improvement in CAISO supply when day-ahead exports do not clear but does not model the potential reduction in Western EIM supply. Hence, HASP can appear to show a supply demand balance in the Western EIM when there actually is a large supply gap.”

If WEIM entities find out only after HASP posts that exports included in their base schedules will not flow in real time, they will have less time to take remedial action, as was the case in July.

“It seems that this HASP structure is creating an information problem, that it isn’t set up to tell us the truth for the Western EIM,” Harvey said. “It’s going to tell the truth for what the CAISO needs to do to avoid load shedding in terms of having supply that it can point to, but it isn’t looking necessarily at … the big picture.”

Harvey also questioned the effectiveness of flexiramp and pointed to its potential to create more “operational surprises.” In the case of July’s events, flexiramp product couldn’t reach CAISO’s balancing area due to congestion.

“If we’re going to reduce the load conformance, we have to make sure that the flexiramp is deliverable, and it looks to me like part of the problem on the 20th was that it wasn’t,” Harvey said.

Additionally, flexiramp is designed only to cover net load uncertainty and does not procure capacity in real time to cover all types of supply changes, such as those that occurred in July.

To avoid another emergency event, Alderete highlighted a few ways CAISO could improve.

“We have realized there needs to be better awareness for operators to get a sense of the wider picture, how many transfers they have and potentially give them more confidence of how much of those could be realized,” Alderete said.

Staff also took steps to increase transparency, including using market messages to communicate information on transfer limits.

“We realized that we could have communicated better, and I think we can do better for whenever the next time is going to be,” Alderete said.

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Wash. Program to Offer EV Rebates up to $9,000

SEATTLE — A new Washington program aims to help low- and moderate-income families lease or buy electric vehicles with some of the most generous incentives offered in the U.S. 

Gov. Jay Inslee announced the Washington EV Instant Rebates Program at an Aug. 1 press conference in Seattle.  

“We know the cost of EVs will come down quite rapidly, but we don’t want to wait,” Inslee said. “Everyone essentially will be able to get one for less than $200 a month” under the program, which will reimburse automakers and dealers who provide point-of-sale rebates to eligible residents leasing or purchasing an EV. 

To be eligible, an individual or household must earn no more than 300% of the federal poverty level, said Mike Fong, director of the Washington Department of Commerce.  

Fong said it was difficult to pin down precise annual income levels for eligibility but that the threshold would likely range from $45,000 for a single person to $93,000 for a family of four. Roughly 37% of Washington’s households sit below those thresholds. 

The program will offer rebates of up to $9,000 for an individual or household obtaining a three-year lease on an EV, $5,000 for a two-year lease and $2,500 for a used EV lease. A $5,000 rebate will be available for the purchase of a new EV and $2,500 for a used EV. 

The Washington program is expected to provide rebates to 6,500 to 8,000 residents by June 2025, which is when the $45 million appropriation from the state general fund expires.  

A survey of common EVs sold nationwide shows most sell for between $40,000 and $75,000, though a new Nissan Leaf sells for roughly $30,000. A chart at the Aug. 1 press conference showed the monthly lease prices for seven models ranging from $104 to $199. The average monthly payment for gasoline-powered cars is about $700, according to the Washington Department of Commerce. 

State officials said 26 EV models are sold in Washington and 122 auto dealers will participate in the program. 

Washington’s program appears to offer the biggest EV rebates in the nation. A Kelley Blue Book listing shows 49 states having either statewide rebates or a hodgepodge of in-state entities offering rebates. Washington’s maximum rebate, $9,000, would be more than double the size of the second-largest rebate. 

Washington’s rebates can be used alongside a federal rebate of up to $7,500 for an eligible new EV and up to $4,000 for the purchase of a used vehicle. 

More information on the Washington EV rebate program can be found here. 

Washington had 194,232 passenger EVs (including both fully electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles) as of June 2024, according to the state’s Department of Licensing. To reach its targets on trimming statewide pollution, the state estimates it needs to have 265,735 passenger EVs on the road by the end of this year to be on pace to hit targets of 1,449,962 by 2030 and 3,135,799 by 2035. 

Washington currently has 5,841 public EV charging ports for light-duty vehicles, with 4,546 regular chargers and 1,295 fast chargers. To hit state targets, Washington needs 3,912 regular chargers and 3,030 fast chargers by the end of 2025, according to the state’s Transportation Electrification Strategy. 

These targets grow to 8,671 regular chargers and 6,926 fast-charging ports in 2030 and 13,068 regular and 10,522 fast-charging ports in 2035. This is for light-duty vehicles. Additional chargers will be needed for trucks and buses.  

Commerce Department spokeswoman Amelia Lamb noted these figures do not include private charging ports for homes, for which current figures are incomplete. The targets for home-charging ports are 1,264,731 by 2030 and 2,944,207 by 2035.  

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Mass. Lawmakers Fail to Pass Permitting, Gas Utility Reform

Massachusetts’ 2023/24 legislative session closed in the morning of Aug. 1 without any significant climate or clean energy legislation despite broad agreement on proposed clean energy permitting and siting reforms.

The 19-month session came down to an unsuccessful last-ditch effort to reconcile the differences between separate omnibus climate bills passed by the House and Senate. Lawmakers continued to work into the late hours of the session’s final day but failed to reach a deal.

The separate climate bills passed by the House and Senate contained similar language to streamline and expedite permitting and siting for clean energy generation projects and grid infrastructure. This framework came out of an extended process of negotiations and stakeholder engagement. (See Mass. Commission Issues Recs on Energy Project Siting, Permitting.)

Dan Dolan, president of the New England Power Generators Association, called the failure to pass permitting reform a “huge opportunity missed with agreement among so many of the major elected and industry players.”

Beyond the permitting aspects, the Senate bill contained language intended to enable the state’s transition away from natural gas. It also sought a ban on the practice of competitive electricity supply and would have revamped the state’s clean energy procurement process.

The House bill largely sidestepped the gas and competitive electricity supply issues and contained a separate set of procurement provisions. Both bills contained language intended to boost electric vehicles. (See Mass. Legislature Faces Looming Deadline to Pass Permitting Reform.)

Rep. Jeff Roy (D), the top House negotiator in the conference committee formed to resolve the differences in the climate bills, indicated to reporters that the failure stemmed from the Senate’s ambition to do “too much beyond” the permitting and siting reforms that were common to both bills. Meanwhile, Sen. Mike Barrett (D), the top Senate negotiator, pointed the blame at gas utility lobbyists for blocking common-sense gas reforms.

The Senate bill would have updated the state’s replacement program for leaking gas pipes, adding the option of pipe repairs and retirement. It also would have amended the utilities’ mandate to provide gas service to customers, “enabling the [regulatory] agencies to retire the natural gas system one block at a time when a technology exists to keep that block warm and safe through other means,” Barrett told NetZero Insider.

These proposals echoed the majority recommendations — issued in January — of a stakeholder working group focused on the issue. (See Mass. Gas Working Group Finalizes Recommendations to Legislature.) Within the working group, the gas utilities opposed several of the recommendations, including the proposal to enable the gas utilities to “terminate natural gas service to a customer” if other heating technologies are available.

Barrett said the gas reforms are essential to limiting overall energy costs for Massachusetts residents as grid infrastructure costs increase. He added that legislation addressing gas emissions likely is necessary for the state to meet its climate mandates, which include a 49% reduction in emissions from buildings by 2030.

Rep. Roy did not respond to comment requests in time for publication. He has indicated that permitting and siting reforms were his top issue for the session and appeared to be willing to pass a bill focused just on this issue.

In a statement, Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Rebecca Tepper emphasized the importance of permitting and siting reform to meeting the state’s climate mandates.

“We’ll continue conversations with the Legislature to pursue these reforms,” Tepper added.

Meanwhile, climate advocates expressed outrage that the legislature ended the two-year session empty handed.

“I am shocked and appalled that the Legislature has left the building with nothing to show for climate policy,” said Claire-Karl Müller, coordinator of the Mass Power Forward coalition. “Flood and fires and heat waves don’t adjourn for the summer, and this failure of action impacts real people’s lives.”

Larry Chretien, executive director of the Green Energy Consumers Alliance, said the failure to pass gas reforms will threaten the state’s climate goals, pointing to data that indicates building sector emissions in the state increased between 2020 and 2021, and likely increased between 2021 and 2022.

John Walkey of the environmental justice organization GreenRoots expressed dismay that legislators were unable to reach any compromises on climate and pointed the blame at top legislators.

“The way we’ve set up our legislature is such that nothing moves without leadership’s say,” Walkey said. “These folks need to be cutting deals and making things happen … we’re going to be fried to a crisp before our leaders get over their egos.”

Lawmakers have signaled their interest in returning prior to the next session to attempt to pass an economic development bill. Gov. Maura Healey (D) on Aug. 2 urged the legislature to return for a special session, and both the Senate President and the House Speaker have indicated a willingness to do so.

It’s unclear whether a special session would include work on a compromise climate bill. If lawmakers cannot pass the climate bill via special session, the conference committee could continue working while on recess this fall and try to pass a bill when the next session begins in January.

Climate advocates called on lawmakers to pursue a bill as quickly as possible, noting that permitting reforms — even if passed — would take significant time to be established and take effect.

“I think this really is a question of what is your political will to do anything?” Walkey said.

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NEPOOL Participants Committee Briefs: Aug. 1, 2024

Despite above-average temperatures, the ISO-NE energy market value was down slightly in July 2024 relative to July 2023, ISO-NE COO Vamsi Chadalavada said at the NEPOOL Participants Committee meeting Aug. 1.  

Driven by the elevated temperatures, ISO-NE hit its highest peak load of the year July 16 at 24,816 MW, he added.  

Chadalavada also provided more information on the capacity scarcity event on the evening of June 18, which lasted about 25 minutes. 

The scarcity conditions were caused by about 1,600 MW of generator outages and reductions and a 600-MW generator tripping offline, Chadalavada said. The capacity performance payment rate was $5,455/MWh, and ISO-NE collected $14 million in pay-for-performance charges from underperforming resources. 

Votes

The PC voted to approve new data collection requirements for distributed energy resources. The new standards would include information on DER size, location and operating characteristics. Data is currently collected through voluntary submissions. (See NEPOOL Reliability Committee Briefs: July 16, 2024.) 

The committee also supported updates to the financial assurance policy to account for the delay of the 19th forward capacity auction. 

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Research Firm Emphasizes MISO Queue’s Wait Times, Bigger Projects, Tx Influence

A recent webinar from Austin, Texas-based analytics firm Aurora Energy Research drew attention to promising and troubling trends alike in MISO’s interconnection queue process, including longer wait times, larger projects, solar’s significance and major transmission’s influence.

Joe Rand, energy policy researcher for Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, said the progression from MISO interconnection request to agreement in 2023 has lengthened to about 45 months, with natural gas projects moving the fastest and wind projects moving the slowest.

“The queue duration has become longer and longer,” Aurora researcher Annie Liu agreed during the July 31 presentation. She said while MISO’s approximately 300-GW queue has grown rapidly in the past two years, 40% of active projects in the queue have not begun interconnection studies.

While the wait times have increased, so, too, have the size of projects.

Rand said increasingly bigger solar and storage projects have entered MISO’s queue over the past decade, with the mean capacity of a solar plant entering the queue in 2022 now at 186 MW, up from about 100 MW in 2016. Rand also said the mean size of storage facilities has risen almost 500% in the past 10 years to about 200 MW apiece.

Rand said as of late 2023, 20% of proposed solar projects in MISO’s queue and 6% of proposed wind farms are planned as hybrid configurations with storage on site.

But Rand said the number of projects and capacity withdrawing from MISO’s interconnection queue is on the rise, as it is with other grid operators.

Aurora acknowledged the stronghold solar holds on the MISO queue.

Solar represents most of MISO’s interconnecting capacity at 166 GW; over the past three queue cycles, solar has accounted for 47% of projects, Aurora found.

Liu said that many of the solar and battery projects that entered the 2023 cycle are concentrated in the MISO Central region, which includes Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and portions of Missouri and Kentucky. Liu said 21 GW of battery storage and 22 GW of solar projects from the 2023 class are vying for locations in MISO Central. But she said MISO South also is attractive to solar developers, with 24 GW of project potential entering 2023 cycle alone.

“There’s a strong developer interest in MISO South, especially in Arkansas and Louisiana,” Liu said.

Interest in storage is shooting up too, researchers said.

Aurora researcher William Eastwick noted that more than 60 GW of standalone battery storage projects have entered the queue in the past three cycles. They tend to select locations near solar hotspots, hoping to leverage a “technologic synergy” between solar and storage, he said.

Eastwick also predicted MISO’s long-range transmission plan (LRTP) portfolios will shape future developer behavior, with many opting to site projects near future lines.

He said while developers have “cooled off” on siting wind projects in Iowa — which now is notorious for curtailments and some of the lowest prices in MISO — MISO’s second, $25 billion LRTP portfolio has the potential to beckon developers again to Iowa, where new LRTP projects can transport wind generation to eastern load centers in Wisconsin and Illinois.

Aurora Energy Research MISO market lead Jose Munoz said developers should be able to make more informed siting decisions for their generation projects after MISO’s Board of Directors votes to approve the second LRTP portfolio at the end of the year. He added the 2023 class of potential capacity has a “strong correlation” with MISO’s first LRTP portfolio.

However, Eastwick said MISO’s recent stepped-up rules requiring more capital upfront and more financial risk have the “potential to affect cashflows” of MISO’s developers.

MISO last year doubled developers’ first milestone fee from $4,000/MW to $8,000/MW and instituted automatic monetary withdrawal penalties. The RTO still is attempting to find a plan that FERC can agree with to cap the number of megawatts it will accept annually into the queue. (See MISO Sets Sights on 50% Peak MW Cap in Annual Interconnection Queue Cycles.)

Munoz said MISO’s higher-stakes financial environment hasn’t deterred developers so far.

“Despite passing a suite of reforms making the interconnection queue process more restrictive, MISO saw the second largest queue cycle size to date, with 115 GW of capacity submitting applications to interconnect,” Munoz said.

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New England States Raise Alarm on Eversource Asset Condition Project

The New England States Committee on Electricity (NESCOE) is raising the alarm on Eversource Energy’s planned rebuild of the X-178 transmission line in New Hampshire, arguing the company has not adequately justified the need for the full $385 million project. 

Eversource initially presented the replacement project for the 115-kV line to the ISO-NE Planning Advisory Committee in February. It provided a follow-up presentation to the PAC in June, concluding that a full line rebuild would be more cost-effective than a partial rebuild in the long term. (See ISO-NE PAC Briefs: June 20, 2024.) 

“Based on the information that Eversource has shared to date, NESCOE is not persuaded that this investment is a reasonable use of consumer dollars,” NESCOE wrote in a memo published Aug. 1, adding the company has not sufficiently responded to NESCOE’s requests for information on the project.  

“Absent information showing that this use of consumer dollars is well-supported and reasonable, NESCOE is prepared to use its full resources to explore all available options to dispute the reasonableness of the investments, including but not limited to action at FERC,” the committee added.  

Escalating costs from asset condition projects, which are intended to upgrade aging and degrading transmission infrastructure, have been a major concern of the New England states over the past year. NESCOE has pushed New England transmission owners for reforms to the asset condition review process at the PAC to provide greater transparency and allow for more stakeholder engagement. 

NESCOE noted in a June memo that the transmission owners have introduced more than $3 billion in asset condition projects to the PAC since the committee first called for reforms in February 2023.  

The $385 million project at issue in the memo is not the largest asset condition project proposed this year; in May, National Grid presented a nearly $500 million project. (See ISO-NE Planning Advisory Committee Briefs: May 15, 2024.)  

Eversource’s X-178 project has drawn additional scrutiny in part because Eversource’s evaluation of the line identified just 43 of the line’s 594 structures as high-priority concerns, and many of the structures are younger than their projected lifespans. 

In response to NESCOE’s prior calls for asset condition process reforms, the transmission owners have made changes to allow for more stakeholder feedback and have added a new asset condition project forecast database and a process guide.  

NESCOE has called the process updates inadequate and wrote Aug. 1 that Eversource’s decision to push forward with the X-178 project despite the objections raised by stakeholders shows more work needs to be done. 

“Eversource’s persistence in claiming this project is cost-effective without providing the necessary cost details to allow stakeholders to ascertain the reasonableness of this statement underscores the continued need for a comprehensive Asset Condition Needs and Solution Guidance document,” NESCOE wrote.  

The PAC review process for asset condition projects exists strictly for informational purposes and has no regulatory authority. The prudency review of asset condition projects is under federal jurisdiction, while states have jurisdiction over local land and environmental impacts. 

Eversource spokesperson William Hinkle said in a statement the company is reviewing NESCOE’s memo, adding that the company is complying with all regulatory requirements for the project and has undertaken “extensive community outreach efforts” beyond what is required for the project. 

“Line rebuilds such as this, and asset condition projects more generally, are critical to enhancing reliability for customers as we make the transmission system more resilient to the increasingly extreme weather we’re experiencing in New England and addressing aging infrastructure that in many cases was originally built over 50 years ago,” Hinkle said. 

At an investor call Aug. 1, Eversource CEO Joe Nolan said replacing aging transmission infrastructure is a key component of the company’s business strategy amid its retreat from the offshore wind business. 

Nolan said the company is focused on “resiliency investments to address aging infrastructure and minimize customer outages,” in conjunction with investments to enable load growth and clean energy resources.  

He added that the company’s five-year plan includes $3 billion in investments to replace aging transmission infrastructure, $1 billion for building and upgrading substations, and $600 million for transmission upgrades to enable new renewable generation. 

New Hampshire Consumer Advocate Don Kreis said NESCOE’s strongly worded complaint is significant given the committee’s typically diplomatic approach, as comments from NESCOE represent the collective views of all six New England governors.  

Kreis said it’s important that the memo “really isn’t just talking about the X-178 line,” but instead is aimed at the broader lack of oversight on asset condition projects. 

While states cannot review the prudence of the investment, Kreis expressed his hope that the New Hampshire Site Evaluation Committee will take up a review of the project. He said a potential state review process “could be a test of [FERC Commissioner Mark Christie’s] hypothesis that the states can and should play a key role in determining whether projects like this go forward.” 

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PPL Backs Utility-owned Generation in Pa. After PJM Capacity Price Spike

PPL reported GAAP earnings of $190 million for the second quarter and executives focused on changing market dynamics in PJM during a teleconference with analysts Aug. 2. 

The call came just days after PJM released the results of its latest Base Residual Auction, which showed significant spikes in capacity prices. (See related story, PJM Capacity Prices Spike 10-fold in 2025/26 Auction.) CEO Vince Sorgi said PPL is supporting legislative changes in Pennsylvania that would allow the utility to invest in generation. 

“With increasing demand and tight supply, we need to do everything we can to protect our customers from such price volatility, including investing further in transmission upgrades to alleviate constrained zones, incorporating additional grid-enhancing technologies to get as much as we can from existing lines, and advocating for legislative changes in Pennsylvania that would drive needed generation development, including authority that would support regulated utility investments in new generation,” he added. 

PPL is a wires-only firm, having split off its generation when it created Talen Energy in 2015, but given the shift in the generation fleet as demand is on the rise from data centers, PPL would support a major shift in Pennsylvania’s regulatory framework. 

The capacity auction results show that PJM has a clear need for investment in the transmission system and for new generation, Sorgi said. 

“I think those auction results also would reinforce our strategy in working with the state of Pennsylvania and the other [electric distribution companies] in the state to help resolve the resource adequacy concerns that many of us have been talking about for a while now, in particular in PJM,” Sorgi said. “And so we’re not going to just sit back and wait for this issue to resolve itself.” 

PPL has an obligation to serve its customers, and it will do that by expanding the grid and by pursuing legislative changes, he added. 

One of the analysts asked Sorgi about the last time restructured states in PJM backed generation, which led to the Supreme Court rejecting a Maryland subsidy that was based on the RTO’s capacity auction prices in Hughes v. Talen Energy Marketing in 2016. (See Supreme Court Rejects MD Subsidy for CPV Plant.) At the time, PPL still owned 65% of Talen, making it the lead complainant in the case. 

The biggest difference between now and then is what is in the generation queue, Sorgi argued. 

“What we’re seeing right now is significant amounts of dispatchable generation being retired with very little dispatchable generation coming on,” Sorgi said. “And, so … the big issue is not so much the energy play as the capacity play and making sure that we have enough capacity to serve 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365” days a year. 

PPL will be watching to see if the results from the most recent auction entice new, dispatchable resources to bid into the market in next year’s BRA for the 2027/28 delivery year. 

“We suspect that the [independent power producers] will want to see more than just this one data point before they’re committing to building new dispatchable gen like natural gas,” Sorgi said. “So, we’ll be keeping an eye on that.” 

Pennsylvania is taking the issue seriously, Sorgi said, and PPL looks forward to continuing to work with other parties on legislation. 

The capacity auction results could lead to PPL’s average customers paying $10 to $15 more per month, but Sorgi noted other factors could offset that. The utility has significant interest from new data centers in its territory, with 5 GW worth of interconnection requests at a high level and 17 GW overall, though Sorgi said some of that larger number represents developers submitting speculative projects to find open, economic space on the grid. 

Just building out the transmission grid to serve those 5 GW of more secure data centers would lead to them paying more of the transmission side of the bill, offsetting the capacity market’s impact to residential consumers, Sorgi said. 

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GSA Seeks 1.1M MWh of Carbon-free Power for Federal Buildings

The U.S. General Services Administration is doubling down on its efforts to slash greenhouse gas emissions from federal buildings with recent announcements aimed at both procuring carbon-free energy and testing out new energy-efficient, low-carbon technologies. 

On July 31, GSA released its long-awaited solicitation for more than 1.1 million MWh of carbon-free electricity (CFE) per year ― half of it matched hour by hour 24/7 with demand ― to power a significant chunk of federal buildings across five Mid-Atlantic and Midwestern states within the PJM footprint. 

On Aug. 1, the agency partnered with the Department of Energy to put out a request for information on emerging energy efficiency and low-carbon technologies that can be tested in federal buildings through GSA’s Center for Emerging Building Technologies (CEBT) program.  

The RFI kicks off the second round of the initiative, which is funded with $30 million from the Inflation Reduction Act. On July 18, GSA and DOE announced the selection of 17 emerging technologies that will be installed and evaluated in federal buildings with $9.6 million of the IRA money.  

The selected technologies include low-carbon cement (Sublime Systems and C-Crete Technologies), cold climate heat pumps and very high efficiency HVAC (Trane and the Institute for Market Transformation), geothermal retrofits (Brightcore Energy), and building-integrated solar (Vitro Architectural Glass and Oldcastle Building Envelope). 

With jurisdiction over 8,800 federally owned or leased buildings, GSA has become the de facto leading edge of President Joe Biden’s efforts to slash emissions from federal buildings and vehicles through a range of public-private partnerships.  

In Executive Order 14057, issued in December 2021, Biden called on the government to lead by example and use its massive buying power to stimulate demand for clean energy and energy-efficient, low-carbon technologies. The EO set ambitious targets for federal buildings to run on 100% CFE by 2030 and cut their greenhouse gas emissions 50% by 2032 and reach net zero by 2045. 

To hit those goals, GSA is looking for contractors who can provide 100% CFE for 182 accounts at locations in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio and Pennsylvania under 10-year, fixed-price contracts. The solicitation does not identify the specific federal buildings that could be powered with CFE, noting only, for example, that five GSA accounts in Baltimore Gas and Electric’s service territory will require around 40 million kWh of CFE per year. 

Another core requirement is that a certain amount of the power provided — generally about 35% for each state — should be “bundled CFE,” meaning “the original associated energy attributes have not been separately sold, transferred or retired.” 

Energy attribute certificates (EACs) are issued to verify that 1 MWh of clean energy has been generated and fed into the grid. Renewable energy credits (RECs) from solar or wind projects are the most familiar form of EACs. 

“Unbundled” RECs or EACs can be sold separately from the power that produced them. Solar installers may sell them to bring down the costs of an installation, and utilities or other companies often buy them to meet state-level clean energy mandates, passing on the cost to customers through increased rates.  

For GSA, the bundled EAC requirement sends a clear signal that the EACs for any clean electricity used to power federal facilities should not be sold for profit or used as a substitute for putting additional, clean energy on the grid.  

But the GSA solicitation also recognizes that sufficient bundled CFE may not be available initially and allows contractors to set out a schedule of “milestones” at which they will provide increasing amounts of the power. The schedule and commitments then will be incorporated into their contracts. 

The solicitation process will be broken into two phases. The first will focus on contractors’ experience and technical competence to deliver the power, and the second will solicit the actual bids. Deadlines are Aug. 30 for the first phase and Sept. 30 for the second. GSA intends to complete contracts by the end of 2024, with delivery of CFE to federal facilities starting midyear in 2025.

GSA first announced the solicitation in February as part of a joint request for information with the Department of Defense. Together, the two agencies said they could be contracting for 2.7 million MWh of CFE per year, one of the largest federal procurements. DOD will issue a separate solicitation. (See GSA, DOD to Power Federal Facilities with 2.7 Million MWh of Clean Energy.) 

Zero-emission Buildings

Following the July 18 announcement, the RFI released Aug. 1 provides a short list of priority technologies GSA and DOE would like to see tested through the CEBT program.  

Noting that buildings consume approximately 40% of U.S. primary energy and are responsible for 12% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions, the RFI zeros in on deep energy retrofits aimed at making buildings flexible grid assets.  

Other priorities include: 

    • technologies that support all-electric buildings, such as large-scale heat pumps, and all-electric transportation via “vehicle to everything” technologies that also use the batteries of electric vehicles as distributed grid resources; 
    • low- or no-carbon materials that can “replace, supplement or improve asphalt, concrete, glass, steel, insulation, roofing, gypsum wallboard, flooring materials, ceiling materials or aluminum”; and 
    • combinations of renewables, storage or other technologies that allow buildings to operate with no emissions or that can reduce emissions across commercial facilities or campuses. 
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Entergy Touts Louisiana Settlements, Beryl Response in Q2 Earnings

Entergy promoted its response to Hurricane Beryl during its second-quarter earnings call Aug. 1, along with a pair of pending settlements with Louisiana regulators over rates and the Grand Gulf Nuclear Station.

Entergy CEO Drew Marsh told investors to expect settlement filings soon at the Louisiana Public Service Commission to resolve Entergy Louisiana’s disputed rate case and claims of mismanagement at the Grand Gulf Nuclear Station in western Mississippi.

Marsh said the Entergy subsidiary System Energy Resources Inc. (SERI) and the Louisiana PSC have struck a $95 million settlement agreement in principle that will resolve their longstanding clash over Grand Gulf’s poor performance. SERI operates and owns 90% of Grand Gulf and sells the plant’s output to Entergy’s Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and New Orleans affiliates.

Louisiana regulators are the last to accept a settlement agreement related to Grand Gulf; officials in New Orleans, Mississippi and Arkansas already have accepted nearly $500 million in settlements. (See Entergy Earnings Call Focuses on La. Resilience Plan, Nuclear Outage and Settlements and Former Employee Details Failures at Entergy’s Grand Gulf.)

“Pending approval, this settlement substantially resolves the major litigation at SERI and removes an ongoing challenge for many of our stakeholders,” Marsh said. He said Entergy will file a full settlement agreement in the coming days and he expects the Louisiana PSC to address the settlement at its next business and executive meeting Aug. 14.

The PSC maintained for years that ratepayers are owed hundreds of millions of dollars because Entergy mishandled plant operations, undertook an expensive and excessive plant expansion, and engaged in improper accounting and tax violations that shifted costs to ratepayers.

Marsh said a second settlement with the PSC is on the horizon, this one involving Entergy Louisiana’s requested formula rate plan (FRP). He said the settlement involves Entergy dispersing $184 million in customer credits, which includes an increase in income tax benefits for customers, stemming from a 2016-2018 IRS audit of the utility.

The CEO said a successful settlement will mean the utility resolves “all of its outstanding base ratemaking proceedings,” including all issues with FRPs prior to the 2023 case.

Last year, Entergy Louisiana sought an approximately 3% rate increase from customers, or about $173 million (U-36959). The utility argued its recent FRPs have not provided it a “reasonable opportunity to recover the costs of serving its customers.”

Marsh said the two settlements will provide “important clarity” for stakeholders and will allow Entergy and Louisiana regulators to look ahead to focus on “capturing the significant growth opportunities in front of us.” Entergy has identified 5 to 10 GW of new hyperscale data center growth potential across its service territory, he noted.

“We appreciate the hard work of all parties to get to this point,” he said of the negotiations.

Marsh also said Hurricane Beryl in early July affected roughly half of Entergy Texas’ half-million customers. Uprooted trees caused most of the damage and outages, he said. (See MISO: Hurricane Beryl Caused Electrical Island in Texas.)

Entergy estimates it will recover about $75 million to $80 million in total Beryl-related costs.

“We brought a lot of experience and lessons learned from past storms into this effort, which led to timely, safe and cost-effective power restorations,” Marsh said.

He said the storm underscores the need for Entergy Texas’ recently filed Ready Resilience Plan, which calls for spending $335 million over an initial three-year period. However, he said about $200 million is contingent on a grant from the Texas Energy Fund.

Entergy Texas also plans to spend a combined $2.2 billion on new combustion turbine plants in Texas: the 754-MW Legend Power Station in Port Arthur, and the 453-MW Lone Star Power Station in Cleveland, Marsh said. Both plants are expected online in the summer of 2028.

Marsh also said Entergy will accelerate clean energy development, as exemplified by its early June joint development agreement with NextEra Energy Resources for up to 4.5 GW of solar and energy storage.

“Many of our large customers have clean energy goals, and we are expanding our clean energy capacity to support those objectives,” Marsh said.

Entergy reported second-quarter earnings of $49 million ($0.23/share) on an as-reported basis, or $411 million ($1.92/share) on an adjusted basis. This compared to second-quarter 2023 earnings of $391 million ($1.84/share) on an as-reported and an adjusted basis.

The company said the year-over-year decline was attributable mostly to a $317 million settlement charge stemming from a group annuity contract purchased in May to “settle certain pension liabilities.”