Search
`
November 14, 2024

Posted on

Oregon RTO Committee Ponders Paths to Regionalization

A meeting to hash out an upcoming Oregon study on RTO membership took some philosophical twists Monday as discussion turned to how the state’s participation might fit into other developments in the West and whether incrementalism might be the best approach to unifying the region’s grid operations.

In kicking off the first meeting of the state’s RTO Advisory Committee, Adam Schultz, electricity and markets policy lead at the Oregon Department of Energy (ODOE), clarified that the study that Senate Bill 589 requires from the department by year-end is not expected to provide recommendations on whether the state should compel utilities to join an RTO. (See Oregon Study to Examine Benefits, Risks of RTO Participation.)

The objective, according to Schultz, is “to gather and synthesize the range of perspectives on the benefits, costs, opportunities, challenges and risks of RTO formation that exists among a diverse range of Oregon stakeholders to inform the state legislature and other interested parties.”

The Advisory Committee includes representatives from the state’s three investor-owned utilities (Portland General Electric, PacifiCorp and Idaho Power), consumer-owned utilities, independent power producers, the legislature, the governor’s office, organized labor, and environmental and social justice groups.

During Monday’s meeting, committee members from the electricity sector appeared to lean in support of RTO membership, a view that even extended to consumer-owned power providers.

“There’s a lot of talk about RTOs and organized markets across the region. We’re participating in many of those and are excited about the opportunities that it can create,” said Frank Lawson, general manager of the Eugene Water and Electric Board. “I would say that we’re generally favorable of the idea, and we also know that the details matter.”

Robert Echenrode, CEO of Umatilla Electric Cooperative in Eastern Oregon, said his utility’s interest in an RTO stems from its “rather significant load” and the potential for renewable energy growth in the region.

“We’re very interested in both sides of the RTO equation. We anticipate a net benefit,” Echenrode said.

“I’d say our view is that we favor market development, but markets done right,” said Fred Heutte, NW Energy Coalition (NWEC) senior policy associate. “Of course, there’s a lot of different issues and perspectives underneath that cliche.”

Ben Kujala, director of power planning at the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, pointed to the “transformative” energy policies taking shape in the West — particularly in California — that “are really going to change the way” the system and markets work. He wondered how Oregon can best position itself to mitigate any risks that might arise from those changes.

“I think one of the things you always have to keep in mind in any report looking at something like this is … is [the development of an RTO] an incremental change to the current state — or would the current state be better going forward?” Kujala said.

Mike Goetz, general counsel for the Oregon Citizens’ Utility Board, said the study should examine other efforts already underway in the West to inform the possible shape of an RTO. He pointed specifically to the Northwest Power Pool’s (NWPP) Western Resource Adequacy Program effort and CAISO’s proposed extension of its day-ahead market into the Western Energy Imbalance Market (WEIM). (See RA Program will Require Restructuring of NWPP.)

“I know there’s folks out there that kind of see a resource adequacy program and extended day-ahead market as steppingstones towards potentially getting into a more regionalized approach that leverages geographic and resource diversity,” Goetz said. “Maybe taking a step back and looking at what those programs can offer … could set our region up best to form an RTO that really gets the most bang for his buck.”

All-in vs. Incrementalism

An RTO shouldn’t be expected to solve every problem in the region, according to Sarah Edmonds, director of transmission services at Portland General Electric.

“There are some things that make sense to embed in the market, particularly those items that respond best to the economic signals of supply and demand, but there are some more difficult things that have made sense in other places to do out of market,” Edmonds said.

“Whether it’s an RTO or something less than,” she continued, a market solution could potentially complement “foundational RA requirements.” RA information could be then fed into an RTO’s optimization process to provide economic solutions in the day-ahead and real-time time frames.

“So I see it more as not the provider of RA, necessarily, but as maybe a more efficient engine that RA can be connected to,” she said.

Ravi Aggarwal, a manager with the Bonneville Power Administration, said that while multiple studies look at the benefit of a West-wide RTO, none has examined the potential for a market consisting of only Northwest entities.

“I think we need to think about a more staged and incremental approach, if you think that the chances of success are perhaps higher,” Aggrawal said.

Aggarwal said the Northwest’s “three-legged stool” of regional planning, RA and markets is already being served by Northern Grid, NWPP and the WEIM, respectively.

“I think that incremental approach makes you learn from your mistakes and refine it before you go on,” he said. “So all I’m advising is that as you guys are providing input to the legislators, think about ‘all-in’ versus an incremental approach, and look at the pros and cons of it, and see the benefits in doing one versus the other.”

Spencer Gray, executive director of the Northwest & Intermountain Power Producers Coalition, said his members would likely disagree with Aggarwal’s view on strength of the Northwest’s planning platform, contending that it does not go “beyond the plans” of incumbent utilities.

“You might find a diversity of views on what incrementalism means — what is satisfactory incrementalism versus a re-entrenchment of the status quo,” Gray said.

NWEC’s Heutte cautioned that an incremental approach to regionalization might not move quickly enough for Oregon to achieve its decarbonization goals. Under the current structure, the state doesn’t benefit from the “full range of diversity” of Western energy resources, he said. Furthermore, it’s becoming increasingly complicated for grid operators to manage the “expanding list” of storage resources that are becoming more diverse in scale, location, type and performance.

“And to me, that’s the advantage of moving forward to full market. That full market would be able to take the greatest advantage of the resource diversity to decarbonize the system, and to make it more reliable,” Heutte said.

Posted on

MISO Warns Queue Won’t Stay at 150-GW High

MISO is putting stakeholders on notice that withdrawals are imminent in its record-setting 150-GW interconnection queue.

Speaking at a meeting of the Interconnection Process Working Group on Monday, MISO Manager of Resource Utilization Jesse Phillips said he expects to see up to a quarter of the new entries withdraw projects soon. October marks the first phase of the queue’s three-part definitive planning phase, when interconnection studies are performed and upgrade costs assigned. Phillips said projects will leave the queue before ever making it to the first phase.

“As we know, the queue fluctuates, and this is … a volatile period,” Phillips said.  “We already have seen some withdrawals.”

MISO’s queue is back in the triple digits after the RTO processed the 2021 collection of new generation hopefuls. New proposals pushed the interconnection queue to 980 projects totaling 153 GW, MISO’s largest ever. (See MISO IC Queue Tops 150 GW; Solar Maintains Lead.)

Developers this year submitted 487 applications representing approximately 77 GW; 83% of the proposed new megawatts are renewable.

“Solar requests are the highest fuel requested,” Phillips reported.

MISO said the 2021 applicant group marked the first time that requests for energy storage interconnections outstripped requests for wind generation interconnection. The RTO processed 44 GW worth of solar requests, 12 GW in storage projects and a little more than 9 GW in wind requests.

MISO has not yet set an application deadline for generation project plans for its 2022 queue cycle.

Posted on

Michigan Enviros Use Report for New Push to Remove Solar Cap

LANSING, Mich. — Environmentalists are urging Michigan lawmakers to end the 1% cap on distributed energy production following a report for the Public Service Commission that concluded there was no economic reason to maintain the limit.

The report, produced by the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP), was the subject of a Sept. 14 hearing by the state Senate Energy and Technology Committee. Neither the report nor the comments were explicitly directed at persuading lawmakers to pass HB 4236, which would eliminate the cap that has been in place since 2016.

But environmentalists argued the report and hearing proved Michigan’s major utilities have been disingenuous in arguing the cap should continue because they are subsidizing customers with rooftop solar.

Michigan’s law requires utilities to allow distributed energy production up to 1% of their average peak load for the previous five years.  Utilities can, on their own, alter that cap.  DTE Energy (NYSE:DTE) has not yet reached the 1% cap. CMS Energy (NYSE:CMS) has raised its cap to 2%, and the Upper Peninsula Power Co. (where solar usage has proven very popular) raised its cap to 3%. At the end of 2020, Michigan ranked 32nd out of 50 states in megawatts of distributed solar PV at 98.9 MW, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The RAP report said the inflow/outflow model, which replaced net metering for new DG customers, eliminated “most reasonable arguments about significant cost shifting from participating DER customers to non-participating customers.”

Under the new model, also called instantaneous netting, inflow (power delivered from the distribution system) is charged at the relevant retail rate, while outflow (power delivered to the distribution system) is only credited at the generation portion of the retail rate, excluding transmission costs for most utilities.

“The main argument standing in the way of affordable, reliable clean energy has once again been proven false by the Michigan Public Service Commission,” Michigan League of Conservation Voters deputy director Bob Allison said in a statement after the meeting.

“The utilities say they’re ‘all in’ for clean energy yet have not supported this critical bipartisan solar bill languishing in committee,” Charlotte Jameson, program director for the Michigan Environmental Council, said in a statement.

The draft report, “Smart Rate Design for Distributed Energy Resources,” looks at three “potential pathways” but does not recommend which the state should choose:

      • The “gradual evolution pathway” is described as making modest improvements to the efficiency of pricing for new DG customers, with associated cost allocation improvements and a minimal need for new customer education, process reforms, or administrative burdens.
      • The “advanced residential rate design” is an “aggressive effort to enlist a large segment of residential customers to optimize their usage, storage, and generation patterns” to lower overall system costs while ensuring fair cost recovery through new rate structures.
      • The “customer choice and stability” pathway is “a simple and understandable set of options to customers that are fair to non-participating ratepayers, with stable payment schemes that may lower barriers for both customers and DER companies.”

The report was requested by both the Michigan Senate and PSC members.  The draft was opened to public and legislative comment Sept. 1, with a final version expected to be released in November.

Majority Republicans on the committee expressed disappointment that the report did not provide more specific advice.

Answering questions from lawmakers, Mike Byrne, the PSC’s chief operating officer, said there was no cost shifting from solar customers to non-solar customers.

“There is no need to keep that 1% cap in place,” Byrne told the Senate committee.

Asked in an interview if the 1% cap was needed, PSC Chair Dan Scripps responded, “No, it’s not.”

When the cap was put in place, “it was a way of seeing how it would roll out in Michigan,” Scripps said, “and it was also done at a time when we had net metering.  We don’t have net metering anymore. So from a financial perspective, we don’t believe there are cross subsidies between those with solar and those that don’t.  But perhaps even more importantly, we have a process for adjudicating in our rate cases.  And utilities have made the case that they believe cross subsidies exist and a different way of pricing is needed.  And some of the clean energy advocates have said the inflow/outflow mechanism we’ve approved in a few cases now doesn’t fully reflect the [environmental and consumer] benefits that solar offers.”

Ultimately, the legislature must decide what to do with the cap, Scripps said.

Environmental groups found new ammunition with the report and comments.  Allison said utilities “must acknowledge” they were wrong in claiming there was a subsidy.  Jameson added, “it’s time to scrap this cap.”

Utility officials last week declined to endorse the environmentalists’ conclusions.

A DTE spokesperson noted Friday that the utility has previously said it would negotiate on raising the cap once the subsidy question was answered.

A spokesperson for CMS said the company is reviewing the draft report and will work with the legislature on questions members may have.  Like DTE, CMS said previously it would favor eliminating the cap, if the cost shift issue is addressed.

Rep. Greg Markkanen (R), the sponsor of the bill, said he has heard nothing either from the chair of the House Energy Committee, which is holding HB 4236, or anyone else on moving the bill.  He was glad some groups were issuing a renewed push for the legislation, but there has been no actual movement.

“I’ve even said I would negotiate with the utilities,” he said, “but they still refuse.”

Posted on

Michigan PSC Tightens Rules on Utility Service Following Blackouts

LANSING, Mich. — The Public Service Commission last week proposed major changes in its rules for restoring electric service after blackouts, responding to a series of summer storms that left thousands across the state without power, sometimes for days.

The proposed rules were issued less than a month after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) and PSC Chair Dan Scripps said electric providers must improve customer service, in part, because climate change increases the likelihood of severe storms such as those that plagued the state in August (R. 460.701- R. 460.752).

Scripps said work on the proposed rules began a few years ago, following an arctic vortex that hit Michigan in 2019. The PSC was “in a pretty good place” in terms of the drafts before the advent of the storms. With the storms, though, officials stepped up their efforts to get them released, Scripps said.

The proposed rules are a major revision of the state’s service quality rules established in 2004.  If approved, the rules are intended to remain in operation until 2030.

Current rules affect utilities; the proposed standards would also cover electric cooperatives.

A new category of operating conditions would be added to the current “normal” and “catastrophic” conditions: a “gray sky condition” in   which between 1% and 10% of customers have weather-related power interruptions.

The current expectation that utilities restore power to 90% of affected customers within 36 hours under catastrophic conditions is unchanged in the new rules. But under the new gray skies category, power must be restored to 90% of the customers within 24 hours.

The draft rules would also specify that utilities must relieve first responders who are guarding downed power lines within three hours of the lines being reported down, or within two hours in a metropolitan area, at least 90% of the time under all conditions. Currently, the rules require relief within six hours, or four hours in a metropolitan area.

A worker trims branches after August 2021 storms in Harper Woods, Mich.  | DTE EnergyThe draft rules also boost the rate credits some affected customers could get from $25 to $35 plus $2 an hour for every hour over 96 hours a customer was without power.

“I wouldn’t characterize the rules as consensus,” Scripps said in an interview with ERO Insider, predicting complaints from utilities and consumer groups on issues such as the service credits. He said although Michigan’s rules were already strong compared to other states, the new standards would make them stronger.

Many of the new proposed rules are “designed to reflect the realities of how long it takes” to restore power blackouts from weather crises, Scripps said.

Asked if the proposed rules could be seen as criticism of how utilities such as CMS Energy (NYSE:CMS) and DTE Energy (NYSE:DTE) handled their responses to the series of outages following the severe thunderstorms in August, Scripps said, “I think it’s an acknowledgement that we’ve got work to do in our distribution system. The number of outages and particularly the duration of outages when they happened were not where we need to be.

“There’s a fair amount here that I think tightens up our performance standards, and I think that’s important.  It reflects what we’ve seen over the last summer, but it also reflects what we need to do as we start to electrify transportation and add loads to the distribution grid. It can’t be a bottleneck to what customers expect and where we need to be as a state.”

The rules could also encourage further steps to harden the grid, such as improved tree trimming and burying power lines. “That’s our hope,” Scripps said. The PSC is planning a technical conference on utility storm response on Oct. 22 as part of its effort to improve the grid.

Camilo Serna, regulatory vice president for DTE Energy, said the proposed rules were “the beginning of a process that would take months,” and that DTE would be part of that process.

The rules must undergo hearings and then be approved by the legislature’s Joint Committee on Administrative Rules before taking effect.

Amy Bandyk of the Consumers Utility Board of Michigan said the proposed rules are an improvement “but don’t go far enough to address Michigan’s continuing problem with electricity reliability.” She said that customers would not receive credits unless they had been without power for days. “Customers should receive credits for all outages, proportional to the length of the outage to provide them some insurance against the harm of an outage and as an incentive for utilities to improve their performance.”

Posted on

Partners Behind Vineyard Wind Divvy up Leases

The businesses behind the Vineyard Wind joint venture are restructuring their agreement to allow one party to focus on existing projects and the other to develop an open lease area.

Avangrid (NYSE:AGR) subsidiary Avangrid Renewables and Denmark-based Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) said Tuesday that the shift will allow them to “leverage their strengths and expertise to continue to grow the U.S. offshore wind industry.”

While the companies will proceed with development of the 800-MW Vineyard Wind 1 project as a joint venture, Avangrid will have the option to take operational control of the project following construction.

Avangrid also will buy the lease area (OCS-A 0534) with the proposed 804-MW Park City Wind project and the recently announced Commonwealth Wind project bid under Massachusetts’ 83C iii competitive solicitation that opened in May.

Avangrid Renewables will take control of the lease area for the Park City Wind project and the newly proposed Commonwealth Wind project, while Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners will take control of a nearby, undeveloped lease area. | Vineyard WindCIP will take control of a nearby lease area (OCS-A 0522) for development. The 132,000-acre area “has the highest wind speed of any lease area in the Northeast and will be a very competitive site for solicitations from New York to Massachusetts,” Christian Skakkebæk, senior partner in CIP, said in a statement.

The companies estimate that the lease area has 2,500 MW of offshore wind energy potential.

Avangrid will make a net payment of $167.5 million to acquire OCS-A 534 and, in exchange, CIP will acquire OCS-A 522. The companies expect to close the transaction by next spring.

Project Activities

Vineyard Wind 1 recently reached financial close, raising $2.3 billion of senior debt though nine international and U.S. banks, the companies said on Sept. 15. As a result, the companies have begun providing project contractors with notices to proceed with construction activities, they said.

Onshore work is scheduled to begin in the fall in Barnstable, Mass., with offshore work scheduled to begin next year.

The companies also submitted two proposals for their Commonwealth Wind project in the Massachusetts competitive offshore wind solicitation. The proposals offer 800 MW and 1,200 MW of wind energy.

Public versions of the bids are due this Thursday, and the state will publish them on its clean energy solicitation website.

Posted on

Facing City Council Inquiry, Entergy Says it Could Sell New Orleans Utility Arm

Entergy New Orleans (NYSE:ENO) today said it will be left with four paths forward — including a merger or sale of the utility — should the New Orleans City Council force a change in the city’s electric utility structure.

New Orleans City Council President Helena Moreno announced last week that she will propose a study on potential new ownership of electric and gas operations in the city, including the creation of a city-owned utility. The council’s Utility Committee is expected to approve a resolution that would kick off the study at its Wednesday meeting.

Anticipating the resolution, Entergy (NYSE:ETR) said it could either sell its New Orleans unit; merge it with Entergy Louisiana; create a standalone company free of the Entergy name; or step out of the way as New Orleans navigates a municipal utility.

Entergy’s rejoinder comes after the City Council has repeatedly voiced its displeasure with the performance of the greater New Orleans system in the wake of Hurricane Ida. (See Entergy Investigations Certain to Follow Hurricane Ida Restoration and Entergy Touts Restoration; NOLA Leaders Question Lack of Blackstart Service.)

Entergy indicated it prefers a merger of its New Orleans and Louisiana subsidiaries, which would remove the council’s oversight and replace it with that of the Louisiana Public Service Commission.

“A merger would bring lower rates to New Orleans residents, create a larger company with stronger financial strength for investments and spread the risk of storm costs across a larger customer base,” Entergy wrote in a Tuesday press release.

Entergy said creating an independent utility for New Orleans would “likely create significant credit risk, which in turn would raise financing costs and could challenge the ability to fund ongoing business operations and secure funds for storm restoration.”

“Even as part of Entergy Corp., Entergy New Orleans has been downgraded twice in the last 12 months by rating agencies due to its storm risk and weakening financial performance,” the company warned.

It also mulled the sale of Entergy New Orleans to an interested buyer: “If a willing buyer with sufficient financial strength is identified, such a transaction could lead to benefits or drawbacks depending on the specific circumstances regarding the transaction.”

The municipalization of Entergy assets by New Orleans is another risky option, the company said. While the city could exert “maximum control” over rates and business operations and access to disaster relief reimbursement, Entergy said the option “could result in higher financing costs and additional operational expenses.”

Moreno responded to Entergy’s plan on Twitter on Tuesday, revealing that she had mistakenly been sent Entergy’s media strategy and timeline, containing several prepared answers to hypothetical questions.

“When you’re coming at your regulatory body with a media ploy to change up regulators, don’t accidentally send me your whole messaging and media plan with your news release,” she tweeted.

Entergy’s public relations plan apparently included refusals to speculate on what entity might purchase Entergy New Orleans and the sale’s possible effect on shareholder earnings. It also contained explanations emphasizing Ida’s strength and the concept that storm restoration costs will need to be recovered despite a possible change in ownership.

Entergy said that along with its predecessor New Orleans Public Service Inc., it has been part of the “fabric of the New Orleans community for more than 100 years.” It pointed out that its corporate headquarters are located within the city.

Rod West, group president of Entergy Corp.’s utility operations, said it’s “obvious” that Entergy has “reached a critical juncture in [its] relationship with the City Council.”

“While we believe that the actions of Entergy New Orleans have always been in the best interest of our New Orleans customers, some members of the council have publicly expressed a different opinion. Certain proposed actions would prohibit ENO from recovering critical storm restoration costs and freeze funding mechanisms previously approved by the council, thus inflicting further financial decline on ENO and adversely impacting ENO’s ability to provide quality service to its customers,” West said.

West said Entergy and the council “have a long history of working together to find common ground on solutions for customers that solve complex problems and achieve important objectives to a sustainable energy future.”

“Despite a comprehensive and dedicated restoration effort that saw the overwhelming majority of New Orleans customers’ power restored within a week after the strongest hurricane ever to hit our region, several members of the council have expressed their intent to introduce and support a process that could potentially have another entity own and operate electric and gas service in the city,” he said. “We are positioned to support the City Council as they evaluate various options and prepared to move forward with whatever path the council chooses.”

City Implores MISO for Transmission Projects

The City Council this week also accused Entergy of interfering with MISO’s long-term grid planning so that its system remains largely free from competition.

Moreno sent a letter to MISO CEO John Bear and President Clair Moeller on Monday in which she urged the RTO to “fulfill its obligations to plan and build a reliable regional grid,” specifically in New Orleans.

She said she discovered recently that stakeholders believe Entergy is “obstructing progress in MISO at the expense of those who rely on the grid for affordable power.”

She cited former FERC Commissioner John Norris’ allegations of Entergy influence on the MISO planning process at September’s Board Week. Norris said he and fellow commissioners greenlit Entergy’s membership in MISO believing that its connections to the larger grid would be augmented. He said he was dismayed that seven years later, no transmission links have been built. (See MISO Stakeholders Blame Entergy for Long-range Transmission Impasse.)

“Historically, Entergy isolated itself to ensure only Entergy’s generators could supply electricity to its customers,” Moreno wrote. “This parochialism resulted in inflated rates to customers and diminished Entergy’s ability to deliver electricity when Entergy’s generators or transmission grid went down. When Hurricane Ida hit, New Orleans and its people once again suffered the consequences of Entergy’s protectionism. Some even died because of power outages in the city. MISO was supposed to ensure that Entergy could no longer prevent the development of a reliable and interconnected transmission grid in MISO South. The citizens of New Orleans need MISO to fulfill its promise.”

Moreno said the city “embraces” MISO’s long-range transmission and asked that it develop transmission solutions for Greater New Orleans in 2022. She said the city’s battering by Ida and increasingly bad weather means the city cannot afford to wait another year “without a solid plan” in place. She said New Orleans is ready to participate in MISO’s stakeholder process to ensure transmission solutions are analyzed.

“For too long, the region surrounding New Orleans has been served by a grid that was built in a piecemeal manner and without sufficient connections to other geographic areas. Given recent stakeholders comments, I question whether our grid was designed and built by a utility that is more interested in protecting its own interests than those of its customers,” she wrote.

Moreno also sent copies of the letter to the Organization of MISO States Executive Director Marcus Hawkins and President Julie Fedorchak.

Entergy rebutted that it doesn’t dictate MISO transmission planning and will have to shoulder its share of construction costs if the RTO approves projects.

“The transmission projects that are ultimately approved as part of MISO’s long-range transmission plan are not determined by Entergy but rather by MISO, based on the feedback of numerous MISO stakeholders,” the utility said in a statement to RTO Insider. “The initial set of long-range transmission projects proposed by MISO is estimated to cost approximately $30 billion, and Entergy New Orleans would be required to pay its allocated share of these costs. Given these substantial costs, it is important that we work carefully through the MISO stakeholder process to advocate on behalf of our customers’ interests and provide thoughtful input to MISO and our regulators on this important matter in the coming months.”

Posted on

Environmentalists Hesitant About Floating Solar in Massachusetts Ponds, Reservoirs

A new joint venture that plans to put floating solar on irrigation ponds and reservoirs in Massachusetts has local environmentalists concerned.

Ciel et Terre subsidiary Laketricity and BlueWave Solar formed the joint venture in August to forge new places to develop renewable energy.

BlueWave says floating solar arrays are part of the solution to save forested land in the state, which serves as an important carbon sink in the race to reduce emissions. Floating solar photovoltaics on the more than 24,000 human-made U.S. reservoirs and water treatment plants could generate about 10% of the nation’s annual electricity production and save 2.1 million hectares of land, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

“We are not looking at bodies of water where there is a lot of fishing or recreation,” George Wissing, senior project developer for Laketricity, told NetZero Insider. “And we are not taking down any trees.”

Environmentalists and biologists in Massachusetts have raised concerns about building solar panels on forested or undeveloped land in the state, and some environmental groups say more information is still needed about the ecological impact of floating solar panels.

“I don’t know why they don’t just pivot to brownfields or the built environment,” Meg Sheehan, a public interest environmental lawyer, told NetZero Insider. Sheehan previously worked as an assistant attorney general in Massachusetts and as a staff attorney for the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority.

The Department of Energy Resources (DOER) should “keep their hands off public water resources,” she said.

The Solar Massachusetts Renewable Target program (SMART), which provides incentives to encourage solar development, includes floating solar with an additional 3 cents/kWh of energy generated.

SMART gives solar developers subsidies for developing on public resources, Sheehan said.

BlueWave works on “dual-use” solar projects in Massachusetts, where solar panels are placed over agricultural fields.

Another company, Pine Ridge Renewables, is developing solar panels over cranberry bogs in Carver to create an additional income stream for growers. However, the projects are still experimental, and the impact on cranberry growth has yet to be seen by both farmers and developers, Wissing said.

Challenges for Floating Solar

Floating solar technology is new, and people still have to “get used to the idea of it,” Wissing said.

The solar panels are placed on floating mounted bases that snap together, and the array is anchored to the bottom of the body of water as well as the shore. Wissing says communities have been concerned that the materials used for the structure, such as silicone, glass and metal, will affect drinking water. But the materials have been certified as drinking-water safe in the U.K., he said.

BlueWave and Laketricity worked with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection to establish a surface-area coverage of no more than 50% to allow enough sunlight to filter through to the ecosystem below. With a portion of the surface area covered, the panels will also prevent some evaporation from reservoirs, protecting the water source, Wissing said.

Anchoring floating solar structures to the bottom of a body of water can be more challenging than ground-mounted solar, according to Wissing. Water levels change over time, so the poles and anchors must be flexible to allow for the changes.

In a body of water like a cranberry bog, the changes in water level are predictable, depending on when the growers flood the bog for irrigation, Wissing said. For drinking water reservoirs, the changes may not be as predictable, he added.

Environmentalist Janet Sinclair has raised concerns about bird strikes on the panels because they might mistake the infrastructure for water.

“Migrating birds who have followed one path for years might get confused and fly into panels,” which kills the birds, Sinclair said.

The floating material that holds the solar panels looks like a sidewalk from the sky, according to Wissing, who added that there are clear walkways delineating the array.

Government agencies that subsidize floating solar projects in human-made bodies of water “act as though these ponds don’t have their own ecological value,” Sinclair said. “This is just another taste of not looking before we leap.”

Floating solar has already been deployed at scale in Japan, a country that faces similar space issues as Massachusetts in siting renewable energy projects.

“If we are going to build out [renewable energy] at the capacity we need, floating solar in human-made bodies of water is an important part of the solution,” Mike Marsch, principal and head of solar development at BlueWave, told NetZero Insider. “We are a very environmentally focused developer, and we are doing it for the right reasons.”

Note: This article was updated on Sept. 24, 2021, to correct the developer of solar over the cranberry bogs in Carver as Pine Ridge Renewables. 

Posted on

Panel Dissects FERC Transmission Planning Review

Creating an equitable transmission grid for the United States will require not only thinking about the impact of new projects on low-income and disadvantaged “environmental justice” communities, but also recognizing “the equity implications of the status quo are pretty dire,” said Alexandra Klass, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School.

“We know that the power grid wasn’t built to withstand today’s more frequent and intensive storms,” Klass said, speaking Friday on a virtual panel on the future of grid planning convened by the State Energy & Environmental Impact Center at NYU Law School. “So, when we delay building transmission, it means we have our old power grid that has greater environmental justice impacts every day … and we make the problem worse.”

Klass was one of four panelists who dissected FERC’s advanced notice of proposed rulemaking (ANOPR) on transmission planning and cost allocation, with a focus on what the commission’s 142-page document, released in July, may have left out and the challenges ahead. FERC is now about halfway through a 75-day comment period for the docket (RM21-17). (See FERC Goes Back to the Drawing Board on Tx Planning, Cost Allocation.)

Jennifer Murphy, senior counsel and director of energy policy at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC), said her members believe “the planning process should require clear and standardized metrics for assessing the impacts on disadvantaged communities and ensuring that the benefits flow to those communities.

“We need to be specific and intentional,” she said, to ensure a new project doesn’t end up adding to negative impacts on disadvantaged communities.

At the Building the Grid of the Future webinar (clockwise from upper left): Liz Salerno, FERC; Katie Mapes (moderator), Spiegel & McDiarmid LLP; Noah Shaw, Foley Hoag LLP; Alexandra Klass, University of Minnesota; Gabe Tabak, ACPA; and Jennifer Murphy, NARUC. | State Energy & Environmental Impact Center at NYU Law SchoolMurphy pointed to the Joint Federal-State Taskforce that FERC and NARUC are establishing as a forum where cost allocation issues can be hashed out. Although she referred to it as the “FERC-NARUC taskforce,” Murphy and other panelists said additional stakeholders must be part of the conversations on transmission planning reform, including other state policy makers, federal agencies such as the Department of Energy and the Bureau of Land Management and finance providers.

“For finance providers, the risks that a system can’t deliver resources appropriately or includes significant upfront questions regarding deliverability, curtailment and interconnection costs and processing, [they] really end up getting rolled into the cost of the facility,” said Noah Shaw, a partner in the energy and climate practice at Foley Hoag LLC. “Understanding the capital providers’ perspective with respect to de-risking these projects should be paramount and important for purposes of policy making and cost considerations.”

State-level participation, beyond regulators, will also be important for breaking down traditional transmission planning silos that classify individual projects as meeting either economic, reliability or public policy needs, said Gabe Tabak, counsel for the American Clean Power Association.

“The goal here should be to really take the various state renewable energy goals and fully incorporate those into the transmission planning process really as a starting point,” Tabak said. “[We need] to assume that these are valid state goals that need to be met, that will be attained, and to look at what the least-cost means of getting to those state goals are, with a transmission plan that also addresses economic and reliability needs as well.”

Broad stakeholder engagement earlier in the process would also give state regulators time to “become more comfortable” with the complex issues involved in grid planning, Murphy said.

“It will allow them to know what the inputs are, what the assumptions being made are, where the data is coming from,” she said. “And if states are more comfortable with the inputs, they’re definitely going to be more comfortable with the outcomes.”

‘Super Technical and Nerdy’

Friday’s webinar reflected the intensifying focus on the role of transmission in President Biden’s goal to decarbonize the nation’s electricity system by 2035 and move toward a net-zero economy by 2050. The bipartisan infrastructure bill now in Congress would provide $73 billion for transmission projects, and advocates are pushing for a transmission investment tax credit in the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation package, also still moving through Congress.

But, as many in the industry have noted, transmission projects often stall out because of the long permitting and planning processes they must go through. The problems are “super technical and nerdy,” said Shaw. “But for all those people who care about climate change, it’s the biggest thing we’re going to have to deal with in the electricity system over the course of the next five years.”

Liz Salerno, FERC | State Energy & Environmental Impact Center at NYU Law SchoolFERC’s authority is limited to ensuring project costs and their allocation are reasonable and prudent, said Liz Salerno, who leads transmission and technology initiatives for FERC Chairman Richard Glick. The ANOPR and the joint taskforce are part of FERC’s efforts to reimagine and update interstate transmission planning processes, she said.

Salerno provided an overview of the background and main points of the ANOPR, specifically its goal to overhaul Rule 1000 ― the transmission planning framework FERC issued 10 years ago ― in the face of the dramatic changes in generation resources and the demands variable, renewable energy is placing on the grid.

“The existing transmission planning process as required under our current rules just may not sufficiently do enough forward-looking and proactive planning for the future,” Salerno said. “Because of that, the way we’re planning for future generation, almost by default, is done on a project-by-project basis.”

With 750 GW of mostly renewable projects sitting on interconnection queues across the country, “projects move through the queue … upgrades get identified, costs get assigned and then either the project moves forward, or it doesn’t,” she said. “That sort of step-by-step approach maybe isn’t a particularly cost-effective or efficient way to build up the grid.”

In addition, it “could be leading to a result that’s ultimately more expensive for ratepayers than an approach that’s more forward-looking and proactive,” she said.

Salerno’s comments largely echoed the arguments that Glick and Commissioner Allison Clements set out in a joint statement in support of the ANOPR.

Acknowledging the need for new ideas, the ANOPR solicits input on several questions:

      • how to accommodate anticipated future generation within the regional transmission planning and cost allocation processes;
      • whether the commission should require transmission providers to identify geographic zones with the potential for developing large amounts of renewables and plan transmission to integrate those resources;
      • whether changes are needed to improve the coordination between the regional transmission planning and cost allocation and generator interconnection processes;
      • how to allocate the costs of new transmission in a way that allocates costs “at least roughly commensurate” with estimated benefits; and
      • whether participant funding of interconnection-related network upgrades may be unjust and unreasonable and whether FERC should eliminate rules that allow RTOs/ISOs to use participant funding for interconnection-related network upgrades.

The Regulatory Mismatch

Murphy said NARUC supports a more “holistic” approach to transmission planning, as opposed to Rule 1000’s siloing of projects based on their impact on economic, reliability or public policy considerations.

“A holistic approach would look at the impact of siloing on planning, cost allocation and whether better outcomes could be achieved if needs were not divided in this way,” she said. It would “also consider alternative transmission solutions, including grid-enhancing technologies and non-transmission technologies in the regional planning process,” she said. (See FERC Workshop Participants Differ on GETs Incentives.)

But Klass saw a larger challenge for any effort to reform transmission planning and cost allocation.

“The physical aspects of how the U.S. electric grid has worked for decades don’t match the regulatory authority for the new lines we need for a grid that’s powered primarily on renewable energy and is reliable and resilient in an age of climate change,” she said. “In terms of building the grid of the future with interstate, long-distance transmission lines designed to ship renewable power across the country, we have a regulatory regime where states and in some cases counties within states hold virtually all the regulatory power. And without a major shift in that regulatory authority, progress is going to be slow.”

One solution, Klass said, could be financial incentives that “can both flow up to the companies that are able to take on these significant projects, and also flow down to the level in which regulatory authority exists so that money can be spread to all of the impacted communities that are going to need to be convinced that these projects are in their interest.”

Another challenge will be integrating the impact of extreme weather events into planning processes, Shaw said. The ANOPR doesn’t specifically talk about weather, he said. Long-term generation and transmission planning must take into consideration the impacts of such events and “the locational value of the resources that are being proposed in any particular transaction,” Shaw said.

How to value projects that provide system reliability and resilience will also require considering the impact of not making those investments, he said. “There’s an opportunity cost to not planning longer term.”

Posted on

NJ Municipalities Tackle Carbon Emissions

New Jersey’s local governments and residents are taking the initiative to fight climate change and promote renewable energy, with Jersey City creating its own climate change master plan and voters in three communities prodding their elected officials to opt to provide clean energy to residents.

Jersey City, the state’s second largest municipality, approved its own 103-page master plan in June that echoes the state Energy Master Plan, calling for greater use of electric vehicles and measures that will improve the efficient use of energy in buildings. The city is also one of 18 communities that have secured state grants totaling more than $22 million to acquire zero-emission school buses, garbage trucks or shuttles. The Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, in the state’s most populous county, recently acquired a Tesla vehicle that will be fitted out to show area departments how EVs can ably serve the needs of law enforcement, the office said.

“Our hope at the county level is to embrace positive advancements in ‘green’ technology and exceed the goal of the state,” said Elizabeth R. Rebein, assistant prosecutor/spokeswoman for the office. “We expect to see a reduction in repair and maintenance costs as compared to conventional vehicles, and the elimination of fuel costs.”

Elsewhere, voters — led by Food & Water Watch, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group — are driving the shift to clean energy. The town councils in three communities — Woodbridge, North Brunswick and Long Branch — each approved ordinances in August that require their governing bodies to set up a program giving residents the option to use an electricity provider that is heavily sourced with clean energy.

Food & Water Watch triggered the ordinances through a combination of the state initiative-and-referendum law and a law that allows municipalities to purchase electricity through community choice aggregation (CCA). In each of the three municipalities, residents collected enough signatures to trigger the enactment of an ordinance requiring the governing body to strike a deal with an electricity provider that would enable residents to buy electricity of which 50% or more is from clean resources.

With those three ordinances in place, 11 New Jersey municipalities have enacted CCA programs and a 12th is heading that way, said Charlie Kratovil, canvas director for Food & Water Watch in New Jersey.

“The goal is ultimately to win the big changes we need at the federal level to get us to 100% renewables ASAP,” he said. “So, this is one way for both regular citizens and also local officials to weigh in on that and demonstrate that it can be done and that we need to do it.”

Not all the organization’s signature drives have been so smooth. In Teaneck, the township rejected signatures that were collected electronically online because of the COVID-19 pandemic. But on Monday, a New Jersey Superior Court judge ruled that the signatures were valid and required the issue to go before voters, Food & Water Watch said.

Woodbridge Mayor John E. McCormac, whose municipality has forged a statewide reputation for its environmentally friendly programs, said his green initiatives aren’t driven by a broad view of climate change but from the dual goals of supporting sustainability while taking a cost-effective strategy for his residents.

“Both greens work,” he said. “It’s green for the environment; it is green for the budget. Because it will save money and will protect the environment at the same time. All those things are things we very much are aggressive with.”

The townships’ green initiatives include numerous solar installations atop of municipal buildings, a thriving bicycle-sharing program, the installation of low-energy lights around the township, and the successful application for state funds to purchase three-electric garbage trucks and two electric shuttle buses. (See NJ RGGI Spending Focuses on Transportation.)

The township four years ago enacted an energy aggregation program, but it didn’t work out and was canceled, said McCormac, who declined to say why because he did not want to affect the upcoming bid process for an electricity supplier. Now that the issue has been forced on the municipality by the voter drive, “we’re going to look at it again,” he said. “And hopefully, this time around, it will be better.”

Focusing on Local Needs

The ground-level initiatives are unfolding amid Gov. Phil Murphy’s drive to reach the goals of his master plan, released in January 2020, which calls on the state to use 100% clean energy by 2050. It also calls for a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in the state by 80% below 2006 levels.

The plan outlines seven strategies for reaching the goals, including accelerating deployment of renewable energy, and reducing energy consumption and emissions from the transportation and building sectors.

Possible pathways to net-zero by 2050 for Jersey City | Jersey City/ICLEI USASimilar goals are imbued in Jersey City’s plan, which was created by the Office of Sustainability that Mayor Steven Fulop established in 2018. He pushed for the plan after realizing that severe weather events were becoming “more frequent and more ferocious in recent years, which is especially concerning for us as one of the most densely populated cities per capita in the world,” city spokeswoman Kim Wallace-Scalcione said.

The city, which sits on the Hudson River across from New York City, suffered extensive flooding at the start of this month, when the remnants of Hurricane Ida dumped between 5 and 8 inches on the region, with streets and basements flooded, and more than 100 vehicles abandoned in the water, according to local news reports. Last week, the federal government added Hudson County, in which Jersey City is located, to the list of New Jersey counties designated as major disaster areas.

Jersey City’s master plan, called the Climate and Energy Action Plan, “follows the state’s overall goals but looks specifically at how we can tackle those goals at a local level as efficiently and effectively as possible and in a way that meets the needs of Jersey City residents,” Wallace-Scalcione said.

The plan, which requires the city to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 80% below 2015 levels by 2050, reports that 67% of the city’s greenhouse gas emissions come from buildings and 30% come from transportation. Another 3% come from waste.

Jersey City’s master plan proposals include a goal of ensuring that 100% of all new municipal vehicles are electric by 2030 and recommending that the city partner with NJ Transit, the state’s mass transit agency, to create a plan to make its fleet 100% electric by 2035.

The plan also proposes that all new buildings over 25,000 square feet should be solar and EV ready by 2022, and all buildings of that size should benchmarked for energy use by 2023. The plan also calls for the city to “streamline and clarify the permitting process for building-mounted solar panel systems” and establish a local community solar program.

Overall, the city should be using 100% clean energy by 2030, the report says.

Collective Clean Energy Purchasing

That same goal is enshrined in the ordinances passed in Woodbridge, North Brunswick and Long Branch. The ordinances require each municipality to solicit request for proposals for “electric generation service and energy aggregation services on behalf of the township’s residents and businesses,” and to set up a CCA program.

The program, which must be implemented within a year of passage of the ordinance, must result in a contract that gives customers the option “to opt up to 100% renewable electricity” and stipulates a minimum, and rising, percentage of renewable energy provided under the program. That starts at 50% in the first year, rising in increments of 10% each year to reach 100% renewable energy in 2030.

Under the state’s initiative-and-referendum process, residents can force an issue toward enactment via a petition with signatures from 10% of the number of votes from the last General Assembly election. Food & Water Watch typically picks communities with a strong base of support from its 60,000 members statewide, Kratovil said.

If enough signatures are collected and certified, the municipal government must either adopt an ordinance reflecting the wording of the petition or can decline, and the issue is automatically placed on a ballot for voters to decide, he said. In most cases, the municipal governing body opts to pass an ordinance enacting the program, but in the case of Piscataway and East Brunswick, the governing bodies declined to do so and the issue went to the ballot, he said.

“In the towns where it’s been put on the ballot, the voters have been overwhelmingly supportive,” he said.

Posted on

Hochul Pledges to Make Climate Policy a Priority in Wake of NYC Flooding

In the aftermath of back-to-back hurricanes that reached New York City this summer, Gov. Kathy Hochul has made climate policy a priority for her administration, announcing a new 10-GW target on Monday for the state’s already successful solar program.

“Hurricane Henri dumped nearly 2 inches of rain on Central Park in an hour and broke all records — shattered them,” she said during the opening ceremony of this year’s Climate Week NYC. “This was a once-in-a-500-year event, and 10 days later, we had over 3 inches dumped in Central Park in an hour [from Hurrican Ida], and our city was flooded.”

What she saw after the flooding subsided, she said, has made her “intent” on getting climate policy right.

“I walked down an alleyway, and I saw people just picking up the pieces of their lives — the ones who were lucky enough to have survived,” she said. Eighteen New Yorkers died from the effects of Hurricane Ida.

As part of a package of announcements “to accelerate the transition into a cleaner, greener future,” Hochul said New York is “going all in on solar” and expanding the state’s NY-Sun program from 6 GW in 2025 to 10 GW in 2030.

The state is on track to fulfill the 6-GW target early, she said. NY-Sun provides financial incentives for the installation of solar panels for residential, nonresidential, large commercial and industrial, and community solar projects. Currently, installed distributed solar projects, combined with the projects that are under development, bring the state to 95% of the current 6-GW goal, the governor’s office said in a statement.

Hochul directed the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) to develop a distributed solar roadmap this fall to reach the new goal. NYSERDA will file the roadmap with the Public Service Commission, and it will be open for public comment in early 2022, according to the governor’s office.

As part of the expanded NY-Sun program, Hochul said at least 35% of the benefits from the program investments will go to disadvantaged communities and low- to moderate-income residents.

“Crucially, this announcement also emphasizes the importance of ensuring that the benefits of a continued buildout and scale-up of rooftop and community solar in New York flow to individuals and communities that need it the most, namely low- and moderate-income communities and those affected by environmental justice issues,” Shyam Mehta, executive director of the New York Solar Energy Industries Association, said in a statement.

NY-Sun is administered under the state’s $6 billion Clean Energy Fund. The Public Service Commission approved an order on Aug. 9 that adopts a new goal for the fund to deliver 40% of benefits of spending to disadvantaged communities. (See NY Adopts Goal for Disadvantaged Communities Under Clean Energy Fund.)

Sunrun CEO Mary Powell applauded the new goal for the solar program.

“This expansion shows the state’s commitment to providing equitable access to clean energy options like rooftop solar and batteries as a critical component of meeting the requirements of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act,” she said in a statement to NetZero Insider. “New Yorkers expect strong leadership to address climate change while also creating economic opportunities across the state, and Gov. Hochul is delivering on both.”

During the opening ceremony, Hochul also announced the selection of two transmission projects under the state’s Clean Energy Standard Tier 4 request for proposals. The projects are design to connect hydropower, solar and wind resources in Canada and upstate New York to New York City. (See related story, Two Transmission Projects Selected to Bring Low-carbon Power to NYC.)