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November 6, 2024

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NERC Board of Trustees/MRC Briefs: Nov. 4, 2021

Hybrid Meetings to Start in February

After nearly two years of holding meetings online amid the COVID-19 pandemic, NERC Board Chair Ken DeFontes finally confirmed that the organization’s Board of Trustees and Member Representatives Committee (MRC) will return to in-person gatherings at their next session in February 2022.

Speaking at Thursday’s virtual open meeting of the MRC, DeFontes previewed the preliminary plans for next year’s meeting schedule. As NERC’s management has hinted on previous occasions, February’s meetings will be held in a hybrid format, with the board and MRC gathering in person and all other attendees joining virtually. While the February meeting had been planned for New Orleans, DeFontes said this session will take place at NERC headquarters in Atlanta to ensure a big enough meeting space and appropriate equipment for the online stream.

While the schedule for the remainder of the year has not been finalized yet, DeFontes said the board is planning for the May and August meetings to be in-person gatherings in D.C. and Vancouver, Canada, without an online component. The location and format of the November meeting are yet to be determined, but it will likely be another hybrid gathering.

“I think in the long run, [we’re] probably going to end up with two full, in-person meetings and two hybrid-type meetings” per year, DeFontes said. “We’ll see how that goes. I’m very optimistic that we’ll be able to do this, and I think everybody I speak to is really starving for the opportunity to get back together and continue to have the informal conversations and see people in person.”

Frustration at Cold Weather Delay

The decision of NERC’s Standards Committee last month to delay approving for industry comment a standard authorization request (SAR) developed in response to February’s winter storm drew sharp words from several attendees at Thursday’s board meeting.

Jim-Robb-(NERC)-Content.jpgNERC CEO Jim Robb | NERC

“I was really disappointed that the … committee didn’t take action in October,” NERC CEO Jim Robb said. “When I informed the FERC chairman of the Standards Committee’s inaction, the only way I could describe his reaction was one of befuddlement and disbelief.”

The SAR was drafted after FERC and NERC released their preliminary report on February’s storms, which listed nine key recommendations for avoiding another near complete collapse like the one experienced by ERCOT, in September. (See FERC, NERC Share Findings on February Winter Storm.)

Committee members were reluctant to authorize the new SAR without seeing the final report. (See NERC Standards Committee Delays Action on Cold Weather SAR.) However, Robb reminded the committee on Thursday that they were only being asked to send the SAR for comment, not to approve moving forward with standard development.

“This was just a step to … get the process started, so we can begin to work on a very complicated matter of significant importance,” Robb said. “We can’t use the process or, worse, fear of compliance to delay dealing with issues.”

DeFontes too expressed “disappointment” in the committee’s inaction, calling the “social and economic costs” of the February storms “significant” and emphasizing that the threat of cold weather toward the electric grid continues to grow.

“The board understands the desire to approach these issues in a deliberate and measured manner. The joint inquiry team recommendations call for some dramatic adjustments in how the industry approaches winter preparation,” DeFontes said. “In our opinion, these adjustments are not only dramatic, but also vitally and urgently necessary. The way we do that is by taking on these issues directly and expeditiously.”

Standards Committee Chair Amy Casuscelli, of Xcel Energy, assured the board that “the committee understands the urgency and wants to be responsive … as expeditiously as possible.” She promised prompt action once the final report is released, which is expected some time this month.

Jones, Flandermeyer Picked to Head MRC

MRC members unanimously elected Vice Chair Roy Jones, CEO of ElectriCities, to succeed Paul Choudhury of BC Hydro as chair for 2022. Evergy’s Jennifer Flandermeyer will take over from Jones as vice chair. Their terms begin in February.

Nominations for a special election to fill Flandermeyer’s role as representative of sector 1 (investor-owned utilities) will begin Nov. 5 and conclude Dec. 3, with the election to be held Dec. 13-22. Choudhury reminded members that regular elections for representatives whose terms expire in February will take place from Dec. 8 to 17; nominations for those elections opened Sept. 8 and will end on Monday.

Trustees and Members Honor Gallagher

Both the board and the MRC passed a resolution honoring Bill Gallagher, formerly of the Vermont Public Power Supply Authority, who died Oct. 15 in Florida. At the time of his death, Gallagher had served on the MRC since its inception in 2007, including stints as its vice chair on 2010 and chair in 2011.

In addition to his service at NERC, Gallagher’s resume included time as chairman of the American Public Power Association (APPA) and general manager of Vermont Electric Cooperative. According to Gallagher’s obituary, he spent the last several years serving as a consultant for the Transmission Access Policy Study Group.

“I know if we were [together] in person, we’d be using almost all of our coffee breaks and in-between time to talk about Bill and the memories he’s had for each of us,” Choudhury said. “I only knew Bill for a few years, but for many of you, Bill has been a big part of your own participation here at NERC. … Bill was always there and ready with some really good questions for us. So let’s honor his legacy by being Bill today and asking great questions.”

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NERC Shelves 2022 Atlanta Relocation Plans

NERC has nixed its goal of relocating its Atlanta office in 2022 after failing to negotiate a lease at the planned new location, CFO Andy Sharp said Wednesday.

Speaking at the November open meeting of NERC’s Finance and Audit Committee, Sharp said the organization was “not able to reach a mutual agreement” with the prospective landlord. NERC’s Board of Trustees gave permission in September for management to sign the lease for the new office and to amend its 2022 Business Plan and Budget to cover moving costs. (See NERC Board Approves Atlanta Office Move.)

NERC had planned to exercise the early termination clause in the lease for its current office in the Atlanta Financial Center, allowing the organization to leave the space by October 2022. Last month NERC received FERC’s approval to spend up to $2 million from its Operating Contingency Reserve to pay the fee for exercising the clause (RR20-6). (See FERC Approves Funding for NERC Office Move.) With the move canceled, NERC will stay at the Atlanta Financial Center until its lease ends in October 2025.

<img src="//www.rtoinsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/140620231686783735.jpeg" data-first-key="caption" data-second-key="credit" data-caption="

Andy Sharp, NERC

” data-credit=”© RTO Insider LLC” style=”display: block; float: none; vertical-align: top; margin: 5px auto; text-align: left; width: 200px;” alt=”Sharp-Andy-2019-08-15-RTO-Insider-FI-1″ align=”left”>Andy Sharp, NERC | © RTO Insider LLC

The new office location — which NERC’s management has not publicly revealed, citing the ongoing negotiations — would have charged significantly lower rent and offered several attractive amenities such as free employee parking and convenience to transportation and accommodation options for out-of-town visitors. In addition, its geographic footprint would have been about 40% smaller than NERC’s existing office, aligning with management’s desire to provide employees more flexible remote work options after the COVID-19 pandemic showed that staff could still execute their responsibilities while working from home.

Sharp acknowledged in Wednesday’s meeting that the collapse of negotiations means that the new lease and its promised benefits will not happen. However, he said that unspecified “incentives” that the organization negotiated with its current landlord will “help reduce our facility costs over the last several years of the lease.”

Those lower costs are not reflected in NERC’s 2022 Business Plan and Budget, which FERC approved on Tuesday. (See related story, FERC Approves ERO 2022 Budgets.) That document is based on the existing rent schedule for the Atlanta office. Sharp said any differences will be reconciled through NERC’s quarterly variance reports to the commission.

“We’ll take advantage of this time over the next couple of years to learn from the implementation of the new flexible workforce model and our collaborate-focused space in the Washington, D.C. office,” Sharp said. “And then we’ll evaluate what improvements would make sense in Atlanta and continue to design the best possible experience for our employees and stakeholders, with a focus on cost-effectiveness.”

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Fishermen Fear the Impact of NJ Wind Farms

New Jersey fishermen vigorously opposed the Atlantic Shores offshore wind farm at a recent set of federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) hearings, with one fish supplier saying the project would render a key clam harvesting area unfishable.

Daniel LaVecchia, president of Lamonica Fine Foods, which produces clam and other seafood products, told the second BOEM hearing on Oct. 21 that the proposal to build up to 200 wind turbines one mile apart would prevent clam fishermen from working the area. Because the project is sited in two of the most important clam harvesting areas in the East Coast, its development presents a major “threat to our continued existence,” LaVecchia told the hearing.

“Our income from those two key clamming areas is well documented,” LaVecchia said. “Our financial losses will be highly significant if we cannot continue our clamming fishery in those areas.”

LaMonica-Fine-Foods-Workers-(LaMonica-Fine-Foods)-Content.jpgWorkers process seafood at LaMonica Fine Foods. | LaMonica Fine Foods

LaVecchia was one of several fishing industry representatives at the hearings who expressed concerns about the Atlantic Shores project, while most speakers — among them environmentalists, elected officials and union representatives — voiced strong support. Many cited the urgent need to cut carbon emissions to address the increasingly extreme storms and floods that have pummeled the state in recent years.

The project, a joint venture between EDF Renewables North America (PA:EDF) and Shell New Energies US (AMS:RDSA), would create 1,510 MW of electricity that would power 700,000 homes. Two other offshore wind projects approved by the BPU for the New Jersey coast — the 1,100-MW Ocean Wind 1 project and the 1,148 MW Ocean Wind 2 — are in development by Denmark-based Ørsted.

Warming Fish Habitats

Not all fishermen oppose the Atlantic Shores project. Two charter boat captains that take day tripping fishermen out into the ocean welcomed the project’s advance, saying the need to combat climate change is imperative, and the wind farm could actually improve the available fishing area.

“I myself am looking forward to this project,” Captain Brian Williams, who runs Badfish Fishing Charters of Ocean City, N.J., told the first BOEM hearing. “It’ll create a lot of good fish habitat and hopefully some good fishing.”

Captain Paul Eidman, operator of Reel Therapy Fly and Light Tackle Fishing Charters, said fishermen are already seeing fish move north because of the warming of the ocean.

“There isn’t a fisherman out there, either commercial or recreational, that doesn’t see the effects of climate change on the water every single day,” he said. “These offshore wind turbine structures are likely to become fishing hotspots due to the artificial reef effect.”

But a representative of industrial scale fish companies that rely on pulling a large volume of fish from the sea echoed LaVecchia’s concern. David Wallace, who spoke at all three hearings and represents several food processors along the East Coast who also own fishing boats, said the design of Atlantic Shores leaves too little space for the vessels to navigate.

The combination of the weight of the fishing nets — clam dredges, for example, can be five to seven tons when empty — and the combination of the waves, wind and tides passing through rows of turbines can create unpredictable currents that will make it exceedingly difficult to fish among the turbines, he said.

“It is like trying to tow an anchor, and so it severely limits your ability to navigate,” he said. “It is easy to imagine that a ship could lose control in a tight place and be swept into these turbines.”

Wallace said he has urged developers and government agencies to space turbines two miles apart, to no avail.

Climate Change Urgency

Offshore wind farms would generate 23% of the state’s energy under Gov. Phil Murphy’s effort to reach 100% clean energy by 2050. Along with the three offshore wind projects approved to date, the state plans to hold three more solicitations over the next five years and approve a total of 7,500 MW by 2035.

Asked about the claim that turbines one mile apart could be dangerous for fishermen, Atlantic Shores responded that it wants to “co-exist successfully” with the fishing sector, adding that “working closely with our neighbors in the community is central to our mission.

“Nothing threatens the fishing industry more than the impacts of climate change,” the company said in a statement to NetZero Insider when asked about the concerns of fishermen. “And offshore wind is an important way to mitigate those impacts while preserving our oceans.”

“Atlantic Shores will not block any fishing in its lease area,” the company said, adding that it will continue the “two-way dialogue with the fishing community, particularly the surf clam and recreational fishing communities.”

The company also noted that it is working with  Rutgers University and Stockton University to “better understand ocean conditions, species composition, and habit distribution to minimize any impact.”

In February, a report by five Rutgers researchers who reviewed three decades of research on northern European offshore wind installations concluded that offshore wind farms could have an impact on the annual cycle of ocean water temperatures that are critical to the region’s fish and shellfish habitat,

The researchers studied research on the impact of the farms on tidal currents, temperatures and sediments. In particular, they looked at the impact on the “cold pool,” the layer of colder water close to the sea floor that is important to the survival of species such as scallops and surf clams, in part because it drives the production of nutrients.

An update of the paper, released in July, came to no firm conclusion, saying there remains a “great deal of uncertainty” over the issue. “Changes in stratification could have important consequences in cold pool setup and degradation, processes fundamental to high fishery productivity of the region,” the report said. Travis Miles, one of the researchers, said that because New Jersey’s oceanography is different than Europe’s, the impact of the turbines may not be known for certain until they are operating and can be studied.

Differing Environmental Concerns

Doug O’Malley, Director of Environment New Jersey, told the first BOEM hearing on Oct. 19 that New Jersey is uniquely vulnerable to the ravages of nature because of climate change. The offshore wind projects are key to the state’s effort to reducing carbon emissions and mitigating the worst effects of global warming.

“The Jersey Shore is sinking more than others at other coastal communities. We’ve seen the sea level rise at the shore that is massively higher” than elsewhere, he said. He cited a 2018 study by the Union of Concerned Scientists that found that 250,000 New Jersey homes worth more than $100 billion dollars were at risk from tidal flooding, the second highest number of homes in jeopardy of any state in the nation.

Yet even some environmentalists worry about the impact of the turbines on the fish and their habitat. Kari Martin, advocacy campaign manager for Clean Ocean Action, a coalition of conservation, environmental, fishing and water recreation interests, urged BOEM to extend the comment period for Atlantic Shores because of its scale and potential impact.

“We are concerned about the noise and the navigational risks, and the potential impacts and collisions, accidents and spills that can result and harm our marine ecosystem,” he said.

Nancy Solomon, director of Long Island Traditions, a New York-based nonprofit that advocates for the preservation of traditional culture, called for a study on “impacts to offshore fishermen, local bayman and shellfish beds in New Jersey.” She said the windfarm developers should “establish a mitigation fund for the impacted fishermen bayman and people in these coastal communities who have shared family traditions that date back well over 100 years.”

But Agnes Marsala, a member of Empower New Jersey, said turbines offer the opportunity to bring “good jobs and an abundance of energy to the northeast.”

“I realize the fishing industry might be impacted,” she said. “But the single biggest revenue loss to fishermen is climate change. All the fishery management plans in the world mean nothing, if global warming forces species out of Atlantic waters.”

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Conservation Groups Win Injunction vs. Cardinal-Hickory Creek

A federal judge on Monday put on hold the hotly contested Cardinal-Hickory Creek transmission project slated to cut through southwestern Wisconsin after he determined that environmental destruction is likely to occur.

U.S. District Judge William Conley, with the Western District of Wisconsin, said right-of-way deforestation along portions of the route will destroy the Driftless Area’s federally protected wetlands and issued a preliminary injunction (21-cv-096-wmc).

Project developers American Transmission Co. (ATC), ITC Midwest and Dairyland Power Cooperative had planned to begin clear-cutting the Wisconsin portion of the nearly $500-million, 101-mile 345-kV line from Dubuque County, Iowa, to Dane County, Wisconsin.

Conservation groups Wisconsin Wildlife Federation, Driftless Area Land Conservancy (DALC), National Wildlife Refuge Association, and Defenders of Wildlife argued in May that the developers and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had ignored adverse environmental impacts. They argued that the line’s environmental impact statement, prepared by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service, did not comply with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and that its right-of-way permitting violated the National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act.

The groups also said the Corps ran afoul of NEPA, the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act by issuing permits for line construction despite known environmental harms. They said the Corps failed to meaningfully address project alternatives.

Conley agreed that irreversible environmental damage was likely to occur if the deforestation went ahead as scheduled on wooded wetland areas.

“While defendants assure the court that best construction practices and mitigation will be used, that does not change the fact that some harm will come to the environment,” he wrote. “Specifically, even the first stage of construction will involve ground clearing, which in and of itself causes harms that are acknowledged in the environmental impact statement, which the Corps signed.”

Conley said that the potential damage in this case “relates to the destruction of ecosystems, wetlands, and habitats, and simply awarding damages cannot repair fragile ecosystems that are harmed.” He added that “money cannot reverse soil erosion or reintegrate fragmented habitats.”

He said the Corp’s Utility Regional General Permit contains “no evidence of even cursory analysis of the cumulative impact” if the line is built near federal waters.

Conley acknowledged that developers have been clearcutting a 15-mile stretch of the route in northeastern Iowa since April.

But he said ATC, ITC and Dairyland should not have acted as if the line were an inevitability and taken for granted that they would sail through a permitting process. Conley said the developers don’t yet have permission to clear or build in the Upper Mississippi River National Fish and Wildlife Refuge, where the line’s Iowa and Wisconsin portions meet, and he said the refuge’s protected status likely represents the conservation groups’ best defense against some line construction.

Conley said developers could have paused their timeline rather than give the groups the minimum 30-day notice of their intent to begin work. He said the “limited” monetary damages of a preliminary injunction “are unlikely to outweigh the permanent damage threatened.”

ATC, ITC and Dairyland estimated that a 30-day injunction would lead to $3.1 million in damages and a 60-day injunction would cause them $12.72 million in damages.

Environmental Law and Policy Center attorney Howard Learner, representing the conservation groups, said the injunction halts developers from damaging more than 100 wetlands along the line’s path.

He said he was encouraged by Conley’s opinion that the Upper Mississippi River Wildlife Refuge is probably an inappropriate backdrop for 20-story transmission towers.

“That will require the federal government agencies to robustly explore and objectively evaluate better, less expensive and less environmentally damaging alternatives. That should have been done before, and, if the District Court’s final decision is aligned with the preliminary injunction opinion, then it will be required soon,” he said in a statement. “The court’s preliminary injunction decision is well-grounded in both law and common sense. It is in the public interest and can better protect both the environment and ratepayers.”

Learner said ATC and ITC “should hit the pause button” while the court readies a final opinion over the next 30 to 60 days.

In a joint statement, ATC, ITC and Dairyland said while they were “disappointed” with the injunction, it affects fewer than 16 acres of the 87-mile Wisconsin route. The trio said they “voluntarily agreed to avoid construction in these wetlands until Nov. 29 as a showing of good faith and cooperation to the court and other parties,” but they also said they would continue project construction on the land unaffected by the injunction.

They said they remain convinced the project stands on its merits and said more than 17 GW of renewable generation is dependent on its construction.

“The Cardinal-Hickory Creek project is needed more today than when initially approved by the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin in 2019,” the developers said. “The utilities are committed to completing this project, which will reduce energy costs, improve electric grid reliability, relieve congestion on the transmission system, support decarbonization goals and help support the interconnection of renewable generation in the Upper Midwest.”

The Cardinal-Hickory Creek project is the last of MISO’s 2011 multi-value projects in line for a ribbon-cutting ceremony. ATC, ITC and Dairyland have been trying since 2012 to build the line; DALC and the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation have been fighting in court for years against the line. (See Environmental Groups Divided on Cardinal-Hickory Creek Line.)

The project suffered a separate setback earlier this year when developers ATC and ITC uncovered evidence of encrypted messages between their employees and former Wisconsin Commissioner Mike Huebsch. (See Former Wis. Commissioner’s Texts Imperil Cardinal-Hickory Creek Line.) The incident forced the companies to redo the project’s certificate of public convenience and necessity.

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Seattle Sports Complex Gets ‘Kraken’ on Net-zero Pledge

The name of the Climate Pledge Arena might seem weirdly political and “woke.”

However, it fits right in with liberal, green Seattle as a giant $1.15 billion sports and concert coliseum and one of the largest — if not the largest — (nearly) net-zero buildings in the U.S.

Seattle-based Amazon became a sponsor of the facility and picked the name, which locals rattle off without a hint of finding it odd.

Opening on Oct. 19 with a Foo Fighters concert, the structure is so anti-greenhouse gas that the carbon footprints of visiting hockey teams flying in and out of Seattle will be factored into its mission of generating zero emissions.

“It’s an important statement,” Rob Johnson, vice president of sustainability and transportation for the arena and its main occupant, the new Seattle Kraken National Hockey League team, told NetZero Insider.

That’s because its owners and developers — the Seattle Center, Oak View Group (OVG) and the Kraken — take global warming seriously and want to show that a huge structure can be carbon-neutral, he said. Based in Los Angeles, six-year-old OVG is a sports and entertainment building corporation founded by live music promoters Tim Leiweke and Irving Azoff.

Climate-Pledge-Arena-(Climate-Pledge-Arena-Michael-Dyrland)-Content.jpgSeattle’s Climate Pledge Arena will house the NHL’s Kraken and WNBA’s Storm, as well as host live entertainment performances. | Climate Pledge Arena/Michael Dyrland

The 74-acre Seattle Center was the site of the 1962 World’s Fair and is home to the iconic Space Needle. That World’s Fair featured the opening of the Washington State Pavilion, which then went through several name changes until it became Key Arena from 1995 to 2018. OVG then renovated the building, now renamed Climate Pledge Arena.

Only the steel roof of Key Arena, dating back to 1962, remains because it was declared a Seattle landmark in 2017. The renovated 740,000-square-foot arena extends 58 feet — four floors — beneath the ground’s surface. That’s 15 feet deeper than Key Arena.

The refurbished arena can seat 17,100 people for a hockey game and 18,100 for a basketball game. In addition to the Kraken, the arena is the home to the WNBA Seattle Storm, and the city hopes to replace the NBA SuperSonics, which left for Oklahoma City in 2008. The building can also handle a concert crowd of up to 17,200.

But what puts this colossal arena on the road to becoming a zero-carbon emitter?

First, Climate Pledge Arena has a goal of being powered only by renewable energy sources, Johnson said.

The arena’s new atrium holds 500 solar panels that are expected to provide 3-5% percent of its electricity. Seattle City Light provides the rest of the power, with the arena backing the utility’s development of enough solar and wind sources to eventually allow all its power to be derived from renewable resources. Until that happens, the arena will buy renewable energy credits from various utilities.

The arena has been catching Seattle’s steady rains and collecting the water in a 15,000-gallon tank to create and maintain the ice for the hockey games.

The arena’s zero-emissions ambition includes Johnson’s efforts to track the carbon footprints of the vendors supplying food, drink and other supplies, seeking business partners with little or no net-carbon emissions when they send items to the coliseum. And Johnson will do the same tracking of airplane emissions for Kraken (and Storm) opponents when they fly in and out of Seattle for games at Climate Pledge Arena. He is trying to come up with measures to offset the carbon from those airplane trips.

Johnson hopes Climate Pledge Arena will be certified as a zero-emissions building by late 2022, meaning 100% of its carbon emissions will be offset by physical measures or renewable energy credits. The certifying organization will be the Seattle-based International Living Future Institute, which has said the arena will likely be the first sports coliseum to offset all its GHGs. A third party annually will audit the arena’s net carbon footprint to ensure the coliseum can maintain that certification.

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‘Tide has Turned’ for Climate Tech Startups, Exec Says

Climate technology startups are raising more money and raising it faster than at any time over the past decade, according to Emily Reichert, CEO of startup incubator Greentown Labs.

“It is a pretty darn good place to be,” Reichert said. “For the first time in my experience, money is just flowing into this field in a way that is unexpected.”

Alicia Barton, Greentown board member and CEO of FirstLight Power, spoke with Reichert about her work with climate tech startups during the New England Women in Energy and the Environment’s annual meeting and Fall Fête event on Wednesday.

“The tide has turned, and it’s amazing,” Reichert said.

The startup community has many job opportunities right now, as the small teams that start new companies are building up their workforce experience.

Startups have a reputation for low job security, but Reichert says that’s not the current reality.

“There are so many roles that are out there in these startups, and they are better funded than I have ever seen,” she said.

The value to startups of the Biden administration’s stance on climate change cannot be underestimated, Reichert said.

“It affects talent, capital and all of the things that startups are going to need in order to be successful or even get started,” she said.

Federal funding for climate-related issues also is helping.

“There are opportunities for innovation funding from the very earliest stages for companies all the way up to the loan program at [the U.S. Department of Energy] … that can help the scale and commercialization happen that is needed for early-stage technology to have a climate impact,” Reichert said.

While funding may be flowing, it’s still not a level playing field.

“Raising funds is challenging for everyone, but it’s particularly challenging for women,” she said.

While the investment community is not diverse, Reichert believes it has changed somewhat in the last few years, as firms feel the pressure to bring a variety of voices to decision making.

Despite that challenge, she said, female entrepreneurs can be successful by building a solid support network.

Reichert has been with Greentown since its origins in a basement in Boston, and she has watched it grow to support 450 startups. It has a 100,000-square-foot campus in Sommerville, Mass., and it recently opened a smaller campus in Houston.

The organization started out with environmentally focused entrepreneurs and has since made climate its “North Star,” Reichert said.

“We’re laser focused on supporting startups that are working on decarbonizing our economy across sectors, whether it be electricity, buildings, transportation, agriculture or manufacturing,” she said. “Our process for bringing them in the door looks at the greenhouse gas emissions or the resiliency benefits that the technology provides.”

Since its launch 10 years ago, Greentown’s startups have raised $1.5 billion in capital, and they have an 88% success rate, Reichert said. The Houston campus, she said, already has 40 startups.

The decision to expand Greentown to Houston was not an obvious one, Reichert said.

“We’ve been trying to solve climate change from the coast for years and years, and we still aren’t there,” she said. “If you can transition the folks in Houston and involve people in the solution to the problem of climate change … that means you have people marching with you instead of against you.”

Business leaders in Houston are recognizing that climate tech is a valuable strategy for success in the future.

Civic and business leaders in Houston “are saying that they know they need to be part of the energy transition … because the fact of the matter is that the oil and gas industry is not going to be driving Houston’s economy for more than the next 10, maybe 20, years,” Reichert said.

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Massachusetts Struggles with Plan for Leaking Gas Pipes

Massachusetts agencies are already working to determine the future of natural gas in the state, but a bill under consideration in the legislature is tackling how to deal with leaking gas pipes.

Legislators from the Merrimack Valley, where a series of gas explosions and fires killed an 18-year-old and forced the evacuation of 50,000 residents in 2018, called for repairing pipelines instead of replacing them until Massachusetts settles on the future of heat to avoid future incidents.

“Many of our homes and neighborhoods are still not put back together,” Rep. Christina Minicucci said at a legislative hearing on the proposed Future of Heat Act (H.3298) on Tuesday. “The explosions happened during pipeline replacement.”

The state program to replace leaking gas pipes is likely to cost more than $20 billion, according to a report by the research and advocacy organization Gas Leaks Allies.

Other experts suggested looking at the state of pipelines on a case-by-case basis or even by municipality.

Legislators should “make it a local decision based on the pipes in the ground there,” said Harvey Michaels, professor of energy and climate solutions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Alternatives to natural gas, such as air source heat pumps, are not yet widely integrated in Massachusetts homes, Michaels said.

“No one has come up with a good idea in cold climates to decarbonize heat, so we need to try a few things,” he added.

A new study published in the Journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that methane emissions from pipelines at a group of sites in Boston are six times higher than state estimates. The study also found a correlation between methane emissions and consumption, even though pipelines are kept at an almost consistent pressure throughout the year despite the amount in use.

The results show that gas leaks within homes and buildings are higher than previously thought, Maryann Sargent, a research scientist at Harvard University and a co-author of the study, testified Tuesday.

Instead of spending billions on replacing pipelines, Massachusetts should repair pipelines and redirect funding to geothermal heat networks as outlined in the Future of Heat bill, according to the testimonies of researchers, scientists and advocacy organizations.

“If the state repaired all of the pipes instead of replacing them, it would be 1/200th of the cost,” said Audrey Schulman, co-executive director of the Home Energy Efficiency Team (HEET).

The upfront costs of installing the thermal heat pump networks will be higher than natural gas pipes, but “the energy is free,” Zeyneb Magavi, co-executive director of HEET, said. Gas utilities would then transition to thermal clean heat utilities and make money maintaining the thermal network, she added.

However, the language in the bill does not favor any one type of clean energy alternative.

“I think this is a bright spot in dark times,” Magavi said.

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Castor: House Democrats ‘100% United’ on Clean Energy Transition

Democratic losses in the Virginia, the defeat of a transmission project in Maine and the still uncertain fate of the bipartisan infrastructure package and $1.75-trillion budget reconciliation bill in Congress were top of mind in the opening sessions of the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) Grid Forum on Wednesday.

Speaking with ACORE CEO Greg Wetstone, Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), chair of the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, called the election results a “wake-up call” as potent as the UN’s recent “code red” climate assessment report. Released in August, the report warned the world is running out of time to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. (See Too Late to Stop Climate Change, UN Report Says.)

Castor acknowledged the clock may also be ticking on congressional Democrats. “I think there’s a great frustration all across the country with the fact that this negotiation has gone on too long. They don’t really understand the vagaries of a 50-50 Senate,” she said, referring to ongoing tensions between progressive and moderate Democrats in both the Senate and House of Representatives.

At the same time, she remained optimistic that both bills will be passed, saying the House Democratic Caucus is “100% united on the need to move to clean energy and do it swiftly.”

Castor also stressed the importance of bill provisions that will support better grid planning, encouraging “power markets to do better on cooperating on resilience” and “the DOE and FERC to be much more forward-leaning to avoid congestion and political roadblocks.”

While the central role transmission must play in grid decarbonization and economy-wide emissions reduction is the key theme at the two-day event, politics were a constant, tangential concern. Industry hopes for passage of the bills were reflected in a pragmatic panel discussion on infrastructure priorities, which focused on the incremental process of implementation that will lie ahead — and the problems neither bill may be able to solve, as the U.S. seeks to decarbonize its grid by President Joe Biden’s target of 2035.

“What’s at the forefront of my mind right now is how are all pieces fitting together, and what are the policies beyond just at a congressional level, when we get to [the] regulatory or even state level,” said Kevin Gresham, senior vice president of government relations for developer RWE Renewables America. “Where do we need to focus our intentions and work over the next really short period of time to get this underway.”

For Alex Daberko, managing director at infrastructure investor Starwood Energy, obstacles to what he called project “feasibility” are now the biggest challenge.

“Developing utility-scale, renewables has gotten more challenging, not less,” Daberko said, pointing to the three-year timeline for project development that “is sort of a rule of thumb” for wind and solar projects.

“When you can’t count on the timeline or the results from the interconnection study process, then that makes it that much harder,” he said. “And then when you’re juggling tax policies that changed four times during that three-year window and also face inflation and other things, it’s really hard to keep all the balls in the air, which is the key to successful development.”

Procuring clean energy for Walmart’s 5,300 U.S. stores is all about the three Rs, said Steve Chriss, the discount retailer’s director of energy services. “How does it benefit renewables? How does it benefit reliability? How does it benefit resilience?”

He sees expansion of transmission and distribution systems as essential for Walmart to hit its own target of running its stores on 100% renewable energy by 2035.

“We’re going to require more electricity,” Chriss said. “That electricity needs to be carbon free, and really the power quality needs to be extremely high. So that means that we need reliability when things are going well. We need resilience when things aren’t going well. And the infrastructure buildout is really critical to meet all of these needs.”

And, he added, “It’s not only about interconnection, it’s about driving deliverability to load.”

The ITC Compromise

With the Clean Electricity Performance Program — that would have paid utilities for cutting their emissions — forced out of the reconciliation bill, industry attention has turned to exactly what kind of tax credits will be in the final package and what they can accomplish.

Daberko said a stable 10-year extension of the solar ITC could unleash pent-up demand and market growth for projects that may have stalled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“There are a lot of people that have had to go back to offtakers with PPAs [power purchase agreements] that were negotiated a year or two ago, and the world looked a lot different,” he said. “This 10-year extension could be the bridge that makes those projects whole again. So, I think from our side and from the OEMs perspective, they expect 2022-2023 to be pretty monumental years for deployment if this passes.”

But Christina Hayes, vice president at Berkshire Hathaway Energy, said the transmission investment tax credits in the reconciliation package may have limited impact. They are “really targeted to projects that need a little bit more to kind of get over the hump,” she said, referring to an ACORE report identifying 22 shovel-ready projects that would benefit from a transmission ITC. (See Transmission ITC Could Add 20 GW of New Capacity to Grid.)

She was more positive about a prospective compromise between the House and Senate, which would set up a two-phase approach to tax credits. If enacted, clean energy ITCs would remain technology-specific — separate ITCs for solar, standalone storage and transmission, among others — for five years, the House approach. Credits would then become technology-neutral, based on emission reductions, an approach supported by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).

“They got the order correct,” Hayes said. “Get everything started in kind of a full-throated way with the House approach, and then transition to Sen. Wyden’s approach to make sure that the incentives go on until the goal is met … to make sure that we are truly keeping an eye toward what the goal is. We’re not deploying resources so we can trade RECs [renewable energy credits]. We’re deploying resources so that we can serve customers with clean energy and retire the less-clean energy.”

Filling the Gaps

But beyond the transmission ITC and other transmission supports in the reconciliation and infrastructure bills, crucial gaps remain in the development of transmission planning and buildout, according to Castor and others at the forum.

Castor pointed to the Efficient Grid Interconnection Act that she introduced in June, which would have required FERC to allocate costs for transmission upgrades more broadly.

“Many of the network upgrades required to connect new renewable energy and storage projects benefit all customers,” Castor said. “So cost allocation should reflect that consideration of environmental benefits, including reduced carbon pollution. Conventional air pollution should be considered, and we want to encourage the use of grid-enhancing technologies to reduce the cost of network upgrades.”

While the bill did not make it into either the infrastructure or reconciliation bill, Castor sees FERC’s current proceeding on grid planning and cost allocation, the Advanced Notice on Proposed Rule Making, as another avenue to address these issues. (See Transmission Industry Hoping for Landmark Order(s) out of FERC ANOPR.)

“Our view has to be broader and more forward-looking in order to really put [transmission planning] together in a way that makes sense so we can more efficiently expand the grid … which benefits customers because it is the efficient way to do it,” said Bill Parsons of ACORE, who moderated the panel.

Gresham and Daberko cautioned that stakeholder buy-in at multiple levels will be needed to develop and execute any new processes.

At the state level, getting projects approved remains a major challenge, Gresham said. “How do you get it through local commissions and by landowners? Because ultimately, regardless of the policy and player who has authority, you still have to do a really good job of stakeholder engagement,” he said. “You still have to get local buy-in and figure out ways to really build that community support for a project.”

Daberko cautioned that big rule changes or new compliance requirements tend “to hit the brakes on deployment, because you know, every bank, every potential investor has to get comfortable with those rules and making sure that they don’t have a discontinuity in returns if they miss on some new requirement that’s not fully understood.”

For Walmart’s Chriss, another gap that needs to be addressed is the role of co-ops and municipal utilities in grid planning. Walmart gets its power from just under 1,000 utilities, with a majority of it coming from big investor-owned utilities. But, he said, “There are a lot of munis and co-ops [that] don’t actually own or are indirectly responsible for the procurement of generation.”

Small public and cooperative utilities are more sensitive to the price impacts of transitioning to clean energy because they have fewer customers, Chriss said. “There needs to be concerted efforts to find paths forward to help transition these organizations.

“It’s really about transitioning the entire grid to be decarbonized, and transmission is just a piece of that,” he said. “At the end of the day, we all want to be served by clean energy around the clock, all the time and that’s everybody; so, it just becomes the new normal. The goal of corporate procurement should be to get everyone to a point where we no longer need to do corporate procurement because the steady state of the system is clean.”

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US, Canada, EU Pledge to Slash Methane Emissions

The oil and gas industries in the U.S., Canada and the European Union can expect a plethora of proposals for new rules designed to sharply cut methane emissions from wellheads, pipelines and storage depots by 2030.

During the U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow on Tuesday, President Biden, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen pledged they would lead a global methane reduction effort that began in September and is now endorsed by 105 nations.

Leaders from many of those nations spoke in support of the initiative, including those from Argentina, South Korea, Vietnam, Colombia, Libya, Ecuador and the Republic of the Congo.

Biden, Trudeau and von der Leyen made it clear that the effort would immediately require new regulations — which Republican lawmakers in the U.S. blasted within hours.

Noting that methane is 80 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, von der Leyen explained the rush: “We need big structural changes to reach 2050 climate neutrality, but we cannot wait for 2050. We have to cut emissions fast. And methane is one of the gases we can cut fast. Doing that will immediately slow down climate change,” she said, adding that the EU would propose new rules next month.

Biden added that without methane leak reductions, keeping the lid on the average global temperature increase by 2050 may not even be possible.

“What we’re going to do between now and 2030 is going to impact significantly on whether we’ll be able to meet our longer-term commitment,” he said. “And one of the most important things we can do in this decisive decade … is reduce our methane emissions as quickly as possible.”

Trudeau pledged his government would create regulations to slash methane leaks by 75% from the oil and gas industry alone.

“There’s no achievable pathway to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius without deep cuts to methane over the next decade,” he said. “As Ursula and Joe and others have pointed out, methane has six times the warming power of carbon dioxide over a 20-year period.”

Fatih Birol, a Turkish economist and executive director of the International Energy Agency, put immediate methane reduction in a dramatic context: “If we fulfill this pledge over the next 10 years, the impact is [the same as] switching off all the cars of the world, all the trucks of the world, all the planes of the world, all the ships of the world. This is historic.”

Biden said an all-out effort to combat methane leakage would be a job creator.

“It’s going to boost our economies, saving companies money by reducing methane leaks, capturing methane, turning it into new revenue streams, as well as creating good-paying union jobs for our workers,” he said. “And we’re talking about jobs to manufacturing new technologies for methane detection. Jobs for union pipe fitters and welders to go out and cap abandoned oil wells and plug leaking pipelines. …

“We’re proposing two new rules: one through our Environmental Protection Agency that’s going to reduce methane losses from new and existing oil and gas pipelines, and one through the Department of Transportation to reduce wasteful and potentially dangerous leaks from natural gas pipelines,” the president said.

EPA had already released a statement announcing proposed new rules under the Clean Air Act, requesting comments on further strengthening emission controls on oil and gas operations and noting that in the U.S., the “the oil and natural gas industry is the largest industrial source of methane emissions, emitting more methane than the total emissions of all greenhouse gases from 164 countries combined.”

Before noon, Republican congressional leaders blasted the proposal with a statement about winter heating bills. It did not mention climate change.

“We are concerned this new regulatory proposal, in addition to the natural gas tax proposed in the Democrats’ tax-and-spending spree, is another attack on American energy. America is leading the world in emissions reductions, and we have shown that innovation — not regulation — is the key to making energy cleaner and more affordable,” it said.

Later in the day during a press conference with American reporters, Biden took questions about the political challenge the administration will face to win congressional approval of some of his pledged commitments.

“How do you convince Republicans and even some Democrats to get behind more spending, if they look at this conference and say, ‘China isn’t meeting these global goals. Russia doesn’t intend to meet these global goals. India doesn’t plan to. Why shouldn’t we wait?’” asked one reporter.

“Because we want to be able to breathe, and we want to lead the world,” Biden replied. “The single most important thing that’s gotten the attention of the world is climate. Everywhere. From Iceland to Australia. It just is a gigantic issue.” China and Russia have “walked away. How do you do that and claim to be able to have any leadership now?”

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FERC Approves ERO 2022 Budgets

FERC on Tuesday accepted the 2022 business plans and budgets of NERC, the regional entities and the Western Interconnection Regional Advisory Board (WIRAB) (RR21-9).

NERC submitted the budgets to the commission in August as required by FERC regulations. The documents are based on the revised ERO Enterprise Long-Term Strategy, approved by NERC’s Board of Trustees in 2019. (See NERC Plans Review of Supply Chain Standards.)

For 2022, NERC is proposing a total budget of $88 million, about $5.1 million higher than last year’s. Assessments are planned to increase by 8.9% to $78.3 million, with additional funding of $9.9 million to come from other sources to the tune of:

      • $7.9 million in third-party funding for the Cybersecurity Risk Information Sharing Program (CRISP);
      • $1.8 million for testing, renewal and continuing education fees from participants in NERC’s System Operator Certification Program;
      • $76,500 for interest and investment income;
      • $60,000 for services and software; and
      • a miscellaneous $60,000.

Specific increases in the 2022 budget over last year include rises of 7.8% in personnel, 18.5% in meetings and travel, and 5.3% in operating expenses. The personnel increase comes from an addition of 10.34 full-time-equivalent employees (FTE) from the 2021 budget, while the growth in operating expenses primarily comes from about $1.6 million to be spent on office costs, consultants and contracts; these are offset by a $360,165 decrease in office rent. Budgeted fixed asset additions, including leases on information technology equipment leases, are up $1.4 million to $4.1 million.

Spending on meetings and travel is expected to rise because of “a partial return to in-person meetings” in 2021 after almost two years of entirely virtual gatherings amid the COVID-19 pandemic. NERC plans to resume limited face-to-face meetings for the Member Representatives Committee, Board of Trustees and select additional committees or groups, though for others it will continue “to leverage the efficiencies of virtual meetings.”

RE Budgets, Assessments to Rise

The 2022 budgets for the REs, and their differences from the prior year, are as follows:

      • Midwest Reliability Organization: $20 million (up $1.6 million from 2021)
      • Northeast Power Coordinating Council: $17.5 million (up $1 million)
      • ReliabilityFirst: $26.2 million (up $1.4 million)
      • SERC Reliability: $26.7 million (up $879,181)
      • Texas Reliability Entity: $17.2 million (up $2.9 million)
      • WECC: $29.7 million (up $1.1 million)
      • WIRAB: $918,900 (down $286,600)

NERC plans to allocate the greatest portion of its assessment to SERC, RF and WECC, assessing the REs $23.1 million, $15.3 million and $15 million respectively. The remainder will come from NPCC, with $9.4 million; MRO, with $8.6 million; and Texas RE, with $6.8 million. Each RE’s allocation is primarily based on net energy load, adjusted based on local circumstances: for example, compliance monitoring and enforcement program and situational awareness costs in Canadian provinces. Assessments will be billed directly to load-serving entities within each RE’s footprint.