The Markets and Reliability Committee last week endorsed changes to Manuals 14B and 18 to implement proposed capacity import limits and clarify rules on substitution of demand response resources.
Manual 14B: PJM Region Transmission Planning Process
Reason for Change: The MRC endorsed changes to Manual 14B to implement PJM’s proposed capacity import limits, now pending before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. (See related story, FERC Demands More Details on Import Cap.)
Stakeholders approved the limits in November out of concerns that PJM might lack sufficient transmission to accommodate its growing volume of capacity imports. Cleared imports grew from about 3,000 MW to more than 4,500 MW in 2009-2012 before more than doubling to nearly 7,500 MW last year.
Impact: The revised methodology would limit external generation resources in this year’s base capacity auction to 6,200 MW — a 17% drop from the volume of imports that cleared in the May 2013 auction — while also setting five import zones with their own limits. (See Members OK Capacity Import Limit; Prices May Rise.)
Manual 18: PJM Capacity Market
Reason for Change: The committee endorsed changes to Manual 18 to clarify Tariff provisions that allow substitutions of demand response resources.
Impact: The change makes clear that curtailment service providers may substitute a non-performing DR registration with one or more other DR registrations in the same geographic area and with the same lead time. Providers may use Limited DR to replace Annual DR but the substitution will not count against Limited’s 10 dispatch-per-year cap. Annual DR has no limits on the number of dispatches.
PJM and other RTOs asked EPA Jan. 28 to allow states to meet pending greenhouse gas regulations through regional caps and to include a “safety valve” to maintain reliability.
EPA is drafting its first limits on carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants. The ISO/RTO Council (IRC) said that it usually doesn’t take policy positions on EPA regulations but that it wanted to ensure the rules “recognize the relationship between proposed environmental rules, electric system reliability, and economically efficient dispatch.”
The council’s seven-page proposal asks EPA to allow states to adopt State Implementation Plans (SIPs) based on “a regional measurement mechanism for determining compliance with CO2 rule obligations.” The group also said EPA’s regulations should include “a process to assess, and, as relevant, to mitigate, electric system reliability impacts resulting from related environmental compliance actions.”
Meanwhile, major business and manufacturing trade groups announced a coalition to ensure any GHG rules are cost effective, technologically achievable and allow use of all domestic energy resources.
The Partnership for a Better Energy Future is undertaking the effort “because we want a better outcome, not because we want to throw obstacles in the way,” said Karen Harbert of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for 21st Century Energy. The Edison Electric Institute and American Public Power Association are not on the membership list, though the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association is.
The Environmental Protection Agency will issue a final rule on disposal of power plant coal ash by Dec. 19, according to a consent decree EPA signed with environmental groups. Spurred by the disastrous 2008 ash pond collapse at a Tennessee Valley Authority site, EPA started developing regulations but never finalized them. Environmental groups sued and won a ruling requiring the agency to specify a timeline for action. EPA’s proposed rule included options to regulate ash as a hazardous or a non-hazardous waste. Utilities and coal interests oppose a hazardous designation.
The Department of Energy has made $2 million available for development of taller wind turbines that research shows could capture more wind energy. Although wind towers in the U.S. max out at about 300 feet now, the funds would go toward studying 400-foot towers. The taller units are not uncommon in Europe. According to DOE, National Renewable Energy Laboratory research shows higher turbines could unlock more than 1,800 GW of wind potential.
The Internal Revenue Service will be giving special scrutiny to recipients of Section 1603 renewable energy “stimulus” grants because it has found that some also claimed energy tax credits. The grants were meant to be in lieu of credits. A report released last week by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration said the IRS is conducting a compliance study on the 1603 program, which is expected to be completed by June 30. The IRS said some tax practitioners have encouraged use of leasing transactions “because that allows fair market value to be overstated to increase the grant amount.” As of May 2013, Treasury had awarded 9,016 of the grants totaling $18.5 billion.
California Democrat Henry Waxman, a leader of major environmental legislation in the House of Representatives for decades, will not seek reelection. Waxman, who will have served 20 terms, is the top minority member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and spearheaded the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 and the ultimately unsuccessful greenhouse gas cap-and-trade legislation. It is not clear who will succeed him in the lead-Democrat position, but Rep. John Dingell, the Michigan Democrat who is the longest-serving member in history, expressed interest. He is 87 and has served 59 years.
There were more than a few concerned stakeholders at last week’s Members Committee webinar when Market Monitor Joe Bowring presented data showing that only 10 generating units were responsible for 38% of the RTO’s uplift charges in 2013.
Whose generators are they and where are they located? Bowring would like to tell you. But PJM officials said they are prevented by the RTO’s confidentiality rules from disclosing the names.
(Source: Monitoring Analytics LLC)
“The only way that’s ever going to get released by PJM is if we get a FERC order,” Executive Vice President for Markets Andy Ott told the Markets and Reliability Committee Thursday.
The 10 units were responsible for about $335 million of uplift charges in 2013. In total, PJM had $882 million in uplift, or operating reserve charges, for the year, a $231 million increase over 2012. Reactive service charges increased $263.5 million, while black start costs jumped $78 million. (See related story, Black Start Units to See More Green.) Balancing and day ahead charges decreased by a combined $110 million.
Ott said the recent spike in reactive charges is temporary – a result of coal plant closures forcing operators to order more out-of-merit dispatch -– and will be corrected by the addition of new generation and reactive upgrades.
“The reactive issue will be done before we could get [FERC approval for] language changes” to the confidentiality rules, Ott said.
Howard Haas, representing the Monitor, told the MRC the confidentiality rules don’t apply because it is not market-sensitive information. “This is a non-market payment. It’s not hedgeable, so there’s no problem in releasing the information,” he said.
Dave Anders, PJM manager of member services, said that while the Energy Market Uplift Senior Task Force is devising strategies to reduce uplift, PJM staff is considering operational changes it can make without modifying the Tariff or Operating Agreement. “Can we change the model and how we commit units? We may be able to take steps to limit the cost of reactive uplift,” he said.
Bruce Bleiweis, of DC Energy, said it was improper for PJM to take actions “that divide us all into winners and losers without subjecting it to the stakeholder process.”
Ott insisted the changes were permitted. “Similar decisions are made every day.”
The coal industry lobby that sank Ron Binz’ nomination to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission won’t have a clear shot at President Obama’s new choice as FERC chair.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean smooth sailing for nominee Norman Bay, who has served as director of FERC’s Office of Enforcement since 2009.
While Binz, a former Colorado regulator, called for a new “regulatory compact” and opined on the future of coal and natural gas, those combing through Bay’s history will find little on utility law or energy policy.
A former federal prosecutor and law school professor, Bay has written extensively on criminal law and national security issues. But his opinions on the major policy issues facing the commission — the role of demand response and renewables, implementing Order 1000 — are unknown. Unlike most FERC commissioners in the last decade, Bay has never served as a state utility regulator.
Of the 15 FERC commissioners who have served since 2000, 10 served as commissioners or staffers at state regulatory agencies prior to their appointments. Four of the others worked in energy-related posts in state or federal legislative committees or executive agencies; one was a former utility executive. (See table.)
Of the 15 FERC commissioners who have served since 2000, 10 previously served as members or staffers at state regulatory agencies.
The last five chairmen served a median of 30 months before becoming chair. Only one, Patrick H. Wood III, served less than a year on the panel before his promotion.
Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, ranking Republican on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, had criticized Obama’s plan to elevate Binz directly into the chairmanship. She also has reservations about the president’s plans for Bay. “It’s curious that they would elevate him to chairman over existing qualified members,” spokesman Robert Dillon told Bloomberg News.
In his favor, Bay has no obvious enemy constituencies — except, perhaps for members of the energy bar, some of whom believe his office has been overzealous in its enforcement actions.
Harvard Law Graduate
The son of Chinese immigrants, Bay studied history at Dartmouth before getting his law degree from Harvard. He clerked with a judge on the Ninth Circuit appeals court and worked in the Legal Adviser’s Office of the U.S. State Department before beginning an 11-year stint as an assistant U.S. Attorney in Washington and Albuquerque, where he prosecuted violent crime.
In 2000, President Clinton appointed him U.S. Attorney for New Mexico, where Bay led a staff of more than 130 and inherited the government’s controversial case against Wen Ho Lee, a scientist at the Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory.
Lee was indicted on 59 counts for allegedly stealing secrets about the U.S. nuclear arsenal for the People’s Republic of China. But after keeping Lee in solitary confinement for nine months, the government dropped the case in return for Lee’s guilty plea to a single count of mishandling classified material.
The judge who accepted the plea apologized to Lee for what he called misconduct by senior Justice Department officials and Bay’s predecessor as U.S. Attorney. In 2006, Lee received $1.6 million from the federal government and five media organizations to settle a civil suit he had filed against them for leaking his name to the press before charges had been filed.
Although he was not personally implicated in any wrongdoing, Bay was called before a Senate oversight hearing into the case. He resigned as U.S. Attorney in 2001, after the election of President George W. Bush.
As a professor at the University of New Mexico School of Law between 2002-2009, he taught criminal law, evidence, constitutional law, national security law, and ethics. His law journal articles include Prosecutorial Discretion in the Post-Booker World and Executive Power and the War on Terror.
Evolution of FERC Enforcement Unit
When manipulative schemes by traders at Enron and other power marketers roiled the Western energy markets in 2000-01, FERC’s enforcement staff consisted of 20 lawyers in the Office of General Counsel. The maximum penalty FERC could impose was $10,000 per violation per day.
Since then, FERC created a separate enforcement division now staffed with 200 economists, accountants, auditors, former traders and attorneys, including former prosecutors. (Full disclosure: RTO Insider editor Rich Heidorn Jr. worked for the Enforcement Division between 2002-2010.)
Bay created a new unit in 2012, the Division of Analytics and Surveillance, which runs automated screens to detect potential manipulative behavior.
Since passage of the 2005 Energy Policy Act, which increased the penalties to $1 million per violation per day, FERC has collected $873 million in civil penalties and disgorgements. They included cases against Morgan Stanley, Constellation Energy Group Inc., Deutsche Bank AG and JP Morgan Chase.
Barclays PLC meanwhile is fighting a FERC order that it pay a $453 million fine and $35 million in unjust profits over alleged manipulation of Californian and other western power markets by the British bank in the last decade.
But consumer advocates and other critics say regulators’ enforcement actions have neither provided sufficient deterrent nor made consumers and honest market participants whole. Moreover, some say regulators will never be able to catch up with clever traders looking to exploit the rules. (See JP Morgan Settlement: A Verdict on Electric Markets?)
Appellate Loss
FERC also has been criticized for overreaching in its enforcement under Bay. The D.C. Circuit last year threw out FERC’s market manipulation case against Brian Hunter, whose natural gas trades contributed to the collapse of hedge fund Amaranth Advisors LLC.
FERC had accused Hunter of selling natural gas futures contracts at the end of the trading day, which depressed the futures closing price but benefited the hedge fund’s swap positions in physical markets.
The court ruled that the agency had encroached on the jurisdiction of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which sided with Hunter in the case in claiming exclusive jurisdiction over futures contracts.
“Although the Commission reads the Hunter decision as narrow in scope, some market participants interpret the decision more broadly to cover not only manipulation in the futures market, but also many additional transactions and products, including those squarely within FERC’s jurisdictional markets,” Bay told the Senate Banking Committee in testimony last month. “Accordingly, a legislative fix to eliminate uncertainty on this matter could ensure that FERC has the full authority needed to police manipulation of wholesale physical natural gas and electric markets.”
FERC and the CFTC took a step toward settling their long-running turf battle in January, signing two Memoranda of Understanding to address jurisdictional issues and information sharing.
Criticism of FERC Enforcement
At the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners annual meeting in November, a panel including former FERC Chairman Joseph Kelliher and former General Counsel William Scherman attacked FERC’s enforcement as opaque and a threat to market liquidity.
Kelliher, now executive vice president for NextEra Energy Inc., said he now realizes “it’s much harder to comply [with market rules] than I thought.” He said the commission has not clearly defined what constitutes a “strong compliance culture,” a consideration when calculating penalties. Because most of FERC’s enforcement cases have resulted in settlements, the agency has not created a full record to define behavior it considers manipulative.
Scherman went further, saying that FERC’s actions are causing companies to leave the energy markets, reducing liquidity and increasing volatility.
They were joined in criticism by Harvard professor William Hogan, who said FERC needs to be transparent regarding its definition of market manipulation.
Bay was not present at the NARUC conference. His deputy, Larry Gasteiger, defended FERC’s record, saying it was following the direction of Congress, which allowed FERC to determine on a case-by-case basis whether trading behavior is manipulative.
LaFleur’s Future?
Bay’s nomination leaves the future of acting FERC Chair Cheryl LaFleur in question. LaFleur, named acting chair in November with the expiration of former Chairman Jon Wellinghoff’s term, told reporters last week she’d like to be renominated for another term, whether or not it was as chair. (See Acting FERC Chair Wants to Keep Her Job.) Her term expires in June.
Asked Friday whether President Obama will nominate LaFleur to a second term, a White House spokesman replied cryptically, “I have no personnel announcements to make.”
Wellinghoff, who hired Bay at FERC, reportedly lobbied for him as his replacement. “Norman Bay did a great job as the Office Director of the Office of Enforcement and I think he will make a great commissioner,” Wellinghoff said in an email to RTO Insider.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ordered PJM to provide more information in support of its proposed limits on capacity imports, as opponents said the proposal would unreasonably increase prices.
PJM proposed methodology that will limit external generation resources in this May’s base capacity auction to 6,200 MW — a 17% drop from the volume of imports that cleared in last year’s auction. (See Members OK Capacity Import Limit; Prices May Rise.)
The commission’s Jan. 28 order (ER14-503) came after the MISO Market Monitor and others called on FERC to conduct fact finding on the proposal, contending the reduced competition from imports will increase PJM’s prices. PJM’s Market Monitor and some PJM generators, meanwhile, say the limit doesn’t go far enough to protect reliability.
Among the issues on which FERC requested more information were:
Protests by the PJM Market Monitor and the Indicated PJM Utilities, who contend that all external resources should be required to meet the standards set for resources exempt from the limits (firm transmission service, pseudo-tie, and must-offer requirement).
How PJM planners decided on the five external zones for calculating the limits.
How the methodology used to determine the capacity limits compares with that used to determine the installed reserve margin (IRM) for the capacity auctions.
The contention of MISO’s Market Monitor, Potomac Economics, that PJM should remove the requirement for unit specific deliverability testing. The MISO Monitor contends PJM’s requirement is based on an unrealistic notion that when PJM needs firm capacity-backed energy “from an external resource in MISO that the energy will be sourced at that particular unit.”
How the limit affects the MISO/PJM fact-finding effort on capacity deliverability across the RTOs’ seam.
PJM must respond to FERC’s questions within 30 days.
The PJM proposal won support from PJM generation owners, state regulators, the North Carolina Electric Membership Corp., the Electric Power Supply Association and others. Among those opposing the change in addition to the MISO Monitor are American Municipal Power (AMP) and the Illinois Municipal Energy Agency.
The Illinois agency contended the PJM proposal “grossly overreaches the problem claimed.”
AMP suggested the capacity import limits (CILs) were like “territorial allocations or refusals to deal, both of which can and often do run afoul of federal and state antitrust laws.”
AMP said it would be hurt by the limits because it owns generation in MISO that was planned when about half of its native load was in MISO. Less than 5% of AMP member native load remains in MISO as a result of the moves to PJM by ATSI in 2011 and Duke Energy-Ohio in 2012.
AMP says the value of its MISO generation “would be greatly impaired if PJM’s CILs were to prevent AMP from utilizing those resources to serve the capacity needs of its PJM-area members.” The company said it is already suffering from the “very substantial congestion charges AMP is assessed in bringing energy from MISO into PJM.”
The PJM Power Providers Group counters that the PJM proposal won more than 85% support in a sector-weighted vote by stakeholders.
The Maryland Public Service Commission staked out the middle ground, saying that while it “largely supports” the proposal, it has concerns that big reductions in imports from MISO could “significantly increase costs for end-users.”
It urged the commission to “fully utilize its evidentiary procedures” before ruling.
A proposed manual change on compensation for demand response prompted a protest from curtailment service provider Icetec Energy Services Thursday.
Icetec representative John Webster said one of the changes proposed by PJM goes beyond the ministerial detail included in manuals and should receive a full stakeholder hearing as a potential Tariff change. Webster said the change will have a “disproportionate impact on sophisticated end users with time-variable rates.”
PJM’s Pete Langbein, who presented the proposed manual change to the Markets and Reliability Committee Thursday, rejected Webster’s complaint, saying the changes are “absolutely consistent with the current Tariff.”
Under Order 745, PJM will compensate Economic DR at full Locational Marginal Price when it provides a net benefit to the system. Langbein said stakeholders asked for clarification on how PJM will apply the “net benefit” test.
In response, the Demand Response Subcommittee proposed that Manual 11: Energy & Ancillary Services Market Operations be revised to specify that compensation be limited to demand reductions executed in response to LMPs or PJM dispatch instructions and “that are not implemented as part of normal operations.”
The committee also recommended additional language identifying as ineligible for compensation: “Settlements based on load reductions from normal operations that would have occurred without PJM dispatch, or that would have occurred absent PJM energy market compensation.”
Webster said that addition will subject customers to a “motivational test” that will adversely impact those with time-variable rates — which he called “the next generation of demand response.”
Pepco Holdings Inc. Chairman and CEO Joseph Rigby announced yesterday he will step down as chief executive this year after a turbulent tenure marked by criticism over the company’s reliability.
Frank Heintz, lead independent director of the Pepco board, said the company has hired executive search firm Russell Reynolds Associates and expects to name a new CEO by the end of the third quarter of 2014. Rigby, 57, will remain chairman of the board until the company’s 2015 shareholders meeting.
“The board has been focused on senior executive succession for several years,” Heintz said in a statement.
Pepco delivers electricity and natural gas to about 2 million customers in Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland and New Jersey.
The company came under blistering criticism after widespread outages in the Washington region in 2010 and a Washington Post analysis found that the company’s customers suffered longer and more frequent outages than their counterparts in other major cities. One 2009 survey found the company’s customers experienced 70% more outages than customers of large urban utilities and the lights stayed out more than twice as long.
It was called the “most hated company in America” in 2011, based on the American Consumer Satisfaction Index.
Customer outrage led the Maryland legislature to order the Public Service Commission to hold electric providers accountable for service quality.
Rigby became chairman and CEO in 2009. He told the Post in an interview yesterday, “A lot of that criticism was, frankly, deserved.”
“This company needed to recognize that we had a hell of a lot of work to do to improve the day-to-day reliability,” he said.
Pepco doubled its budget for construction and infrastructure improvement between 2009 and 2012 and plans to spend $5.8 billion on infrastructure through 2018.
Rigby began his career at Atlantic City Electric, which Pepco acquired along with Delmarva Power, in 2002. He told the Post that although the company has boosted its reputation with customers and regulators, the perception of improvements is “somewhat tenuous.”
“That’s just a realistic view of the situation we’ve been in,” he said.
FirstEnergy Corp. formed through merger of Ohio Edison Co. and Centerior Energy Corp.
Holding company for Ohio Edison (and subsidiary Pennsylvania Power Co.), The Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co., The Toledo Edison Co.
11th largest investor-owned electric system in the U.S.: annual electric sales of 64 billion kilowatt-hours; total assets nearly $20 billion; 10,000 employees; 2.2 million customers; 13,200 square miles of northern and central Ohio and western Pennsylvania; 12,000 MW generating capacity.
2001:
FirstEnergy merges with GPU Inc.
Nearly doubled revenue (more than $12 billion) and customers served (4.3 million).
GPU acquisition adds 2.1 million customers in a 24,000 square-mile service area in Pennsylvania and New Jersey (Metropolitan Edison Co.; Pennsylvania Electric Co., Jersey Central Power & Light Co.)
2011:
FirstEnergy merges with Allegheny Energy (1.6 million customers in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland and Virginia).
More than doubled supercritical coal capacity “and provided opportunities for the company to grow and expand into new markets with a stronger, more focused competitive operation.”
Public Service Enterprise Group and the National Football League have installed and tested systems to make sure they avoid power-system failures at the Feb. 2 Super Bowl at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. A blackout at the New Orleans Superdome interrupted last year’s Super Bowl for 34 minutes, an embarrassment for the city and Entergy, the host utility.
That failure, and power losses at other sporting events, put enormous pressure on PSEG and the NFL, particularly because this is the first Super Bowl in a cold-weather-state open stadium. At MetLife, “There are redundancies to our redundancies,” an NFL spokesman said. PSEG says the event will use up to 20 MW.
Constellation said it has more than 164 MW of solar generation in operation or under construction in 10 states and the District of Columbia, making it the third-largest commercial solar developer in the U.S. The company added 38 MW in 2013 at sites in Maryland, Washington, D.C., Arizona, California and New York.
Stephanie Raymond is PPL Electric Utilities’ new vice president for transmission and substations, a new officer-level position that the company said “reflects the importance to our customers — and to the reliability of our electric system — of our transmission and substation network.” Raymond joined PPL in 2011 and has led the transmission and substation organization since 2012.
UGI Corp. named Daniel Platt treasurer. Platt previously was treasurer of Sunoco Inc. and Sunoco Logistics Partners LLC and held treasury positions at Technitrol, Inc. (now Pulse Electronics), EB Games (now Game Stop), Aetna U.S. Healthcare and Delaware Valley Financial Services.
A bill requiring members of the Public Service Commission to file financial disclosure statements for public view went to the governor’s office for signature after the House of Representatives approved it last week. The Senate approved it in May.
Big Rivers’ D.B. Wilson Station (Source: Big Rivers)
Big Rivers Electric says its closing of two coal-fired plants as a result of the loss of 850 MW of load from two Century Aluminum smelters will be temporary. The cooperative will close the 417 MW Wilson plant in February and the 443 MW Coleman plant by late June.
A spokesman said the cooperative has proposed deals with other customers to replace the smelters’ load but can’t say when the plants might reopen. Although Century said it ended its contract with Big Rivers to find better rates, Big Rivers notes that its average industrial rate is 4.6 cents/kWh, compared with a national average of 6.8 cents.
Lawmakers Say Potential NOx Law Will Hurt AES Plant
State lawmakers from the district where AES’ Warrior Run coal-fired plant is located are trying to head off what they say is draft legislation that would require the 205-MW plant to install nitrogen oxide controls. “The folks at AES said it would be hard on them. It would make it hard for them to stay in business,” one of the legislators said. Their efforts are directed at legislation they say has been drafted by the state Department of the Environment that would “force all carbon-based power plants across Maryland to further reduce nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide.” According to the group of four lawmakers, the law would make AES cut its already-low emissions by 83%. They want it to be killed or to exempt Warrior Run.
NRG Energy said it told PJM that it wants to retire 1,200 MW of coal-fired generation, five units at two plants in Prince George’s and Montgomery counties, in 2017. The company attributed its decision to low gas prices and the possibility of stronger environmental controls at the units. Gas- and oil-fired units at the plants would continue to run.
The Sierra Club asked the Board of Public Utilities to adopt an energy efficiency portfolio standard that would require annual reductions of 1.5% in electricity use and 1% in natural gas use. “The status quo is untenable,” the club’s petition to the BPU says. According to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, New Jersey used to be an efficiency leader but its energy savings averaged under 0.5% between 2001 and 2011, far less than some other states in the region. The Sierra Club says utility energy efficiency programs have fallen to $35 million in fiscal year 2014 from $124 million in 2010.
Duke Energy plans to ask the Utilities Commission to reduce the amount it has to pay homeowners for the solar power they produce. Duke’s more than 1,300 solar installations, totaling 11.5 MW, now get Duke’s full retail price of 11 cents/kWh. Duke’s 11-cent price covers generating stations and fuel, CEO Lynn Good said. But “effectively what the solar panel is replacing is the fuel. It’s not replacing the grid.”
Rep. Walter Jones (R) has asked to meet with a Defense Department official about the proposed Mill Pond wind power project, which would consist of about 40 turbines near Newport. Jones identified concerns about radar interference and obstruction of military flight paths associated with Marine Corps stations Cherry Point and New River.
Another wind farm could be added to Catawba County, where eight such facilities have already sprouted and more are on the horizon. Development in the county mirrors activity in other parts of the state, where the Utilities Commission is entertaining numerous applications.
FirstEnergy repaired a reactor coolant leak at its Perry nuclear plant that deposited tritium in groundwater near the plant. The leak, discovered by cameras that monitor a steam tunnel, was reported to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Anti-Renewables Bill Gets Hearing as Debate Resumes
Wind power opponents spoke out at the year’s first legislative hearing on SB 34, a measure that would eliminate the state’s requirement that electricity companies source 25% of their supply from alternative energy by 2025.
Tesla drivers now will be able to charge their cars in Ohio for free and shop or have dinner as they do it. Tesla has installed two of its supercharger facilities in towns near the Ohio Turnpike: one in Maumee, near Toledo, and one in Macedonia, near Cleveland. The new stations enable Tesla owners to drive across the country, charging quickly for free on the way, the company says. Macedonia’s mayor is excited, seeing a boost to local businesses from drivers as their cars charge up.
Gov. Tom Corbett’s new “Energy=Jobs” plan, which the governor said takes an all-of-the-above approach to energy development, met mixed reviews. The plan touts free markets for customers to choose their energy sources, promotion of the state’s diverse energy portfolio, pushing industry to use state-produced energy, protecting the environment, and more.
John Quigley, a former Department of Conservation and Natural Resources secretary, criticized Corbett’s plan for trying “to appease everybody.” He wants a policy that builds renewables with gas-fired power plants, fueled by in-state gas, backing them up.
The Pennsylvania Coal Alliance’s John Pippy liked Corbett’s plan, which he said “acknowledges the direct link between Pennsylvania energy and economic opportunity.”
Cable and internet giant Comcast may soon have a “quadruple play” offering for customers in the state, says Public Utility Commission Chairman Robert Powelson, which would give Pennsylvania a boost in the quest to ramp up competition. The state already is ahead of most others in the rate of customer shopping, but Powelson said it wants to challenge Texas, the leader by far. According to Powelson, Comcast will be teaming with a retail energy provider to add electricity to its cable, internet and telephone service offerings. The company also offers some home energy-control services.
Philadelphia’s Northeast sewage treatment plant is burning methane to produce heat and power instead of burning it off as in the past, following completion of a $47.5 million project. Ameresco partnered with the city to build the cogeneration facilities. Bank of America owns it, leasing it to the city for 16 years with an early buyout option. The project qualifies for an investment tax credit of about $14 million and a $3.9 million state energy efficiency rebate.
The PennFuture Energy Center launched the Clean Energy Wins campaign, with a website to educate citizens and political candidates about choices the state can make. The organization is taking a survey of clean energy businesses and stakeholders and collecting data to develop a clean energy “roadmap” report that it plans to release in March.
NextEra Energy Resources says it might take months to determine why a turbine at the Mill Run Wind Energy Center collapsed Jan. 16. The turbine was one of 10 that started operating in 2001.
PPL Electric Utilities’ plan to upgrade a 69-kV line in the Pocono plateau won Public Utility Commission approval. The $33 million project involves a 24-mile line that will become 138 kV. The plan drew no local opposition.
