ERCOT’s Technical Advisory Committee on Friday unanimously approved a change to the Resource Registration Glossary (RRGRR021) with an email vote.
RRGRR021 adds new data requirements to the glossary to account for submittal requirement fields for dynamic models, which are required by the Transient Security Assessment Tool (TSAT). The change, which was granted urgent status, allows the TSAT to calculate dynamic stability-related generic transmission limits in real time and help the operators maintain system reliability.
Reliability deployment price adder ramp, August 13 ERS Deployment | ERCOT
Committee members also directed the Wholesale Market Subcommittee to determine whether to modify the 10-hour restoration period for emergency response service (ERS). A reliability deployment price adder uses unrestored ERS to adjust the generation to be dispatched. ERCOT’s protocols require the TAC to annually review the restoration period.
Several members expressed their openness to ERCOT recommending a new restoration period of as little as five hours.
Reliability deployment price adder ramp, August 15 ERS Deployment | ERCOT
The issue was discussed during a January joint meeting between the Wholesale Market and Demand Side working groups, but they were unable to agree on a recommendation.
During the information session, scheduled after the in-person TAC meeting was canceled, ERCOT legal staff told the committee it has scheduled an April 9 workshop to share its proposed changes to market-entry requirements for counterparties. Referencing the GreenHat Energy default in PJM, Juliana Morehead said the Texas grid operator wants to strengthen its oversight of various counterparties’ financial health and prevent market exposure to potential bad actors.
ALBANY, N.Y. — For years, the Alliance for Clean Energy New York (ACE NY) has advocated for a more standardized siting process for renewable energy projects in the state. Now it has a proposal from Gov. Andrew Cuomo to help push through the state legislature.
Getting the legislature to pass a budget amendment to create the proposed Office of Renewable Energy Permitting “certainly is our top priority,” ACE NY Director Anne Reynolds told a legislative breakfast she hosted Thursday.
The proposed budget bill aligns state law, bureaucratic practices and policies — including property tax laws — with the clean energy goals outlined in last July’s landmark Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) (A8429), said Jennifer Maglienti, assistant counsel to the governor’s office.
Transmission Warranty
“Siting is a process that needed to be turned around in order to meet the goals, and the goal here was to do a soup-to-nuts rewrite, to look at not just generation, but also to deal with transmission,” Maglienti said.
To facilitate development of bulk transmission, policy planners first needed to address the timing of the Article VII process, which covers the need for a project, as well as its environmental impacts, and create automatic time frames, she said.
“What we’d like to do in the siting process is have a one-year time frame for review … and we also want to look at where are there constraints,” Maglienti said. “One large portion of the bill is to deal with how to get the DPS [Department of Public Service] along with a lot of other partners to do a comprehensive study to decide where are there constraints on the grid.”
The budget amendment calls for the DPS to work with NYISO, the state’s two power authorities and the utilities to perform a “power grid study” for the purpose of “identifying distribution upgrades, local transmission upgrades and bulk transmission investments” needed to meet the CLCPA goals.
The budget bill says the state “shall provide for timely construction of new, expanded and upgraded distribution and transmission infrastructure,” which may include “submarine transmission facilities needed to interconnect offshore renewable generation resources to the state’s transmission system.”
Anbaric and other transmission developers have argued that having individual wind farms build separate radial lines to shore will be more expensive, more environmentally intrusive and less resilient than networked, open-access facilities. (See Anbaric Pushes Offshore Grid Plans.)
“Anbaric applauds the Cuomo administration’s continued support for transmission’s essential role in reaching the state’s carbon reduction and offshore wind goals,” Theodore Paradise, Anbaric senior vice president for transmission strategy, told RTO Insider.
The CLCPA calls for 70% of New York’s electricity to come from renewable energy resources by 2030 and for electricity to be 100% carbon-free by 2040.
The law also calls for doubling distributed solar generation to 6 GW by 2025, deploying 3 GW of energy storage by 2030 and raising energy efficiency savings to 185 trillion BTU by 2025, in addition to nearly quadrupling New York’s offshore wind energy target to 9 GW by 2035.
Statutory Process
New York in 2011 revised Public Service Law Article 10 to unify siting reviews of new or modified electric generating facilities under one state agency, the Board on Electric Generation Siting and the Environment.
“Certainly Article 10 was set up for a good reason, and the processes set up for a good reason … but it’s going to be an entirely new office, and certainly with a lot of cooperation from the regulatory agencies,” Maglienti said.
The executive branch proposes that the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority will collaborate with the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and DPS to develop build-ready sites for renewable energy projects.
“We want to think about how we’re going to encourage local participation, finding a way to help local communities contribute to the process,” Maglienti said. “We want the [Public Service Commission] to determine how those communities benefit, and for NYSERDA to get a site build-ready.
“When we talk about the siting of wind and solar, we’re talking in some cases about off-the-shelf technology, and we don’t need to get into long, protracted conversations about what those impacts might be and how they might be mitigated,” she said.
Community Concerns
“We met with a lot of communities and stakeholders to go through what issues people were facing when they’re trying to get more renewable energy projects sited, and we have communities who have concerns as well as developers and environmental groups who have concerns,” said Julie Tighe, president of the New York League of Conservation Voters.
Cuomo’s leadership on the siting issue is critical, Tighe said: “Having worked in the administration myself, I know that when the governor decides to do something, and he puts his mind to it, it gets done.”
DEC is well known as a conservation organization, being the largest landowner in the state of New York, and is better equipped to do siting on a regional basis, Tighe said.
“You get a much more comprehensive, regionally important project by having a mitigation bank rather than doing a one-off,” Tighe said. “We’ll probably want to see a little more specificity around that, but I think it’s a really important component and something that the legislature should advance and embrace.”
According to EPA, a mitigation bank is a wetland resource area that has been restored, established, enhanced or preserved to provide compensation for unavoidable impacts to aquatic resources permitted under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act, or a similar state or local wetland regulation.
“We very much appreciate having a process that’s just looking at renewable energy, and including transmission in that,” Tighe said.
CenterPoint Energy interim CEO John Somerhalder said he was “honored” to step in as a placeholder when he introduced himself to financial analysts during the company’s quarterly earnings call Thursday.
“Alongside our leadership team, I am excited to move this company to deliver strong results and drive shareholder value,” he said during the call.
Somerhalder, a member of CenterPoint’s board, was named to temporarily replace Scott Prochaska, who unexpectedly stepped down Feb. 19. (See Prochazka Steps down as CenterPoint CEO.)
CFO Xia Liu handled the majority of the analysts’ questions, but Somerhalder was quick to respond when an analyst asked when a permanent CEO would be named.
“I am interim president and CEO. I have no timeline or no time limit,” he said. “I am here; very proud to be here; very focused on executing on the strategy for as long as required until the right transition to a permanent CEO at the right time is made.”
John Somerhalder, CenterPoint’s interim CEO | CenterPoint Energy
Somerhalder said CenterPoint earned $1.25 billion in cash from the recent sail of its natural gas retail business and two natural gas pipeline contractors. The proceeds will be used to pay down debt as the Houston-based company focuses on its core utility business.
“Our board is very focused on exactly what we’re focused on,” Somerhalder said. “They see the value of our utilities. They see the value of investment in rate base growing those earnings. … And so that strategy is what they support and what they believe is appropriate moving forward.”
CenterPoint reported fourth-quarter earnings of $231 million ($0.45/share), exceeding its 2018 fourth-quarter performance of $160 million ($0.36/share) and expectations of analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research, which had projected the same earnings per share as last year.
For the year, the company reported a profit of $895 million ($1.79/share), up from 2018’s earnings of $698 million ($1.60/share).
CenterPoint’s stock price jumped to $25.27 shortly after the earnings announcement. It closed down for the week and the year at $23.02.
ISO-NE CEO Gordon van Welie said Thursday that implementing a carbon price in New England’s wholesale power markets would be “simple” but that state officials need to signal their support before the RTO can act.
Van Welie made his comments in his response to a Feb. 19 letter from U.S. Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) expressing concern that the RTO “is pursuing certain changes to the energy market at the expense of the region’s environmental goals and related clean energy and energy efficiency policies.”
“If ISO-NE believes that the region’s clean energy goals can be addressed by integration of a carbon price into the energy market, what is stopping ISO-NE from studying this as a potential policy pathway and ensuring that New England stakeholders have accurate background on these policies?” the senators asked.
“ISO-NE should commission a similar report … and take a larger leadership role in engaging more proactively in policy development,” they wrote.
Van Welie said that while the RTO supports carbon pricing, “we are mindful of concerns raised by the New England states regarding a carbon price in the wholesale markets, including limitations on the states’ ability to influence a federally regulated carbon price. We take these concerns seriously and appreciate the relationships we have developed with the states and the New England Power Pool stakeholders over the last several decades. Therefore, any effort to study carbon pricing requires further discussion in the regional stakeholder process — a process that is improved with input (like this exchange) from members of the region’s congressional delegation.”
Van Welie said “pricing carbon could be implemented by state or federal policy including through the existing Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative structure.”
But while Massachusetts and Connecticut have pursued ambitious environmental policies, including contracting for offshore wind, other New England states have been reluctant to reduce RGGI’s emission limits enough to make state-subsidized resources economic in the RTO markets. “What I want is not to pay for Massachusetts’ and Connecticut’s policies,” New Hampshire Public Utilities Commissioner Robert Scott told a ISO-NE Two-Tier Auction Proposal Gets FERC Airing.)
Van Welie quoted from his November response to a similar missive from seven U.S. senators from New England, saying that pricing carbon through regional wholesale markets “is a simple and easily implemented mechanism for reducing (or eliminating) carbon and sparking a clean energy transition.”
The seven senators had urged ISO-NE to “return to the table with stakeholders” and more closely align its fuel security initiative with state policies seeking to speed the transition to renewable energy resources. (See Senators Ask ISO-NE to Heed States on Clean Energy.)
The senators criticized ISO-NE for “pursuing a patchwork of market reforms aimed at preserving the status quo of a fossil fuel-centered resource mix” and having “charted its own path forward and pursued unpopular initiatives” such as Competitive Auctions with Sponsored Policy Resources and the Inventoried Energy Program.
In last week’s response, van Welie insisted ISO-NE has long supported carbon pricing.
“The relative ease of implementation is particularly attractive when compared to some of the more detailed market changes we have made in the past (and that may be required in the future) to protect market efficiencies as states take actions outside the wholesale market to meet their policy goals,” van Welie said.
CARMEL, Ind. — MISO last week said preparations are in the works for the 2021 GridEx VI exercise, with the RTO drawing on lessons learned during last year’s event.
Speaking at a Reliability Subcommittee meeting Thursday, MISO outage coordinator Trevor Hines said the RTO is already selecting internal committees to design scenarios and lead GridEx VI simulations.
“GridEx planning never stops. We’ve always got to improve with these things, right? We got a good baseline in 2019; 2021 will give us an opportunity to improve even more,” he told stakeholders.
Scenes of MISO participating in GridEx V last year | MISO
Hines said MISO’s 2019 exercise saw a jump in interest and attendees: “We went from roughly 80 players in 2017 to over 110 in 2019.” The biennial NERC-sponsored GridEx took place Nov. 13-14, giving MISO and members the opportunity to train for “fuel shortages, loss of control center functionality, physical and cyberattacks, and a compromised back office.”
MISO last year coordinated with local law enforcement and had the Carmel Police Department on-site at its headquarters during simulations.
“We used GridEx as an opportunity to test their bomb-sniffing dog,” Hines said of the 2019 training. “We had failures; we were making decisions and there was talk of evacuating in the scenario and how that works when there’s law enforcement on-site examining suspicious packages.”
Hines said for the 2021 event, MISO will focus at least one scenario on who has the authority to order an evacuation at the RTO and how it’s conducted.
He said after the 2017 exercise, it was difficult to coordinate after-the-fact with MISO members to gather suggestions for improvement. For 2019, MISO created a survey to collect suggestions for improvement in real time, allowing it to compile a list of suggestions to improve the 2021 exercise.
Hines also said MISO last year doubled the four hours that RTO executives were required to attend GridEx training. “In 2019, we made them squeal a little and made them participate for a full eight hours,” he said.
MISO will host the national kickoff meeting for GridEx VI in September at its Carmel headquarters.
FERC on Friday granted NERC’s request for more time to submit changes to its Rules of Procedure (ROP) ordered by the commission in January (RR19-7).
The revisions demanded by FERC on Jan. 23 in response to the ERO’s five-year performance assessment include updating terminology regarding the Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center; providing greater transparency in its sanction guidelines; and making various improvements to its certification program. (See NERC Wins Another 5 Years as ERO.) FERC ordered NERC to make a compliance filing by July 21 confirming the changes.
On Feb. 21, NERC asked the commission to extend the deadline for the compliance filing to Aug. 28, a delay of more than a month. Moving the deadline would “ensure transparency in developing revisions to the ROP,” NERC said, by allowing it to follow a “more feasible” schedule for its review process, which requires a 45-day stakeholder comment period and review by the Board of Trustees before its next meeting. Under the extended timetable, the board will have until the Aug. 20 meeting to review the changes, rather than May 13.
NERC said the extension will also let it perform FERC’s changes in conjunction with an ongoing project to revise the ROP regarding the registration and certification program, with input from regional entities, stakeholders and the Compliance and Certification Committee. The organization said a longer deadline would let it “present a complete set of registration and certification ROP revisions” that are also in compliance with the commission’s order.
In its response, FERC accepted the organization’s reasoning and said NERC would be “granted an extension of time to and including Aug. 28, 2020,” to comply with the order.
FERC’s January order also required NERC to make a compliance filing by April 22 providing any audits it has conducted of the REs during the five-year period or a plan for performing them within the next 18 months. (See NERC Seeks More Time on Rule Changes.)
The standard drafting team working on expanding options for entities to manage bulk electric system cyber information (BCSI) (Project 2019-02) is focusing on resolving overlaps both within the affected standards and with other ongoing projects. It hopes to post the proposed standard for final ballot by July 2020.
Participants at this week’s SDT meeting in Phoenix took aim at several recurring themes in industry comments on the draft proposals for standards CIP-004-7, covering cybersecurity personnel and training, and CIP-011-3, covering information protection. One of the most pressing topics of discussion was the perception that the project was expanding beyond its original remit; this was amplified by the SDT for Project 2019-03, which expressed concern that 2019-02 might touch on areas covered by its mandate to tackle cybersecurity supply chain risks, including revising CIP-013.
Supply Chain Conflict Ironed out
“We have … met several times with the CIP-013 team. I think we have a way forward on how to [address] any duplication with our standards and CIP-013 risk assessment,” said SDT Chair John Hansen, of Exelon.
The conflict between the teams centers on language in CIP-011-3 concerning cloud storage providers that might be used by responsible entities. Under the most recent proposal, the standard would require entities to perform initial risk assessments of vendors when they first contracted with them and follow-on assessments every 15 months. However, the proposal for CIP-013-2 also includes a requirement for entities to perform risk assessments on third-party service providers, leading to fears of contradiction between the two standards.
| Shutterstock
In a compromise, the 2019-02 SDT agreed to remove the language mandating risk assessments and replace it with a requirement that entities “implement one or more documented BES cyber system information risk management method(s)” to address data governance and rights management; protection of relevant cyber information; data sovereignty and transformation; physical and personnel security; certification; and business agreements. Members of the team for 2019-03 said the change would make the two standards complementary.
“My first gut reaction here is that this is something that might be in combination with what’s in CIP-013. In CIP-013, you’re actually looking at the vendor, but with [2019-2] you’re … doing risk management on … how are they going to protect your data,” Tony Hall of LG&E and KU said. “To me this seems completely different than what we saw the first time, so I give you guys credit for that.”
Team Seeks Clarity on Location Requirements
Other changes to CIP-011-3 in response to industry comment include removing requirements for processes to “authorize access to BES cyber system information based on need” and to “identify applicable BES cyber system information storage locations.” These requirements were originally part of the proposal for CIP-004-7 but were moved to CIP-011-3 because the SDT felt they focused on information security. However, after reviewing industry feedback, team members decided to keep them with the personnel- and training-focused CIP-004 for the sake of clarity.
“It might have been a small misstep for us when we added the BCSI location section to [CIP-011-3],” said Vice Chair Josh Powers, of SPP. “It seemed to conflict with what we were trying to do. It made sense, probably, at the time, but I think it does run into the philosophical difference [with] where we’re headed.”
The drafting team plans to make further modifications to the proposal at its next in-person meeting March 17-19 and submit the proposal for quality review by the beginning of April. Once quality review is completed, the standard will be posted for additional comment from May 7 to June 21, with the final ballot in July. NERC’s Board of Trustees will consider the proposal for adoption at its meeting on Aug. 19 in Vancouver, Canada.
NRG Energy on Thursday reported 2019 income from continuing operations of $4.1 billion, compared to $460 million for the previous year, the large difference driven by the release of a $3.5 billion tax valuation allowance. Adjusted EBITDA was almost $2 billion, up from almost $1.8 billion in 2018.
In a call with analysts, NRG CEO Mauricio Gutierrez highlighted the company’s signing of 1.6 GW of medium-term solar power purchase agreements in ERCOT, its $300 million acquisition of Stream Energy and the return of its 385-MW natural gas-fired Gregory plant in Corpus Christi, Texas, to service before the summer.
Gutierrez said the purchase of Stream, with 600,000 electricity and gas customers in Pennsylvania and Texas, adds “important capabilities to our retail portfolio,” aiding its move to balance generation and retail.
Adjusted EBITDA for generation rose 24% year-over-year to $1.1 billion on higher realized power prices. Retail EBITDA dropped 3% to $920 million primarily because of higher supply costs.
NRG generates electricity and provides electric power and natural gas to more than 3.7 million residential, small business, and commercial and industrial customers in the U.S. and Canada.
Texas Hold ’em
(1) ERCOT long-term load forecast; (2) Source: ERCOT Dec 2019 CDR; excludes Oklaunion starting fall 2020, Decker Creek STG 1 fall 2020 and Decker Creek STG 2 fall 2021; (3) Prior target reserve margin | NRG Energy
Electric demand in ERCOT continues to grow at the fastest pace in the nation, between 2 and 3% per year for the foreseeable future, the company reported. “This requires a tremendous amount of generation investments simply to maintain the current low reserve margin,” Gutierrez said.
The company expects ERCOT to remain tight and volatile for the foreseeable future. “Regulators in ERCOT continue to refine our scarcity pricing mechanism to incentivize new generation, which is predominantly renewable and intermittent, while adequately compensating existing resources that provide firm generation,” Gutierrez said.
“This ruling is just the most recent in a series of market reforms that PJM and FERC have undertaken since 2004 to protect the integrity of competitive markets,” he said.
Low Carb Diet
The company aims to reduce its carbon emissions by 50% by 2025 and to net zero by 2050.
“We are already 83% of the way to our 2025 goal, with clear line of sight to achieve it with our current portfolio,” Gutierrez said. “We have reduced our carbon emissions by 40 million metric tons in just the last 10 years. That is the equivalent of taking 9 million cars off the road every year.
| NRG Energy
“In just the last six years, coal as a percentage of our total revenues has decreased 55%, and that is inclusive of capacity revenues,” Gutierrez said. “This is an important distinction, as energy revenues have been the bulk of the decline, and our coal assets in the East now act primarily as insurance for grid reliability and not for electric generation.”
Public Service Enterprise Group CEO Ralph Izzo expressed skepticism Wednesday that New Jersey utilities will abandon the PJM capacity market over the expanded minimum offer price rule (MOPR).
“We will work cooperatively with the Board of Public Utilities in New Jersey and PJM to find the best path forward, whether that is to bid and clear the capacity auction under a business-as-usual scenario, or seek the FRR [fixed resource requirement] alternative in partnership with New Jersey to preserve its preferred zero-carbon resources,” Izzo said during PSEG’s fourth-quarter earnings call.
“New Jersey would have to have either a zonal or statewide FRR, which to me is suboptimal … because now you’re going to be solving a small problem with a rather large tool,” Izzo said. “If your aspirations are for 7,000 MW of offshore wind, you need to pull out 15,000 MW from the capacity market. Seems to be a bit of overkill.”
Taking the FRR option could leave behind a residual capacity market that is “grotesquely oversupplied … crushing capacity prices,” he added. “I mean, there’s just a ton of questions.”
Izzo noted that New Jersey will not have offshore wind collecting subsidies until 2024. “So, it doesn’t start paying double [for capacity] until the second auction from now. … I do think that there will be adequate time for New Jersey to avoid double paying for capacity 2024. It won’t be a walk in the park.”
FERC ordered PJM in December to expand its MOPR to include new state-subsidized resources, as well as existing nuclear units receiving zero-emission credits (ZECs) such as PSEG’s Hope Creek and Salem 1 and Salem 2 plants.
“The ability of the nuclear plants to clear in [PJM’s capacity market] will depend on the level of the applicable generic offer floors, as well as the offer floor levels that would be derived via the unit-specific exception, should one or more of the units elect that option,” the company said in its 10-K filing.
Bridgeport Harbor 5, a 485-MW combined cycle plant in Connecticut that began operating last year, is PSEG’s largest generating unit in New England. | PSEG
Izzo said he is optimistic because New Jersey’s Energy Master Plan expects nuclear power to be an important generation source through 2050, when the state hopes to reach its goal of 100% “carbon neutral” electric generation. “So that has to be economically supported,” he said. “No. 2, we have fossil assets that are located close to the load centers and have deliverability advantages that will [be] important factors in any capacity reliability construct that is created.
“And let’s remember that the underlying rationale for FERC’s action was to eliminate price suppression caused by units that were receiving out-of-market payments,” he added.
While Izzo said the company is “strongly supportive” of New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy’s goals of reducing electric usage by 2% and gas usage by 0.75% in five years, he seemed to question the master plan’s long-term goal of cutting gas use to one-fifth of current consumption by 2050.
“From a practical standpoint, 80% of New Jersey households already use natural gas to heat their homes or to cook, and in fact, many of our customers converted to natural gas from using oil or electricity for these purposes,” he said. With a conversion cost of at least $10,000 per customer, the transition “would be a significant economic burden on every household and contrary to most customers’ personal preferences,” he said.
Earnings
PSEG reported operating earnings of $330 million ($0.64/share) in the fourth quarter, up from $284 million ($0.56/share) in 2018. For 2019, the company reported operating earnings of $1.67 billion ($3.28/share) versus $1.58 billion ($3.12/share) the year before.
The company said its ZEC revenues added 6 cents/share for the quarter and 18 cents/share for the year. The payments, equivalent to about $10/MWh, are recovered through a non-bypassable distribution charge of 0.4 cents/kWh.
The BPU has authorized ZEC payments through May 2022, a decision that has been appealed by the Division of Rate Counsel. State law requires PSEG to reapply for any subsequent three-year periods.
Net income for 2019 included a loss recorded on the third-quarter sale of PSEG Power’s 800-MW interest in the coal-fired Keystone and Conemaugh coal-fired units in Pennsylvania. The company said it expects to eliminate all coal-fired generation from its fuel mix by mid-2021 with the early retirement of Bridgeport Harbor 3, Connecticut’s last coal-fired generator.
The company said it has reached an agreement to sell its 200-MW interest in the Yards Creek pumped-storage generating station in New Jersey, which it owns jointly with FirstEnergy. “The sale reflects our ongoing commitment to optimize the value of the generating fleets,” the company said. “These proceeds will add to the improved cash flow at Power, given the completion of the combined cycle construction program and Power’s declining capital needs.”
PSEG Power completed its 1,800-MW combined cycle gas turbine construction program with the addition of the Keys Energy Center in Maryland and Sewaren 7 in New Jersey in 2018, as well as Bridgeport Harbor Station Unit 5 in Connecticut last year.
But he said the 485-MW Bridgeport Harbor 5, the company’s largest unit in New England, “cleared the 2019/20 auctions and locked in $231/MW-day capacity payments for seven years, thereby limiting our exposure to this latest auction result.”
Earnings call transcript courtesy of Seeking Alpha.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and ranking member Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) unveiled their long-awaited energy legislation Thursday, incorporating some 50 bills previously approved by the panel.
The bill “will modernize domestic energy laws to ensure the United States remains a global energy leader while also strengthening national security, increasing our international competitiveness and investing in clean energy technologies,” she said in a statement. “By working together to pass it into law, we can promote a range of emerging technologies that will help keep energy affordable even as it becomes cleaner and cleaner. Our bill also addresses national needs by taking overdue steps to enhance our cybersecurity, grid security and mineral security. I’m proud of the bipartisan work we have done and encourage all members of the Senate to work with us to advance it through the legislative process.”
Murkowski’s previous efforts to update energy efficiency laws with former ranking member Maria Cantwell repeatedly fell short. But Murkowski indicated she had support from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who filed cloture on the motion to proceed to S.2657, a geothermal research and development bill by Murkowski and Manchin that she said will serve as the legislative vehicle for the bill. The Hill reported that the bill could reach the floor as soon as next week.
In addition to reauthorizing the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) through fiscal year 2025, the bill could mean higher salaries for some FERC employees and provide new markets for coal and natural gas. It includes initiatives for carbon capture, ocean energy, next generation nuclear power and advanced vehicles and would create incentives for utility investments in cybersecurity.
The bill won immediate support from the National Mining Association; ClearPath Action, a conservative clean energy group; the Nature Conservancy; and the Business Council for Sustainable Energy.
The American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) said it backed the bill’s support for energy storage. “However, all should understand that federal investment in future innovation, while constructive, is not nearly a sufficient response to the climate crisis. In 2020, any energy bill should include provisions to accelerate near-term renewable energy deployment. More specifically, ACORE calls on Congress to include critical clean energy tax incentives in this package.”
Below is a summary of some of the most significant provisions of the bill:
Energy Efficiency
Creates a pilot program to award grants to provide nonprofit buildings with energy efficiency materials;
Competitive grants for schools to make energy improvements;
Establishes a program to implement smart building technology and demonstrate the costs and benefits of smart buildings;
Extends existing federal building energy efficiency improvement targets through 2028, and adds water use reduction targets through 2030;
Requires development of a metric for data center energy efficiency;
Reauthorizes the Weatherization Assistance Program through FY 2025; and
Establishes rebate programs for the replacement of energy-inefficient electric motors and transformers.
Capacity Building and Workforce Development
Provides grants to colleges for building training and assessment centers and grants to partially cover the cost of training programs in energy-efficient building technologies;
Establishes a pilot program to provide competitively awarded cost-shared grants to support training and apprenticeship programs in renewable energy, energy efficiency, grid modernization or the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions;
Establishes a joint industry-government partnership to research, develop and demonstrate new sustainable manufacturing and industrial technologies and processes; and
Authorizes FERC to pay employees with scientific technological, engineering and mathematical skills at a higher level than that allowed under civil service.
Renewable Energy
Extends incentives for hydroelectric production and efficiency authorized in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 through FY 2036;
Modernizes the Department of Energy’s R&D work on marine and hydrokinetic renewable energy; establishes the National Marine Renewable Energy Research, Development and Demonstration Centers at institutions of higher education;
Requires the U.S. Geological Survey to update its geothermal resource assessment; establishes a program to adapt oil and gas technologies for geothermal development; creates a prize competition for the production of critical minerals from geothermal brines; expands research into enhanced geothermal systems; establishes a research program for heat pumps and direct use; defines the thermal component of geothermal energy as renewable; and
Establishes solar and wind energy technology programs.
Energy Storage
Incorporates the Better Energy Storage Technology Act, establishing a research, development and deployment (RD&D) program to advance energy storage technologies; requires at least five demonstration projects; establishes a joint long-term demonstration initiative with the secretary of defense; facilitates a technical and planning assistance program for rural electric cooperatives and municipal utilities; directs FERC to issue a regulation on energy storage cost recovery;
Provides the secretary of the interior with sole authority for the development of pumped storage hydropower projects on Bureau of Reclamation reservoirs, eliminating the need for a separate permit from FERC; and
Creates a program on grid-scale energy storage to address challenges identified in the 2013 DOE Strategic Plan for Grid Energy Storage, including systems research, power conversion technologies research, grid-scale testing and analysis, and storage device safety and reliability.
Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage
Establishes a technology program to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, costs and environmental performance of coal and natural gas use, including an R&D program, large-scale pilot projects, demonstration projects, and a front-end engineering and design program;
Establishes an RD&D carbon storage program, a large-scale carbon sequestration demonstration program and an integrated storage program;
Establishes an RD&D program to identify and assess novel uses for carbon, carbon oxide, carbon capture technologies for industrial systems and alternative uses for coal; and
Establishes a program to develop technologies for removing CO2 from the atmosphere on a large scale.
Nuclear
Replaces DOE’s existing Nuclear Energy Systems Support Program with a Light Water Reactor Sustainability Program to maximize the benefits of existing nuclear generation; enable continued operation of existing nuclear power plants through technology development; improve performance; and reduce plant operating and maintenance costs;
Creates a research program on next-generation light water reactor and advanced reactor fuels through FY 2025; and
Requires DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy to develop a 10-year strategic plan that supports advanced nuclear R&D to help such reactors reach the market.
Vehicles
Creates a program of basic and applied research, development, engineering, demonstration and commercial application activities to increase the efficiency of, and reduce petroleum use in, passenger and commercial vehicles;
Creates a program of research, development, engineering, demonstration and commercial application for advanced vehicle manufacturing technologies and practices; and
Creates a program of cooperative research, development, demonstration and commercial application activities on advanced technologies for medium- to heavy-duty commercial, vocational, recreational and transit vehicles.
Natural Gas
Amends the Natural Gas Act to expedite approval of exports of small volumes of natural gas by deeming applications to export up to 51.75 billion cubic feet per year to any country to be consistent with the public interest;
Authorizes a study involving DOE and the secretaries of defense and treasury on the potential national and economic security benefits of building ethane and other natural gas liquids-related petrochemical infrastructure in the vicinity of the Marcellus, Utica and Rogersville shale plays.
Supply Chain Security
Updates the congressional declaration of policy on mineral security; and
Creates a program to develop advanced separation technologies for the extraction and recovery of rare earth elements and minerals from coal and coal byproducts.
Cybersecurity and Grid Security and Modernization
Amends the Federal Power Act to require FERC, working with DOE, NERC, the Electricity Subsector Coordinating Council and the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, to establish incentive-based rate treatments to encourage utility investments in advanced cybersecurity technology and participation in cybersecurity threat information sharing programs;
Establishes a competitive grant program for rural and municipal utilities to deploy advanced cybersecurity technology and participate in cybersecurity threat information sharing;
Authorizes financial assistance to help states develop energy security plans that assess states’ existing circumstances and proposes ways to improve its ability to secure infrastructure and minimize supply disruptions; reauthorizes the State Energy Program through FY 2025;
Requires DOE, working with state regulatory authorities, industry, the Electric Reliability Organization and other relevant federal agencies, to advance the physical security and cybersecurity of electric utilities, with priority provided to utilities with fewer resources; requires a report to Congress on improving the cybersecurity of electricity distribution systems;
Creates a program to develop advanced energy sector cybersecurity technologies and applications, and to leverage electric grid architecture to assess risks to the energy sector; requires DOE conduct “cybertesting” and mitigation to identify vulnerabilities of energy sector supply chain products;
Establishes a grant program for projects modernizing the electric grid, including distribution system technologies;
Establishes a program to promote hybrid microgrid systems for isolated communities and microgrid systems to increase the resilience of critical infrastructure; and
Creates a process to develop model grid architecture and a set of future scenarios to examine the impacts of different combinations of resources on the electric grid; the energy secretary would use the findings to determine whether any new standards are necessary for the grid, and if so, make recommendations.
