Page 952 – RTO Insider

March 30, 2021

NC Microgrids Improving Grid Reliability and Resilience

Less than 9 miles square and on average 5 feet above sea level, Ocracoke Island in North Carolina’s Outer Banks was almost custom-made for one of the state’s first microgrids. The island is regularly hit by hurricanes and storm surges, and its only connection to the main electric grid is 6 miles of undersea cable.

“The vulnerability of the island’s connectivity to the main grid is always in question in hurricane season,” said Paul Spruill, CEO of Tideland EMC, the electric cooperative that provides power for the island’s 1,400 meters.

Ocracoke has relied on diesel generation since the early 2000s, but in 2015 the North Carolina Electric Membership Corp. (NCEMC), an umbrella group of the state’s 26 co-ops, in a partnership with Tideland, began exploring the possibility of using the island as a test site for a battery storage project. By 2017, the island was home to the NCEMC’s first microgrid, incorporating solar, energy storage and smart thermostats and water heaters to supply emergency power to Ocracoke’s homes, businesses and campsites.

The system’s 62 solar panels provide 15 kW of electricity, backed up with 1 MWh of battery storage, and can disconnect from the main grid to keep the power on in extreme weather or other emergency situations.

Ocracoke is just one example of how North Carolina’s electric cooperatives are outdistancing the state’s investor-owned utilities on microgrid deployment, as well as developing the advanced control systems for leveraging such distributed energy resources to improve overall grid reliability.

The island’s microgrid is one of three systems NCEMC has put online in recent years in partnership with its member co-ops. The group has also launched a new distribution operator (DO) system that serves as a single point of connection and coordination for the microgrids and other grid-edge DERs.

Located on the south coast of North Carolina, the Heron’s Nest microgrid is the state’s first residential project, with each of 30 homes equipped with a 3-kW solar system, smart thermostat and a water heater that can be used for demand response. Butler Farms, a hog farm, hosts the state’s first agricultural microgrid, combining solar and storage with a biogas facility that converts methane from hog waste into electricity.

North Carolina Microgrids — Heron’s Nest is North Carolina’s first residential microgrid, with rooftop solar on each of the development’s 30 houses, along with community solar and storage. | *NCEMC*

The Ocracoke and Heron’s Nest microgrids have played a key role in the development of the DO system. NCEMC has partnered with North Carolina’s IOUs — Duke Energy and Dominion Energy — to test how the platform interacts with the grid during peak demand or in emergency situations. The tests demonstrated that using a platform with a single, coordinated contact point could optimize grid-edge resources such as microgrids to generate emergency power and alter load.

“As more microgrids and distributed energy resources are added throughout the grid, the key for electric cooperatives in North Carolina will be to coordinate those resources to work together smartly to meet the needs of the grid and of consumers,” said Lee Ragsdale, NCEMC’s senior vice president of energy delivery.

“The more you connect, the more reliable service is going to be,” said Badrul Chowdhury, a professor at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, who is heading up a three-year, federally funded project to help develop an advanced microgrid control system.

One of 10 projects nationwide recently awarded grants from the Department of Energy, the project will build a digital “twin” of a microgrid under construction by Duke and use it to develop and test an outage prediction algorithm and simulate emergency situations.

“This project will be a national model for organizing a resilient grid in a state with climate challenges like North Carolina,” said Michael Mazzola, executive director of UNC Charlotte’s Energy Production and Infrastructure Center. With $3.6 million in funding from the DOE, the project is slated to kick off May 1.

Linking Grid-edge Resources

Like many states, North Carolina has become increasingly vulnerable to extreme weather, often intensified by climate change. Data from the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality show that in the past decade, the state has sustained five extreme weather events each causing more than $1 billion in damages.

Hurricane Florence in 2018 resulted in $17 billion in damages statewide, including extensive damage to North Carolina’s multibillion-dollar agriculture industry. To respond to the ongoing threats of climate change, Gov. Roy Cooper has committed the state to cut carbon emissions from its electric power sector 70% below 2005 levels by 2030 and to be carbon neutral by 2050.

While often under the radar, North Carolina’s electric cooperatives are taking a leading role in the state’s energy transition. The co-ops serve 2.5 million members, and their combined service territories cover 45% of the state.

They are also nimble: smaller than IOUs, unregulated and able to tap into sources of low-interest financing. Across the country, co-ops are experimenting with new business models and new technologies.

The Butler Farm microgrid is a prime example of this small-scale innovation. Tom Butler, the owner, has been a hog farmer since 1995 and realized early on that managing the animals’ waste and the accompanying odors was going to be a challenge. With 8,000 hogs producing 6,000 tons of methane a year, Butler built a 185-kW biogas facility, completed in 2011.

He then began working with his local electric cooperative, South River EMC, and NCEMC to add 20 kW of solar panels to the farm, which, he said, made it a “perfect fit” when the co-op decided to build a microgrid. The system has 735 kWh of battery storage but could be expanded, Butler said.

Twenty-eight co-op members are connected to the microgrid, but the co-op plans to have 160 members connected once pandemic restrictions lift, he said. “South River is going to have as many members on the microgrid as they can,” Butler said. “We can add people as we add battery storage.”

The microgrids have also helped NCEMC test its new DO technology. Working with Dominion, NCEMC used the Ocracoke microgrid to either charge the battery to reduce power from the main grid or discharge the battery and adjust home thermostats and energy use to maintain balance in the system. The thermostats and water heaters at Ocracoke are managed over Wi-Fi by a central controller, so demand and load can be adjusted across the island.

“The microgrid has better enabled us to deliver emergency power and provide better delivery for when we need it,” Spruill said.

Additional demonstrations of the DO system involved a test with Duke and the Heron’s Nest microgrid and another using DERs at Blue Ridge Energy, a co-op in the northwest corner of the state, to test real-time system response to changing weather conditions. In addition to the residential solar systems, the Heron’s Nest microgrid also has a 75kW community solar array and 255 kWh of battery storage.

NCEMC has two more microgrids in development. Eagle Chase, another residential project located north of Raleigh, will be online by the end of March, bringing together propane generators, smart water heaters and 500kW, 1MWh of battery storage. A fifth microgrid with 2 MW of solar and 5 MWh of storage will be commissioned later this year on Rose Acre Farms, an egg production business.

Each project’s development is time-intensive, but Ragsdale expects the number of systems will rise as the price of solar and battery storage drops. “They can and will be part of the transition to clean energy in the state.”

The Critical Role of DER Networking

Coordinating those systems will be critical for grid resilience, said UNC’s Chowdhury, who is preparing to launch the DOE-funded project in partnership with the DEQ and Duke.

The project will test how well the algorithms the team creates can function on a networked microgrid system using a digital twin, a lab-created replica of conditions at Duke’s microgrid under construction in the town of Hot Springs.

A network of microgrids, seamlessly connected to balance generation and load, can strengthen grid resilience in cities after extreme storms, Chowdhury said.

Pockets of rooftop solar, battery storage or other DERs scattered across a city might not generate enough power individually, or depending on the weather, generate none at all, he said. Networking these resources could provide power to critical services such as a hospital, shelter or food bank and more equitably distribute electricity among residents.

“It’s usually the wealthy neighborhoods that have rooftop solar. Other parts [of a city] may be less affluent with not enough generation resource, even though there might be a critical load there,” Chowdhury said. “One of the ways we can address this is [to] bring in generation from an outside microgrid.”

The team will also develop an outage prediction test using an algorithm incorporating 10 years of Duke outage data to pinpoint vulnerable areas of the grid.

The outage prediction algorithm and other tests will be simulated in real-life scenarios using the digital twin system. Inputting weather and generation data from the real Hot Springs microgrid, the team will be able to simulate the exact situation at Hot Springs in the lab to see how the algorithms and networks respond.

Looking ahead, Chowdhury said that the research on microgrid networking is just beginning. “Now we are seeing microgrids for resilience purposes, but I think later it could be for just about anything.”

March 30, 2021December 4, 2023

US Adds Offshore Wind Area off New York

The Biden administration announced Monday it will open a new area between Long Island and New Jersey to offshore wind development and pledged to speed reviews of projects to meet a goal of 30 GW by 2030.

The new area and the 2030 target were among a flurry of announcements at an Offshore Wind Roundtable featuring Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, National Climate Adviser Gina McCarthy, and state officials from New York, New Jersey, Maryland, North Carolina, California and New England.

The new priority wind energy area is in the New York Bight, an area of shallow waters between Long Island and New Jersey. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management will issue a proposed sale notice for the area, which will be followed by a formal public comment period and an auction late this year or early 2022.

The administration’s 30-GW goal is slightly above the total of East Coast state OSW targets, although the states’ timelines extend beyond 2030. In February, BloombergNEF predicted that the U.S. will become the third largest OSW market in the world by 2030, with a cumulative 23 GW. The administration said the U.S. could have 110 GW by 2050.

BOEM pledged to complete its review of at least 16 construction and operations plans (COPs) totaling 19 GW by 2025 and announced its intent to prepare an environmental impact statement for Ocean Wind, Ørsted’s 1,100-MW project 15 miles off Atlantic City, N.J. (See Developer to Use Union Labor for NJ OSW Project.)

The agency completed its final EIS for the 800-MW Vineyard Wind project off Massachusetts earlier this month. The 800-MW project, a joint venture of Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and Avangrid Renewables, is on track to become the first large-scale OSW farm in the U.S., following the 30-MW Block Island Wind project. (See BOEM Releases Final Vineyard Wind Impact Statement.)

It also held public hearings in February following the release of its draft EIS for the South Fork project off Long Island, a 132-MW wind farm by a joint venture between Ørsted and Eversource Energy. (See BOEM Hears Public Support for South Fork OSW.)

Economic Benefits Cited

Although OSW is seen as central to meeting decarbonization goals, state officials and the Biden administration have primarily touted the projects for their economic development potential.

The administration said the economic gains won’t be limited to coastal states, noting that workers in Alabama and West Virginia are supplying 10,000 tons of domestic steel to a Texas shipyard that is building the nation’s first Jones Act-compliant wind turbine installation vessel for Dominion Energy.

The administration says the 30-GW target would generate more than $12 billion in annual capital spending and result in more than 44,000 workers directly employed in OSW by 2030 and nearly 33,000 additional spinoff jobs in communities supported by OSW.

The Department of Energy “is going to marshal every resource we have to get as many American companies, using as many sheets of American steel, employing as many American workers as possible in offshore wind energy,” Granholm said.

“This commitment to a new, untapped industry will create pathways to the middle class for people from all backgrounds and communities,” McCarthy said.

Other Announcements

Also Monday, the Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration invited port authorities and others to apply for $230 million in grants for port and intermodal infrastructure-related projects. The funding could be used to strengthen and modernize port infrastructure and create storage areas and docks for wind energy vessels.

For its part, DOE said it will offer $3 billion in loans to OSW and offshore transmission developers and suppliers. The department has already loaned $1.6 billion for OSW projects totaling about 1,000 MW.

The National Offshore Wind Research and Development Consortium (NOWRDC), created by DOE and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) announced $8 million in awards to 15 OSW research-and-development projects selected in a competitive process. The projects will focus on offshore support structure innovation, supply chain development, electrical systems innovation and mitigation of use conflicts. Created in 2018 with $20.5 million from DOE and matching funds from NYSERDA, the fund has raised a total of $47 million following contributions from Maryland, Virginia, Massachusetts and Maine.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced $1 million in grant funding for research proposals to increase understanding of the effects of OSW on the ocean and local communities and economies.

NOAA also said it has an agreement with Ørsted to share physical and biological data in waters leased by the company. The agency said it hopes to reach similar agreements with other leaseholders to fill gaps in the science regarding ocean mapping and observing.

March 30, 2021

Wash. Land Use Measure Nears Passage

A bill to require consideration of climate change in land use planning appears headed toward approval in the Washington state legislature (HB 1099).

On Monday, the Washington Senate’s Ways and Means Committee sent the bill to the floor by a 13-11 vote along party lines. Introduced by Rep. Davina Duerr (D), the bill passed in the House of Representatives along party lines on March 5. With Democrats controlling the Senate, Republicans are unlikely to drum up enough votes to kill the bill.

“Washington is the last state on the West Coast that doesn’t have climate change integrated in its growth management framework,” said Dave Anderson, Growth Management Act manager for the Washington Department of Commerce at a March 16 hearing before the House Housing and Local Government Committee.

Washington’s Growth Management Act, which is almost 30 years old, regulates long-range land use planning for Washington’s city and county governments. It requires counties and cities to review and, if needed, revise their comprehensive plans and development regulations every eight years.

Washington land use — Rep. Davina Duerr | *Washington State House Democrats*

Duerr’s bill would add climate change as a factor in the GMA and require comprehensive plans, development regulations and regional plans to support state greenhouse gas emission targets and improve resiliency to climate impacts and natural hazards.

Duerr’s bill would require climate change to be considered in land-use and shoreline planning for the largest 10 of Washington’s 39 counties and in cities of 6,000 people or bigger. Washington’s 10 largest counties cover Puget Sound, Spokane, the Yakima River Valley and the Washington-side suburbs of Portland.

A legislative memo said 246 county and city governments would be affected, including 110 jurisdictions outside the 10 most populous counties.

The bill calls for the state Department of Commerce to set guidelines by 2025 on how those areas can reduce GHG emissions and vehicle miles traveled. Because 40 to 45% of Washington’s greenhouse gas emissions come from motor vehicles, traffic issues would become a major priority in those guidelines, Duerr said in an interview.

Under the bill, the Department of Ecology would require that Shoreline Master Programs address the impact of sea level rise and increased storm severity.

Like several other climate change bills being tackled this session, HB 1099 builds on a 2008 law that orders the state to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions to 90.5 million metric tons, the level in 1990, by 2020. The law set emission goals of 50 million metric tons by 2030, 27 million metric tons by 2040, and 5 million metric tons by 2050.

The state Department of Ecology says the state’s CO2 emissions peaked 20 years ago at more than 108 million metric tons, before falling for several years following the Great Recession to 91.2 million metric tons in 2012. Emissions grew to 95.7 million metric tons in 2017 and 99.57 million metric tons in 2018. The 2020 figure has not been calculated.

“If you don’t plan for it, you don’t meet those goals,” Duerr said.

When county and city governments update their land-use plans, the bill would require them to take measures to decrease traffic emissions, to take into account population densities, and to tackle environmental justice issues, such as ensuring pollution is not concentrated in poor areas or communities of color.

The land use element of comprehensive plans would be required to give special consideration to achieving environmental justice and avoid creating or worsening environmental health disparities. It also must also reduce risks from wildfires, which could include limiting development in wildland urban interface areas.

In response to earlier criticism by local governments against unfunded mandates, Duerr added language to her bill ensuring the requirements would not go into effect unless the legislature appropriates enough money to handle the extra planning requirements.

“I made a commitment to the local governments that it would be paid for,” she said.

Most of those who testified at the March 16 hearing — the majority from environmental organizations, plus some city governments — supported the bill. They echoed Duerr’s stance that transportation emissions and population density contribute to global warming and need to be addressed.

“This will improve everyone’s health, especially health for children,” said Ken Lans, representing the Washington chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility.

Danielle Shaw of the Washington Environmental Council said, “It prioritizes the most vulnerable populations.”

Opposition came from business, construction and Realtor associations. They focused on the possibility of unfunded mandates. They also worried that climate change concerns would take priority over housing shortages.

“We see the Growth Management Act shifting toward environmental issues … leaving the housing crisis behind,” said Bill Clarke, representing the Washington Realtors Association.

March 28, 2021

Berkshire Hathaway Offers Texas Emergency Power Supply

Addressing a congressional panel last week investigating the February Texas blackouts, Republican Rep. Michael Burgess said his home state has things under control.

“Texans are angry and deserve answers. No one single policy could have prevented this,” Burgess told the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations on Wednesday. “Texans can and will solve this problem within their borders,” he said twice.

That can-do Texas streak of independence is evidenced by its political leadership’s pride in the ERCOT system, an interconnection of its own tucked in between the Eastern and Western Interconnections. The leadership and regulators often credit the grid operator’s deregulated market for providing cheap energy that drives the state’s economic engine.

The independent spirit was also evidenced in Texans’ fury at the ERCOT Board of Directors’ out-of-state members, who are selected to ensure their lack of ties to market participants. Five of those directors resigned from the board and a sixth pulled his nomination a week after dayslong outages during sub-freezing temperatures resulted in at least 111 deaths, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services, and could cost as much as $295 billion in economic damage. (See ERCOT Chair, 4 Directors to Resign.)

Berkshire Hathaway Energy aims to help ERCOT through the next winter event — Frozen equipment at an Entergy power plant | *Entergy*

Former FERC Chair Cheryl LaFleur, now a distinguished visiting fellow at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, said she was disappointed to see the board members run out of the state.

“People from Michigan and Maine might actually be helpful to you if you want to figure out what to do about cold weather,” she said, a reference to former Michigan Public Service Commissioner Sally Talberg and former ISO-NE General Counsel Raymond Hepper.

Enter Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway Energy. Though Iowa-based, the company is no stranger to the Texas market, having attempted to acquire Oncor Electric Delivery for $18 billion in 2017, only to see Sempra Energy steal away with the utility. (See Sempra Outmuscles Berkshire for Oncor.)

Berkshire Hathaway Energy's Warren Buffett — Warren Buffett | *Warren Buffett via Twitter*

This time, Berkshire is making the rounds at the Texas Legislature and proposing to create an entity, called Texas Emergency Power Reserve, that would build and maintain 10 GW of natural gas-fired capacity and gas storage for $8.3 billion. The plants would only be used to provide emergency power when demand outstrips supply, as happened in February when ERCOT lost more than half its available generation.

According to a slide deck obtained by The Texas Tribune, consumers would be charged a monthly fee for 40 years. Berkshire estimates residential customers would pay $1.42/month, commercial customers $9.61/month and industrials $58.94/month, the paper said. Berkshire is hoping for a 9.3% rate of return, similar to regulated utility charges in Texas.

Berkshire has hired eight lobbyists for more than $300,000, according to the Tribune, and polled 800 likely Texas voters to determine their support. The company said in its presentation that Texans would be “broadly supportive” of paying “a little more” to increase reliability.

Don’t count on industrial consumers as being willing to pay a “a little more” for backup power.

“We need to focus on ensuring that the ample generation we already have is there when we need it, not forcing customers to buy new power plants,” Richard A. Bennett, president of the Texas Association of Manufacturers, said in an emailed statement.

Not surprisingly, the proposal has run into opposition from those in ERCOT’s energy-only market, especially from generators who are only paid when they are sell power into the market. A similar proposal has been floated in the past, though the energy would have been competitively bid, in what was called the “break-glass-in-case-of-emergency” plan. The concern has always been the state’s regulators and lawmakers “wouldn’t have the stomach” to keep the new, more efficient units out of the market, thus eroding investment incentives, said one long-time observer.

Berkshire Hathaway Energy Texas — Energy consultant Alison Silverstein says she’s “leery of billionaires offering gifts.” | © *RTO Insider*

Alison Silverstein, an energy consultant who helped write the U.S.-Canada Blackout Investigation report after the 2003 grid collapse in the Northeast, told RTO Insider that as far as she can tell, Berkshire is “generously offering to use our recent brush with electricity disaster to return to guaranteed monopoly recovery of gas plant costs — without the benefits of a competitive market to protect customers from paying for unneeded capacity, overpriced plants or overpriced fuel.”

“I’m leery of billionaires offering gifts,” Silverstein said. “Power plant availability wasn’t the problem in February. The [generation] that failed wasn’t sufficiently winterized and/or didn’t have enough fuel.”

Noting the Trump administration’s push to support struggling coal and nuclear plants, framed as providing grid resilience, Silverstein said Berkshire’s proposal “puts a new face on the same idea” to justify out-of-market generation reserve payments for politically connected resources. (See Perry Orders FERC Rescue of Nukes, Coal.)

“It’s still about using fear of an emergency to pay a favored provider for expensive power plants that can’t compete on their own,” she said.

Legislation Would Overhaul PUC

The Texas Senate last week passed Senate Bill 2154, which would expand the Public Utility Commission from three members to five, still appointed by the governor but required to be Texas residents. The legislation would add professional engineers, attorneys and certified public accountants as being eligible for the commission, and mandate that at least two members be “well informed and qualified in the field of public utilities and utility regulation.”

“We didn’t want just industry insiders,” Sen. Charles Schwertner (R), SB2154’s sponsor, said during debate on the changes. He argued that the PUC needs to better understand the implications of its actions.

Lawmakers have criticized the commission for not enforcing power plant weatherization recommendations and for not repricing 32 hours of $9,000 MWh scarcity pricing after the grid was restored. All three commissioners have resigned in the storm’s aftermath, though Chair Arthur D’Andrea will remain seated until Gov. Greg Abbott appoints a successor. (See D’Andrea Resigns from Texas Commission.)

“Who in their right mind would want to be a PUC commissioner now?” Silverstein said. “How do you unwind these problems with everyone shooting at you? My hat’s off to you … thoughts and prayers go out to them. Those are some extremely tall boots to fill.”

The Senate this week will also consider a bill (SB3) that would give the PUC the authority to fine generators and utilities up to $1 million for not weatherizing their power plants or transmission lines. The legislation also allows the Texas Railroad Commission, which has regulatory authorities over the gas industry, to fine natural gas producers the same amount for not properly weatherizing.

The lack of weatherization, pinpointed by a FERC-NERC report after smaller-scale blackouts in 2011, has been blamed for the loss of much of the thermal generation during the winter storm.

The bill would also set up a Texas Energy Reliability Council to ensure energy and electric industries meet “high-priority human needs and address critical infrastructure concerns” and improve the industries’ coordination and communication; create an improved outage alert network; and limit scarcity pricing to no more than 12 hours in succession.

The measure does not offer funding to companies to weatherize their facilities.

“That’s the cost of doing business,” Schwertner said.

March 28, 2021

MISO Members Aim for Mandatory Consultant Transparency

A controversial rule requiring consultants to be upfront about who they represent could soon be codified in MISO’s Stakeholder Governance Guide.

Steering Committee members approved draft language during their meeting Thursday for the Advisory Committee’s consideration.

The ruleset would require stakeholders to state their full name and the company they represent before speaking during stakeholder meetings. Consultants would either give the “identity of their client on whose behalf they are speaking” or — if the consultant is working under a nondisclosure agreement — provide the sector “with which the specific client is or would be affiliated.” The rules also stipulate that consultants should announce when they’re speaking on behalf of multiple clients or a particular client.

“The idea is to clarify, not to stifle dialogue,” said Planning Advisory Committee (PAC) Chair Cynthia Crane, with ITC Holdings.

MISO Stakeholder Governance Guide — MISO’s Carmel, Ind., headquarters | *MISO*

She pointed out that PJM stakeholders have such a requirement.

“There’s clearly precedent for consultants to identify their clients in some fashion,” Crane said. “Transparency is a hallmark of the MISO stakeholder process.”

The draft language also encourages stakeholders to provide their first and last names when logging into virtual webinars.

The rule has some roots in consultant David Harlan’s refusal to divulge Entergy as his client when offering opinions during MISO planning meetings in 2019 and 2020. (See Entergy Consultant Under Fire for Covert Role in MISO.) Steering Committee leadership, however, only referenced concern regarding consultants not identifying clients or the sector they speak for during PAC meetings.

Some MISO members insisted that requiring consultants to be forthcoming about their clients could be unduly burdensome, noting that some consultants may have a list of clients.

“We’re all adults here, and we’re expected to act professionally,” said Market Subcommittee Chair Megan Wisersky, of Madison Gas and Electric. “I find this requirement to be unnecessary.”

She said the language singles out consultants and is silent on attorneys, nongovernmental organizations and trade group representatives. “It’s forcing consultants to wear a scarlet letter.”

Resource Adequacy Subcommittee Chair Chris Plante, of WEC Energy Group, said, “It seems benign, but I can see where this could create a lot of obstacles for a chair to run a smooth meeting.”

Reliability Subcommittee Chair Ray McCausland, with Ameren, said that in his years in the MISO stakeholder process, he’s seen just one individual refuse to name their client. But he said having the language on hand couldn’t hurt if the RTO again encounters a similar issue. “Let’s just get this simple language done; let’s put it to bed; and let’s keep moving.”

“This is very straightforward language,” Manitoba Hydro’s Audrey Penner said. “I don’t see anything here that could disenfranchise anyone.”

“I like the free-flowing discussion, the hard questions. It bothers me to the core that we’re going down an authoritarian route on the stakeholder process where we require this, require that, before people are allowed to speak,” Wisersky said, noting she didn’t know “what the fear is” if consultants don’t identify themselves.

The Advisory Committee will decide in the coming months whether to approve the language its members debated during a Jan. 20 teleconference.

“Stakeholders get trained. They understand it, but as meetings drag on, some might get lax and forget to announce,” said DC Energy’s Bruce Bleiweis, representing the Power Marketers and Brokers sector. “Usually all they need is a gentle reminder. Adherence is near 100%.”

Gabel Associates’ Travis Stewart, a delegate for the Independent Power Producers sector, said it’s “entirely reasonable” for a consultant to divulge a client when they make a request of MISO staff during a meeting.

The IPP sector had suggested that individuals who attempt to disguise clients or mislead stakeholders or MISO leadership be silenced in committee meetings. They would still have the option to submit written opinions after-the-fact, it said.

Consumers Energy’s Kevin Van Oirschot said the issue was “exceedingly rare” and didn’t need to be codified.

But Stewart said stakeholder committee chairs “could use some assistance … and authority.”

“Transparency and professionalism are the cornerstone of the MISO stakeholder process,” he said. “Even though it’s one or only a few instances, in my view this is something that could not and should not happen.”

March 28, 2021

MISO Execs Defend Need for Long-range Tx

MISO executives last week issued dire warnings about the possible fallout if the grid operator doesn’t pursue big ticket transmission projects in its footprint.

Appearing virtually before the Board of Directors’ System Planning Committee (SPC) on March 23, senior staff estimated the long-range transmission package unveiled March 17 could cost anywhere from $30 billion to $100 billion. The portfolio, which includes more than a dozen 345-kV additions, a handful of 500-kV and 765-kV lines and a massive footprint-wide network of DC lines, met stakeholder pushback over the necessity of such a dramatic expansion. (See MISO Reveals Contentious Long-range Tx Project Map.)

Jennifer Curran, vice president of system planning, said MISO sees an “increased urgency” to expand its transmission system given the resource changes it has already experienced, its member utilities’ carbon-reduction goals and the time it takes for a transmission project’s concept to become reality.

Without a long-range transmission plan, generation projects will likely continue to drop out of MISO’s interconnection queue because of high network upgrade costs, Executive Director of System Planning Aubrey Johnson said.

Curran called the long-range plan “a journey, not a destination,” and said staff must still conduct engineering analyses, present business cases and collect more stakeholder feedback. She said MISO is focusing first on system reliability as the resource fleet becomes more intermittent.

MISO Long-range Transmission — AEP transmission construction | *AEP*

“Solutions may be added to or removed, but we think this is an important first step,” Curran said of an early indicative map of transmission solutions.

Stacy Herbert, representing transmission owners on the SPC, said stakeholders may disagree about “how quickly, how much and where,” but it’s undeniable that the changing fleet demands transmission buildout.

MISO President: Think of Flint

MISO President Clair Moeller used Flint, Mich.’s water crisis to warn about the human cost when infrastructure upgrades are neglected.

In Flint, the decisions were always focused on putting off investments at the expense of public health, he said during the board meeting March 25. He reminded attendees that reliability and public safety are inextricably linked, and that blackouts have a disproportionate effect on vulnerable communities.

“MISO is in a good position because of the accident of geography,” Moeller said, referring to the RTO’s midwestern footprint and interconnections to neighboring supply. “The people that preceded us gave us the system we have. It’s the sum of 100 years of choices.”

Moeller also reminded stakeholders that some transmission projects in the 2011 Multi-Value project portfolio were tied up in litigation for the better part of a decade. He counseled stakeholders to not get too caught up in “parochial” cost-allocation issues for this round of planning. He said major transmission lines’ benefits reach beyond “one town, one city, one state.”

Renuka Chatterjee, executive director of system operations, credited MISO’s collection of Multi-Value projects for helping maintain reliability and keeping the system from slipping into more drastic emergencies during mid-February’s cold snap.

“I don’t know what would have happened without them,” she said of the RTO’s last long-term transmission portfolio.

Director Barbara Krumsiek asked staff to prepare a short whitepaper on transmission expansion’s importance during the arctic blast to help engender “more positive feelings” among stakeholders about MISO’s proposed long-range transmission planning efforts.

Environmental sector representative Beth Soholt said a long-range transmission portfolio will be instrumental in ensuring MISO can deliver a transformed resource fleet.

Clean Grid Alliance’s Natalie McIntire asked MISO planners not to get stuck in “analysis paralysis” that may delay critical projects.

“We know when it comes to transmission planning for the future, we are never going to have a crystal ball,” she said.

Climate Considerations in Tx Planning?

The committee was intrigued by the Environmental Sector’s suggestion that MISO add public health and equity considerations to the annual Transmission Expansion Plan (MTEP)’s guiding principles.

“It’s a subject that’s getting a lot more attention as time goes on,” Board Chair Phyllis Currie said.

Directors said that although their members — not MISO — make carbon-reduction goals and plan generation additions, it might be worthwhile to gauge their social and climate goals.

“I think having a conversation about those larger goals about equity, about climate, about policy that could help the public isn’t easy, but it’s a conversation worth having,” director Nancy Lange said.

Moeller said stakeholders could share their goals at upcoming Planning Advisory committee meetings, but MISO would likely have to tread carefully.

“Our job is facilitating our members’ goal, not us assigning goals,” he said. “We have to be a little careful about how we have that conversation.”

March 28, 2021

No MISO-SPP Joint Study in 2021

MISO and SPP won’t undertake a major interregional transmission study in 2021, officials announced Friday.

The grid operators said planners are already tied up in the RTOs’ joint targeted interconnection queue study in a search for interregional projects to alleviate their jammed generator interconnection queues.

“Both MISO and SPP have very full plates in 2021,” SPP’s Neil Robertson told stakeholders during an Interregional Planning Stakeholder Advisory Committee meeting on March 26.

He said the joint queue study will examine “most, if not all, of the same congestion” that would be studied under a coordinated system study (CSP). The RTOs will hold a teleconference April 9 to discuss their joint interconnection study.

interregional transmission study — The SPP-MISO seam | *Organization of MISO States*

MISO and SPP have conducted four CSPs since 2014 but have yet to find a gainful project. (See 4th Time No Charm for MISO-SPP Interregional Study.)

Robertson said the one-year CSP pause will give the RTOs time to better line up cost estimates to construct projects.

“I would offer to this stakeholder group that SPP and MISO will address the varied cost estimates in terms of the interregional process and how we will prevent them from impeding projects,” he said, adding that the RTOs don’t yet have a blueprint for accomplishing that.

American Clean Power Association’s Daniel Hall urged the grid operators to pursue a fifth CSP, despite their additional planning responsibilities for 2021. He said the mid-February emergencies made clear that the RTOs could use cross-border projects to avoid load shedding and energy price spikes.

TMEP Category Likely Imminent

Robertson also said the RTOs will likely establish their own smaller interregional project type, similar to MISO’s and MISO, SPP Regulators Call for Pancaking Fix, Smaller Projects.)

“It’s clear that there are planning gaps in the SPP-MISO seam,” Missouri Public Service Commission Chair Ryan Silvey said.

Adopting a new TMEP-style project type might address some of those shortcomings, Silvey said, and could result in relieving the chronically congested Neosho-Riverton flowgate on the Kansas-Missouri border that habitually incurs millions of dollars in congestion costs.

Silvey said MISO and SPP shouldn’t “automatically” implement a carbon copy of the TMEP process, but they could apply aspects that make sense.

MISO and PJM debuted the project type in 2017. They have since approved two portfolios of the smaller congestion-relieving projects.

March 28, 2021November 30, 2023

Minnesota PUC Approves ‘Last Good-priced’ Wind PPA in MISO

The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission has approved a power purchase agreement between Xcel Energy and a 200-MW Iowa wind farm that the utility says is the “last good-priced” wind available in MISO.

The commission approved the agreement with NextEra Energy Resources’ Heartland Divide II on March 18 over the objections of the state Department of Commerce, which contended Xcel’s acquisition process was flawed (E002/M-20-806). The PPA will provide 50 MW for Xcel’s Renewable*Connect (R*C) program and 150 MW to Google’s Honeycrisp Power, which has indicated an interest in developing a data center in Becker, Minn., in Xcel’s service area.

The 150-MW portion of Heartland will be considered a system resource, with costs recovered through the fuel clause rider. The 50 MW will be paid for by a surcharge on R*C customers; residential customers in the program pay a $6 to $8 premium per month for 100% wind and solar power.

Commerce: Process Flawed

The Commerce Department told the PUC it should reject the PPA because Xcel’s acquisition process violated prior commission orders requiring competitive bidding.

Xcel “did not perform a reasonable exploration of alternatives and did not take any steps to ensure a perception of fairness in the company’s process,” the department said.

The company said it chose a “targeted solicitation” because its previous competitive solicitation in 2019 had fallen short of its needs and that it needed to expand supply for R*C by the end of 2021. R*C is fully subscribed and has a waiting list of 2,500 business and residential customers.

Xcel shortlisted three projects in its 2019 solicitation for 200 MW, but the highest ranked project was unable to bear its assigned interconnection costs; the second project negotiated terms with a different buyer; and the third project, Deuel Harvest Wind, could only provide 100 MW.

The company said the shortfall was illustrative of MISO’s “oversubscribed and behind schedule” generator interconnection queue and increasingly high network upgrade costs, which prompt many projects to withdraw from the queue. (See MISO West Risks Becoming ‘Dead Zone,’ Stakeholders Warn.)

As a result, Xcel said it sought to identify resources in MISO Local Resource Zones 1 or 3 “that had — or that we thought could soon have — transmission interconnection cost surety.” It found two possibilities, one of which was Heartland. The other declined to provide a bid.

Heartland, which is in Zone 3, will interconnect to the MISO system at MidAmerican Energy’s 345-kV Fallows Avenue substation in Adair County, Iowa.

Although the price of the PPA was not disclosed, Xcel said it was comparable to those in the 2019 solicitation and other R*C wind resources and would save customers $97.1 million in present value of revenue requirements.

Heartland “is the last good-priced wind we’re going to see in the existing market,” Xcel Lead Assistant General Counsel Matt Harris told the PUC at its March 18 meeting.

The Commerce Department said that if the PUC approved the PPA, it should limit cost recovery to any shortfall between costs and the revenues from R*C customers and the Honeycrisp electric service agreement.

It said Xcel’s conclusion that Heartland was the only project available was “unilaterally determined,” because the company’s evaluation was limited to only the ones it knew about. It said there was no evidence that Xcel employed an independent evaluator to ensure fairness in the solicitation or had announced publicly it was seeking wind projects.

PUC staff, however, sided with Xcel, saying that the commission had allowed “an informal process when unique circumstances arise such that starting over with a Track 1 [formal bidding] process would be detrimental.”

“In staff’s view, the commission could reasonably determine that Xcel exhausted its options through competitive solicitation, and unique circumstances justified Xcel’s reasons for not beginning another Track 1 process,” it said. “Therefore, staff does not agree with the department that the Heartland PPA should be rejected due to a violation of past commission orders.”

Data Center Still in Early Planning Stage

Staff also cited the “favorable economics” demonstrated by Xcel’s modeling. It took no position on the department’s proposal to cap cost recovery.

But staff also said, “There is some uncertainty in how much additional renewable energy will actually be needed for the data center and R*C.

“Thus, the commission’s decision might benefit from updated information from the company regarding its forecasts for the data center’s usage and R*C demand to ensure that the underlying reasons for acquiring Heartland Divide II are justified,” it said.

Google’s data center is still in the initial planning stages. Xcel’s most recent update, filed in its June 2020 annual report stated, “At this time, Google has not yet notified the company of its intent to proceed with this project.”

At the March 18 meeting, PUC Commissioner Joseph Sullivan said, “We don’t know if that data center is yet going to come into existence.”

That comment was affirmed at the meeting by Harris, who said plans for the data center project were “slowly developing. There is still planning to do.”

March 28, 2021February 2, 2024

NESSBE Credits Passive Houses for Benefits Beyond Environment

Affordable housing developments built to passive-house standards are increasingly seen as a valuable tool, not just for addressing climate change, but also the high energy burden that low-income families in the U.S. face.

Passive-house goals go beyond energy efficiency to include durability, energy cost reduction, indoor temperature, high-quality indoor air, carbon emissions reduction and resilience, Lois Arena, director of passive house services for Steven Winter Associates, said Friday at the Northeast Summit for a Sustainable Built Environment (NESSBE).

To qualify as a passive house — those built to consume as little energy as possible — a building must meet rigorous standards for space heating and cooling, energy demand, airtightness and comfort.

Those factors, Arena added, make the passive-house standard critical for addressing energy costs on low-income families. The energy burden (i.e., portion of total household income that goes to energy bills) for low-income housing is about three times higher than non-low-income housing, she said. And low-income houses have higher utility bills per square foot because the housing stock is older and far less efficient.

Without a paradigm shift in the U.S., the energy burden for low-income families is going to worsen. From 2004 to 2014, according to Arena, average U.S. residential electricity prices increased by 39%, while the average income grew 0.9%.

“If utility rates keep outpacing increases in income, our low-income housing populations are just going to get more and more burdened by utility rates than everyone else,” she said.

In an example of utility bill savings for passive house versus conventional construction, according to Arena, a 100-unit, multifamily dwelling saw a reduction of $85,000 in gas and electricity expenses. Savings on gas expenses alone accounted for 77% of that total.

Steven Winter Associates won project funding in 2016 from the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority’s first round of federal low-income housing tax credits (LIHTCs) to incentivize passive house construction. The project, Columbus Commons, was completed in March 2020.

The housing authority last week awarded LIHTCs worth $10 million to six affordable housing developments designed to meet passive-house standards. The developments were part of a group of 10 projects to receive the tax credit. Three of the passive house developments will include solar power generation on site.

Steven Winter Associates’ Cooper Park Commons affordable housing project in Brooklyn was named in mid-March as one of New York’s Buildings of Excellence. When completed, the development will include solar generation and meet passive-house and LEED Gold standards.

The value of passive-house design is currently grounded in energy costs, but Karla Butterfield, sustainability director at Steven Winter Associates, said there also are important health benefits that have yet to be realized in the conversation about cost. Regulated indoor temperatures and fresh, filtered air are key components of passive houses that can reduce health problems, such as asthma, heart disease and arthritis. Those health issues relate directly to missed work, missed school and higher health care expenses.

“We are starting to get some anecdotal studies that tell us that living in healthier buildings is better for us overall, but it would be great if we could quantify that savings more,” Butterfield said.

March 28, 2021

Mass. Governor Signs NextGen Climate Bill

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker signed a wide-ranging climate bill into law Friday after months of back and forth between the executive branch and the legislature.

The House and Senate passed the final version of the bill with more than 40 amendments from the governor’s office.

“This is it,” Baker said at the ceremonial signing. “We’re going to sign this after a lot of hard work.”

The law requires that Massachusetts meet an interim emissions reduction target by 2025, along with new interim goals every five years to hit net-zero emissions by 2050. The secretary of the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) is also required to set emissions limits for specific industries, including natural gas.

Massachusetts Climate Bill — Gov. Charlie Baker signed climate legislation that puts Massachusetts on a path to reducing emissions 85% below 1990 levels by 2050, with interim targets of 50% by 2030 and 75% by 2040. | *Commonwealth of Massachusetts*

Given the magnitude of the responsibilities delegated to state agencies by the new law, legislators are now concerned that the governor’s budget proposal for 2022 does not go far enough to support those agencies.

Baker’s preliminary budget of $46 billion allocates $293 million for the EEA, a 6.2% decrease from fiscal year 2021. The Department of Public Utilities (DPU) has $20.8 million allocated for 2022, the same amount as its current budget. The Department of Energy Resources is also set to receive a level amount of $4.5 million.

The state will need to increase its staff considerably to oversee the implementation of emissions limits on major sectors of the economy and meet the reporting requirements of the new law, Sen. Michael Barrett said during a budget hearing last week.

The law becomes effective 90 days after the bill’s signing and just before the start of fiscal year 2022 in July.

Each limit requires the development of a “comprehensive, clear and specific plan for realizing” the law’s goals Barrett said.

EEA Secretary Kathleen Theoharides said she agrees that “much more additional work needs to be done,” but the agency is “well equipped” to ramp up its current processes to implement necessary changes.

Implications for Utilities

Barrett is also concerned about the DPU’s role in regulating natural gas emission reduction targets. The climate law requires the department to make reducing emissions one of its main goals, in addition to affordability and reliability.

But utilities still rely on natural gas as a core business. Eversource plans to grow its investments in the carbon-emitting fuel through 2025. By then, natural gas will make up 22% of the utility’s energy distribution, compared to 12% in 2019.

The senator questioned DPU Chair Matthew Nelson at the budget meeting about whether the department had enough support to regulate an industry with a “deep-seated determination to resist change.”

“We don’t want to enact a policy that is going to harm customers or take away heat from peoples’ homes,” Nelson said. “But if utilities bring us a proposal that is not in line with the law, we will make that determination and correct any mistakes that are hypothetically made.”

A spokesperson for Eversource told NetZero Insider that more than 1.5 million homes rely on gas for heating and cooking in Massachusetts, and it is the “least expensive residential energy option.”

“To that end, we have an obligation to deliver safe, reliable natural gas service to the communities we serve,” while exploring new pathways to achieve net-zero emissions, such as geothermal, renewable natural gas and hydrogen, the spokesperson said.