The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Thursday approved Rep. Deb Haaland’s (D-N.M.) nomination as secretary of the interior, sending her on to a floor vote.
Haaland, who had attracted fire from GOP members from oil and gas producing states, won the support of only one Republican, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), in the 11-9 vote.
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee approved the nomination of Rep. Deb Haaland as interior secretary. | Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee
Murkowski said she was torn between wanting to support the first Native American cabinet secretary and Haaland’s opposition to resource development on public lands, noting that Alaska has “more federal lands [and] more mineral resources … than any other state.”
“So I have really struggled through this one,” she said. “I am going to place my trust in Rep. Haaland and her team despite some very real misgivings.”
Directing her comments to Haaland, Murkowski added: “I am also going to hold you to your commitments to ensure that Alaska is allowed to prosper.”
Senate ENR Committee Chair Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) | Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee
Committee Chair Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) also expressed misgivings before signaling his support.
“While I may not personally agree with some of her past statements and policy positions, as secretary she will be carrying out President Biden’s agenda,” Manchin said. “At her [confirmation] hearing she confirmed that she and the administration recognize that our country will remain dependent on fossil fuels for years to come.” (See Haaland Commits to Balanced Approach to Energy.)
Manchin also said he “deeply impressed” by Rep. Don Young’s (R-Alaska) endorsement of Haaland as someone with a “strong commitment to bipartisanship.”
Young “has been in Congress long enough to be able to read people and know their heart and soul,” he said.
Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) | Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee
But ranking member John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said he opposed Haaland because of her “radical views,” citing her statements opposing fracking and drilling on federal lands and her support of the Green New Deal. Her positions are “squarely at odds with the mission of the Department of the Interior and outside of the mainstream,” he said.
He also criticized her confirmation hearing performance, saying she “struggled or refused to answer basic questions,” including ones on the impact of Biden administration policies on energy workers. Biden has ordered a temporary freeze on new drilling leases on all public lands and waters and a review of the leasing program. He also froze drilling activity in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
“In Wyoming alone, a long-term leasing ban would result in 33,000 workers losing their jobs,” Barrasso said.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) | Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee
Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) came to Haaland’s aid, thanking Murkowski for her “pragmatism” and saying Barrasso’s characterization of the nominee was neither “accurate nor appropriate.”
“I am disappointed by the tenor of the debate in this committee. I voted for two Interior nominees whose views may have been consider quite radical by many of my constituents. I never used those terms because we have to get a lot of work done on this committee, and the tenor of this committee over the past several years has been very productive.”
Thursday’s vote came after Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) on Wednesday announced she would support Haaland, a move that observers said likely assured she will survive a floor vote.
In other action, the committee held a confirmation hearing for David Turk, Biden’s nominee as deputy energy secretary, and approved the chairs and ranking members, respectively, of four subcommittees:
Energy: Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) and John Hoeven (R-N.D.);
National Parks: Angus King (I-Maine) and Steve Daines (R-Mont.);
Public Lands, Forests and Mining: Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah); and
Water and Power: Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.).
NERC’s Reliability and Security Technical Committee took a number of actions in a two-day meeting this week.
DER Standard Request Denied
The committee rejected a standard authorization request (SAR) to revise reliability standard TPL-001-5.1 (Transmission system planning performance requirements). The SAR was proposed by the System Planning Impacts from Distributed Energy Resources (SPIDER) Working Group based on a white paper endorsed by the RSTC at its meeting in October. (See “Consent Agenda Items Approved After Debates,” NERC RSTC Briefs: Oct. 14, 2020.)
Only 19 of the 31 members present voted to endorse the SAR, short of the two-thirds majority required for passage; eight voted against endorsement, while four abstained.
Several members said that while they agreed with the need to update NERC’s standards to account for the growing penetration of distributed energy resources (DER), the decision to put forward a SAR seemed premature. For example, David Jacobson of Manitoba Hydro reminded the committee that it had only just voted to endorse the guideline for verifying aggregated DER models the same day and warned that starting the standards development process without reliable data and models seemed to put the “cart before the horse.”
Brian Evans-Mongeon, Utility Services Inc. | NERC
Brian Evans-Mongeon of Utility Services Inc. raised several questions for SPIDER Chair Kun Zhu of MISO: first, whether the working group intended for the proposed changes to take effect before July 2023, the enforceable date of TPL-001-5.1; second, why the SAR did not specify its applicability to non-bulk electric system devices; and third, whether SPIDER and the Inverter-based Resources Performance Working Group (IRPWG) deemed MOD-032-1 (Data for power system modeling and analysis) sufficient “to provide the necessary data collection to support … these planning assessments.”
In response to the first and third questions, Zhu told Evans-Mongeon that the groups had not taken “specific … positions” on the issues he raised; on the second, he said “the applicability [of the existing standard] doesn’t change” with regard to non-BES devices. Evans-Mongeon suggested that more revisions were needed to make the SAR “ready for prime time.”
“I just think that there’s additional clarification and the need to eliminate confusion as we move forward … and I just feel that this SAR does not go far enough,” Evans-Mongeon said. “I think it can be expanded upon [and] can be improved, but right now I just don’t think it’s ready … especially if we’re looking at something that’s not going to be enforceable for two-plus years.”
The vote not to endorse the SAR does not mean the effort to revise TPL-001-5.1 is dead, as SPIDER can bring the proposal to the Standards Committee without endorsement. However, Howard Gugel, NERC’s vice president of engineering and standards, recommended that because members agreed on the importance of the project, the committee should try to work with the group to address their concerns.
“Since the RSTC, or its predecessors … authorized this group to begin its work [and] is now saying that it shouldn’t proceed, there should be some specific information … provided to this team” to help rework the SAR into an acceptable form, he said.
Approvals
Members approved scope documents and work plans for several of the RSTC’s subcommittees, working groups and task forces. Included were the scopes for the Performance Analysis Subcommittee, Event Analysis Subcommittee, Security Working Group and Standing Committees Coordinating Group, as well as the scope and work plan for the Energy Reliability Assessment Task Force (ERATF).
The RSTC also approved its own work plan, comprising “consolidated and updated” subgroup work plans.
The ERATF documents were approved with an amendment proposed by Evans-Mongeon regarding language in the draft that would allow the task force to “evaluate whether [SARs] are needed to enhance existing or create new reliability standards” to address potential fuel assurance concerns. His amendment allows for the issuance of reliability guidelines or the use of other NERC processes that might “get something out there quicker and more effectively … to help the industry along.”
Two reliability guidelines — “Model verification of aggregate DER models used in planning studies” and “Battery energy storage systems and hybrid power plant modeling and performance” — were approved as well, as was a white paper on possible misunderstandings of the term “load loss” developed by the System Analysis and Modeling Subcommittee in 2020.
The committee also endorsed a special assessment on the performance of NERC’s Energy Management System (EMS), intended to “gain a better resolution on the contribution of EMS outages to the loss of situational awareness risk and the effect of [reliability standard] EOP-004-4.”
Subgroups Disbanded
The committee agreed to disband two of its subgroups this week: the Security and Reliability Training Working Group (SRTWG), formed last year by the merger of the Reliability Training Working Group (previously part of the now-defunct Operating Committee) and the Security Training Working Group.
David Zwergel, MISO | NERC
RSTC Vice Chair David Zwergel of MISO said the committee had concluded that this group is neither relevant to the RSTC’s mission nor necessary in the broader sector.
“We went back and looked over what the SRTWG was doing and looking at its deliverables. It’s really redundant with other efforts in industry as a whole,” Zwergel said. “It’s not that the RSTC doesn’t endorse or support training. It’s really [that] the training that this group was doing [was] focused on how to be a trainer, how to improve training techniques, [which is] covered elsewhere.”
Also shuttered was the Geomagnetic Disturbance Task Force (GMDTF), which last year concluded its two-year effort alongside the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) with the publication of EPRI’s white paper Research Findings for Geomagnetic Disturbance Research Work Plan. As recommended in the task force’s final report, the RSTC agreed to add GMD monitoring to the scope of the Real Time Operating Subcommittee.
Building end-markets for a circular economy is critical to reducing methane and carbon dioxide emissions from organic waste in the future, according to the New York State Climate Action Council (CAC) Waste Advisory Panel.
The organics diversion and landfills subpanel wants to see materials recovered for their next highest and best use to help meet New York’s climate goals, said Dereth Glance, executive director of the nonprofit Onondaga County Resource Recovery Agency.
“The secret to material management is movement, so we can’t have this stuff stockpiling,” Glance said during a Waste Advisory Panel meeting Wednesday. “We need to keep it moving all the time.”
The New York State Climate Action Council (CAC) Waste Advisory Panel met March 3. Clockwise from top left: New York DEC Deputy Commissioner Martin Brand; Bernadette Kelly, Teamsters Local 210; Michael Cahill, Germano & Cahill; Jane Gajwani, NYC DEP; Lauren Toretta, CH4 Biogas; Dan Egan, Feeding New York State; and Dereth Glance, OCRRA (center). | NYDPS
It is important to have procurement policies at the state and local level for municipalities purchasing recycled content material, buying compost for parks departments, road development, erosion control and other kinds of construction projects, she said.
Dereth Glance, OCRRA | NYDPS
“Not only are we going to be able to move food waste out of landfills and other disposal and into more productive use, but once we create that product, that compost, it has a reliable place to go to be used again,” Glance said.
Routing at least 90% of organics to composting should dramatically reduce organic waste, even in a city as large as New York, said Michelle “Tok” Oyewole, policy and communications organizer at the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance.
Brigitte Vicenty, founder of another recycling group, Inner City Green Team, said she supports imposition of a modest ($2) monthly recycling service fee, on a sliding scale, to be paid by both tenants and property owners to support door-to-door recycling. The fee, she said, would increase participation since people will feel that they already have “skin in the game.”
Brigitte Vicenty, Inner City Green Team | NYDPS
The Waste Advisory Panel is sharpening its recommendations to the full council ahead of a March 19 deadline.
“We are in the last push to get over the finish line and present final recommendations to the council toward the end of March,” said New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Deputy Commissioner Martin Brand, who chairs the waste advisory panel.
The waste panel received updates from its various subgroups on materials handling; wastewater treatment and recovery; organics diversion and landfills; local scale diversion; and climate justice.
Brand encouraged the subgroups to “keep honing the product down,” promising to get back to the panel members if the DEC arranges “some cross-panel deliberations, particularly on the renewable natural gas, biogas and bioeconomy piece,” because it is still a source of frustration and confusion.
Cash Incentives
Michael Cahill, Germano & Cahill | NYDPS
The landfills subgroup recommended establishing an energy floor price not less than 10 cents/kWh for power purchase agreement payments for renewable natural gas and non-energy producing compost facilities to stimulate infrastructure upgrades and construction for management of organic wastes at landfills, combustors, digestors and compost facilities.
“We need a new generation of facilities,” said Michael Cahill, partner at the law firm Germano & Cahill. “We don’t have the digestors, we don’t have the compost facilities, we don’t have anything in that gap between generation and landfilling and combustion to fill the need, and we need to get a variety of people on the job to figure out how to make it work.”
The 10 cents/kWh charge would provide an incentive for planners to begin the process of experimentation, innovation and coordination to find a solution in the first five to seven years, according to Cahill.
Keep the Focus
The waste panel also plans to recommend to the full CAC building a distributed energy model that uses local waste and associated emissions/energy recovery to enable communities to be more climate resilient.
Resa Dimino, Resource Recycling Systems | NYDPS
Resa Dimino, senior consultant at Resource Recycling Systems, said it was not clear whether the distributed energy recommendation focuses on development of new waste disposal facilities, or maximizing the efficiency of existing facilities.
“If we want to get real climate benefits, we need to be investing in waste reduction, reuse, recycling and composting,” Dimino said. “Investing in landfills or waste-to-energy facilities that are slightly better than where we are now is not going to get us to the goals we need to reach.”
Eric Goldstein, New York City environment director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, agreed, saying “there is some ambiguity here when we’re talking about financial assistance and investments like encouraging private-public partnership investments through joint funding that values low-emission solid waste infrastructure investments.”
Eric Goldstein, Natural Resources Defense Council | NYDPS
One person’s definition of low-emission might not be another’s, so the focus of the waste advisory panel under the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act ought to be on reducing emissions, he said.
The distributed energy idea is unique “in that it’s almost equally if not more an adaptation strategy as it is a mitigation strategy,” said Lauren Toretta, president of Greenwich, Conn.-based CH4 Biogas.
She said that extensive work by utilities and NYSERDA to support microgrid infrastructure will help communities benefit from waste-to-energy opportunities.
“We see it as an opportunity if you can leverage the waste resources and associated energy generation to help communities be more independent and more resilient,” Toretta said.
New Hampshire legislators are considering a bill that would require the state’s vehicle fleet to be emissions-free by 2042 (SB 131-FN).
Gov. Chris Sununu vetoed a similar bill in 2019, citing concerns about the costs of electric vehicles at the time. But Sen. David Watters (D), sponsor of the bill, is optimistic about its chances for passage this year because of the declining costs of EV ownership.
“The state could save tens or hundreds of millions of dollars on maintenance costs because the cost of [EV] operation, let alone fuel costs, is so much lower than standard vehicles,” Watters said during a New Hampshire Senate Transportation Committee hearing Tuesday.
Under the bill all new light-duty trucks and passenger vehicles leased or purchased by the state would be required to be emissions-free by 2026. In addition, new trucks and other vehicles exceeding 10,000 pounds would need to be emissions-free by 2032. There is room in the bill for consideration of alternatives when existing zero-emission vehicle technologies do not align with the vehicle need, such as for police cruisers or snowplows, Watters said.
The most recent New Hampshire state vehicle bid covering the 2021 model year demonstrated the competitive cost of new EVs, Rebecca Ohler, administrator of the Technical Services Bureau in the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services’ Air Resources Division, said in her hearing testimony.
In the bid’s four-door, five-passenger sedan category, the vehicle with the lowest operating cost over its lifetime was the all-electric Chevrolet Bolt, she said. The Bolt, she added, cost about $500 less than the second lowest vehicle and “thousands of dollars less than most of the other vehicles within the category.”
If the bill is passed without amendments, state agencies would be required to create a vehicle transition plan by mid-2022. Watters noted that the bill does not require agencies to take any cars or trucks out of service until they have reached the end of normal operations.
Charging Infrastructure
The bill also includes language that expands on an existing plan to spend funds from the 2016 Volkswagen diesel emissions settlement on DC fast-charging infrastructure development throughout the state.
Ohler said that she expects the Department of Environmental Services to issue a request for proposals soon for the buildout of that fast-charging network.
The bill would allocate a portion of the settlement funds to a rebate program for municipalities that build charging infrastructure. It also would authorize utilities to include make-ready programs under a systems benefits charge to pay for network upgrades that support charging facility installation.
Madeleine Mineau, executive director of Clean Energy NH, asked the committee to consider including review and approval standards for make-ready investments that utilities seek to recover.
“I want to make sure that, like all other utility investments that are recovered from their customers, that those are prudent investments and in the benefit of their customers,” Mineau said in her testimony.
Watters said that the bill includes a surcharge for EV owners to support charging infrastructure expansion costs after VW settlement funds are exhausted.
To address EV charging station rate design, the bill provides a series of guidelines for utilities. It says that “appropriate” rate design features include:
rates that account for seasonality cost drivers on the electric system;
load management offerings;
time-of-use rates, when metered separately from other loads; and
demand charges for high-demand equipment.
Mineau said that Clean Energy NH disagrees that demand charges are appropriate for fast charging rates.
“We actually think that it’s a very significant disincentive to building out the DC fast-charging network,” she said.
Magness drew political heat following the system’s near collapse last month that led to long-term power outages and misery for millions of Texans. (See Texas Lawmakers Dig into Power Outages.)
The board voted 6-1 to invoke the termination notice in Magness’ contract. He will continue in his role for 60 days, working with state leaders and regulators on potential reforms to ERCOT, the grid operator said.
The ERCOT board fired CEO Bill Magness (left), shown here during a media briefing following the February winter storm alongside Dan Woodfin, senior director of system operations. | ERCOT
The board also directed ERCOT to engage with a search firm “as soon as reasonably possible” to find a new CEO. A transition plan will be discussed during future board meetings.
Nick Fehrenbach, manager of regulatory affairs and utility franchising for the city of Dallas and representing the commercial consumer segment, voted against the motion.
Magness, who was not present, and Lori Cobos, CEO of the Office of Public Utility Counsel, both abstained from the vote.
“I would have preferred to have more time to evaluate this important matter … to evaluate my concerns,” Cobos said.
ERCOT General Counsel Chad Seely conducted the board meeting in the absence of a chair and vice chair, who were among the four independent directors who resigned Feb. 23. (See ERCOT Chair, 4 Directors to Resign.)
Magness joined ERCOT in 2010 after 14 previous years in the electric industry and served as its general counsel. He was appointed CEO in January 2016 and made more than $876,000 in salary and other compensation in 2019.
ERCOT’s board, ideally composed of 16 members, is now down to 10, including Magness. Two of the seven members who have resigned are currently being replaced by acting directors; the independent retail electric market segment’s director and alternate director are both vacant.
Arthur D’Andrea, who was appointed as chairman of the Public Utility Commission on Wednesday, sits on the board as a non-voting member. His predecessor, DeAnn Walker, stepped down Monday. (See PUCT’s Walker Steps Down from Commission.)
WECC stakeholders expressed their displeasure Tuesday with a revised proposal to revamp its committee structure and appoint a new Committee Review Body (CRB) to oversee its working committees and report to the board.
The regional entity for the Western Interconnection is holding workshops this month to discuss a third version of its plan to streamline its committee structure and create the CRB, pronounced “CARB.”
Offering a “gut reaction” to the CRB proposal, Lorissa Jones-Cardoza, transmission reliability program manager at the Bonneville Power Administration and a member of WECC’s Member Advisory Committee (MAC), said, “We don’t feel that it’s appropriate that the CRB be the only venue to the board.”
She recommended that other standing committees, including the MAC, should have “individual voices to the board, not have everything funneled to the CRB. It feels like an extra layer and a removal of that direct conversation and feedback that the various working groups get from the board.”
Fred Heutte, Northwest Energy Coalition senior policy associate and member of the MAC, said, “I have mixed feelings about the CRB — defining what its scope is, what its authority is and the usual issues of who’s on it and [its voting role and procedures]. I’m not a big fan — at this point — of the idea.”
WECC needs to balance the “self-determination” of its expert stakeholder committees — “the ability to develop and progress along the path of their approach in considering issues and input and doing assessment” — with the “need for coordination across different groups,” Heutte said.
“What’s the right amount of top-down coordination or direction versus the ability of the different bodies to do their thing and yet have a cohesive result that brings good results back up the chain to whatever level of reporting and outputs that we’re looking for?” he said.
Victoria Ravenscroft, WECC senior policy and external affairs manager and the moderator of Tuesday’s session, asked stakeholders to identify good aspects of the CRB. She was met with dead silence. “Uh, oh, that’s not good,” Ravenscroft said.
So far, the efforts of WECC’s Stakeholder Engagement Task Force (SETF) have faced resistance.
An initial straw proposal in October prompted numerous stakeholder concerns and resulted in a heavily revised proposal in November, followed by Version 3 in February.
The latest revised straw proposal offered a new take on how committees would be configured after the shakeup, which WECC hopes to implement in September.
It includes a plan to combine two major oversight groups, the Operating (OC) and Market Interface (MIC) committees, into a new Reliability Risk Committee (RRC), which would report to the CRB along with the existing Reliability Assessment Committee (RAC). The prior plan called for retiring the OC, MIC and RAC.
It maintains Version 2’s proposal to establish the CRB to “ensure [WECC’s working] committees are delivering relevant and timely work products to the appropriate audiences.” (See WECC Overhauls, Expands Stakeholder Committee Plan.)
The CRB would consist of representatives from WECC management, the RAC, RRC, MAC and others, according to the newest plan. It will report to the board, oversee the RAC and RRC, review and manage WECC’s stakeholder committee structure, and “identify the need for, and when necessary, initiate work to meet WECC’s strategic objectives,” the plan states.
The SETF is scheduled to deliver a final proposal to the board between June and August.
Massachusetts residents want the state’s grid to be clean by 2050, but they are also opposed to the infrastructure projects that will support that energy transition, Matthew Nelson, chair of the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities, said Wednesday.
“I don’t think there’s a really great understanding about what it’s going to take to actually build out an electric grid that’s going to support electrifying the transportation sector, electrifying the heating sector and moving the clean energy from one point to another,” Nelson said at the Northeast Energy and Commerce Association’s Renewable Energy Conference.
The energy industry at large needs to invest in educating the public about the infrastructure necessary to accommodate clean energy, he added.
To eliminate carbon emissions in the state by 2050, Massachusetts needs to electrify major sectors that have large energy consumption rates, such as transportation and housing, which together account for 74% of the state’s emissions. The conversion of those sectors will place major strains on the existing electric infrastructure. New electrical substations and transmission lines, as well as upgrades to existing substations and transmission lines, will be needed to increase the state’s capacity for supplying clean sources of energy to buildings, homes and vehicles.
Nelson’s comments about infrastructure challenges for electrification echo the struggle between state regulators and the East Boston community over a recently approved substation project.
Massachusetts’ cumulative installed solar capacity of 2,572 MW as of December 2019 exceeded the state’s target of installing 1,600 MW of solar in 2020 by 972 MW. | Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources
The Massachusetts Energy Facilities Siting Board approved the substation despite the concerns of members of the state-designated Environmental Justice Community. (See Follow-up: Controversial East Boston Substation Approved.)
Community members argued that East Boston is already overburdened by infrastructure and air pollution that contribute to the disproportionate number of people with asthma or COVID-19.
But Nelson said that the energy industry needs to help the public understand that infrastructure will increase the grid’s capacity and ability to electrify industries that are currently emitting harmful gases. New electrical infrastructure will “make the air cleaner and improve the health and quality of life of all the people that live in Massachusetts,” Nelson said.
Opponents of the substation also claimed that the increase in demand for clean energy could be met with solar panels and battery storage, which would cost ratepayers less than the proposed substation.
The state surpassed its goal of installing 1,600 MW of solar power by 2020 by 972 MW, but the widespread distribution of renewable energy requires upgrades to substations and “sophisticated planning” to ensure it is efficient, reliable and resilient, Nelson said.
“We are hearing loud and clear from the public they want clean energy and more reliability, and I think we can achieve both of those things, and that will require there to be a lot more electric infrastructure,” he said.
Eversource Energy and Ørsted’s joint offshore wind development venture signed a long-term agreement Friday with the city of New London, Conn., to facilitate the modernization efforts at State Pier to support turbine staging and assembly.
The Host Community Agreement between the city and developers guarantees at least $5.25 million for New London in payments over seven years during the construction of the Revolution Wind, South Fork Wind and Sunrise Wind projects, according to a press release from Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont. If Eversource/Ørsted wins OSW procurement bids from Connecticut, the city could receive up to an additional $1.5 million per year, retroactive to year three of the deal.
Heavy seas engulf the Block Island Wind Farm off the coast of Rhode Island. | NREL
The agreement was more than a year in the making and built on a $157 million public-private Harbor Development Agreement announced in February 2020 between Connecticut and Eversource/Ørsted, which is expected to pay about half of the project’s price tag plus millions in rent during its 10-year lease. The three OSW projects represent more than 1,700 MW, including 304 MW procured by Connecticut through Revolution Wind. Connecticut has called for its electricity supply to be 100% decarbonized by 2040. (See IRP Details Conn.’s Paths to Carbon-free Future.)
The State Pier site actually consists of two piers that will be conjoined under the HDA. According to the Connecticut Port Authority’s website, “the facility will accommodate a broad range of cargo types” after the OSW developers’ lease agreement is up. The infrastructure upgrades will increase the pier’s capacity to accommodate heavy-lift cargo and maintain its freight rail link. Construction is expected to be completed by August 2022. The wind developers and operator Gateway Terminal will also help the state market the port’s use during times when turbine construction is not occurring.
If Eversource/Ørsted continues operations at State Pier beyond the initial 10 years under the HDA, the HCA provides an option to negotiate additional payments. As for the completion of the wind projects, Eversource said during its year-end earnings call on Feb. 17 that South Fork Wind has an in-service date of 2023. All the review process steps for the project have either been met on or ahead of schedule since the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management established its revised plan last summer. Both Revolution and Sunrise are “unlikely to achieve” the end of 2023 in-service dates. (See Eversource Reports Profit Increase, Carbon Decrease.)
The Eversource/Ørsted’s joint offshore wind projects (Revolution Wind, South Fork Wind and Sunrise Wind) are highlighted in blue and are a key part of a new agreement between the companies and the city of New London, Conn. | Ørsted
New London Mayor Michael Passero said in a statement that under full implementation of the agreement, with additional payments from the port authority and Gateway, the city is expected to take in more than $1 million yearly for the initial seven-year time frame.
“The city has worked tirelessly to reach an agreement that benefits the taxpayers of New London as the host city for the State Pier’s use for offshore wind development,” Passero said. “It is exciting for the city to partner with the state on its commitment to increasing clean, renewable energy for Connecticut residents, and we look forward to economic growth opportunities for New London and the region as the offshore wind industry continues to grow.”
Previously, the city received payments in lieu of taxes from the Department of Transportation when it owned State Pier. U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.), whose district includes the city, said the agreement between it and the developers “is a long overdue restructuring of payments to New London that is much fairer to the taxpayers of the city.”
“Today’s agreement makes Connecticut’s role as a leader in the offshore wind industry official, with New London now poised to become the premier commercial East Coast hub for this sector and our state set to become a leader in the transition to renewable energy and the fight against climate change,” Lamont said. “This project represents exactly what I have wanted to see at the local level since I came into office: local investment, job growth, development, and a focus on providing for a better environment and future for our state.”
For decades, rural Scott County, Va., has been transporting thousands of students daily in diesel-powered school buses. Drivers shift the rumbling yellow vehicles into low gear to climb the Blue Ridge Mountains, expelling plumes of carbon dioxide, a cause of climate change, and particulate matter, which can cause respiratory ailments.
On Saturday, the General Assembly approved legislation introduced by Del. Mark L. Keam (D) (HB 2118) offering school districts grants to replace pollution-belching buses with nonpolluting — but more expensive — electric ones. Separately, the legislature rejected a proposal by Dominion Energy to authorize $400 million in spending to purchase 1,500 electric buses.
But some rural school district transportation directors say replacing diesel buses with electric ones is unrealistic, citing a laundry list of potential problems, including battery life, charging station challenges and cost.
“Electric buses simply would not be workable in this area,” said Tim Edwards, director of transportation for Scott County Schools. “Scott County’s terrain is too hilly, mountainous.”
Some rural school districts say electric buses are not practical for them. | Dominion Energy
Ben Truett, head of transportation for Alleghany County Schools, agreed that electric buses “would work in cities, because of their flat terrain, but not in the mountain areas” of Virginia. “The batteries do not have enough range or power.”
A spokesman for Gov. Ralph Northam did not respond Wednesday when asked whether he plans to sign Keam’s bill.
Keam says his legislation, which would allow school districts to seek competitive grants from a new state fund, offset by federal and private sector philanthropic contributions, would provide major health benefits. In Virginia, he said, nearly 130,000 children suffer from asthma, which leads to many missed school days. With approximately 17,000 school buses transporting more than 1 million students, electric buses would improve their health, he said. Studies have estimated that average exposure to particulate matter inside diesel buses is three to six times greater than ambient levels.
Battery electric buses’ fuel and maintenance costs are about 60% lower than conventional diesel vehicles, but they cost two to three times as much. | Dominion Energy
However, Keam has acknowledged that electric school buses aren’t ideal for rural districts. “My bill really wouldn’t be helpful” to those areas, he said. “Virginia needs a plan on where we put charging stations” before encouraging rural areas to apply for the competitive grant, he said.
Erik Bigelow, senior engineering consultant at the Center for Transportation and the Environment, agrees that current batteries are suitable for flat land but don’t have the power or range in rural areas. Improved battery technologies could give buses the range needed to run rural routes, but that could be years away, he said.
Hydrogen fuel cell buses could offer longer range but require expensive fueling infrastructure.
Battery electric buses’ fuel and maintenance costs are about 60% lower than conventional diesel vehicles, but the increased purchase cost — a premium of about $200,000 per vehicle — have limited deployments to date. Alternative procurement strategies could accelerate the transition, however. The school district in Montgomery County, Md., last month approved a contract to lease 326 school buses over the next four years — the largest single procurement of electric school buses in North America — without increasing the district’s costs. (See related story, Schools’ ‘Budget Neutral’ Bus Deal Could Accelerate BEB Growth.)
Infrastructure
But reducing upfront costs does nothing to address range anxiety.
The leading electric bus maker, High Point, N.C.-based Thomas Built Buses, averages 134 miles on a fully charged 220-kWh battery. Some bus routes in Alleghany and Scott counties are more than 100 miles round trip, the directors said. Given the power needed to climb steep hills, they doubt a fully charged battery would last an entire trip. Both counties run buses that get about 360 miles to a 100-gallon tank, with most requiring a top off several times a week.
The lack of charging stations also concerns the transportation directors, especially Edwards. Scott County has only five buses returning to a central depot each school day; the remaining 41 stay at the drivers’ homes.
While HB 2118 provides funding for charging stations, Edwards asked for clarification: “Does that mean each driver would have a charging station at their home?” If buses were rerouted to a central location, it would double the amount of time and miles drivers are on the road, costing the cash-strapped district money it can ill afford.
Additionally, Edwards questions whether the county has the infrastructure to operate charging stations. The district still has schools using coal furnaces for heat, because some parts of the county’s electric infrastructure is 60 to 70 years old, said Edwards, the district’s former maintenance director. “Homes running air conditioning in the summer and electric heat in the winter couldn’t power buses without problems,” Edwards said.
Proponents of vehicle-to-grid technology say school districts could charge their buses when prices are low at night and profit from selling power during the day when prices are higher. But Truett worries the school district could fall prey to powerful electric utilities. “I don’t see a mutual benefit here,” he said. “It’s not 50/50.”
Even with grants, the rural districts fear they would struggle to keep electric buses on the road. While the maintenance is cheaper, nobody in their garages has the know-how to repair one, the directors said.
Truett, a self-described environmentalist, wants the district to carry students in environmentally friendly electric buses, but even if they were practical, the $400,000 price tag per bus is beyond the district’s budget.
Alleghany County, where one in five people live in poverty, has a fleet of 56 buses. “We are talking tens of millions of dollars to replace our fleet,” Truett said. “This district doesn’t have that kind of money. And I sure hope the state doesn’t make electric buses an unfunded mandate.”
Edwards echoed that sentiment. “It’s Cadillac versus Ford,” he said. “Even if we won a Cadillac, it requires upkeep, costly upkeep. It requires special tools and knowledge, things we don’t have here.”
If the state requires school districts to purchase electric school buses, Scott County, with an 18% poverty rate, would also be “in a world of hurt,” Edwards said.
Dominion Bus Plan Rejected
Rayhan Daudani, a spokesperson for Dominion, Virginia’s largest electric provider, says battery-powered buses are a “win-win” for schools and the power grid. “The buses use less fluids [and] require no oil changes,” he said.
The power company announced in August 2019 it would pursue what it called the nation’s largest electric school bus deployment, beginning with a $13.5 million pilot to provide 50 electric buses to school districts. The first recipients are some of Virginia’s largest school systems: Alexandria, Arlington, Norfolk and Richmond. The first buses were delivered in October.
Dominion Energy’s proposal to spend $400 million to purchase 1,500 electric school buses was rejected by Virginia lawmakers. | Dominion Energy
Dominion said it hoped to replace all 13,000 diesel buses in its service territory. (See Dominion Sees Green in Electrification.) But legislation that would have allowed the utility to purchase 1,500 buses at a cost of $400 million was rejected by the House of Delegates on Feb. 27, the last day of the legislative session (SB 1830). The bill failed even after the program was reduced to 1,250 and then 1,000 buses, according to a report by the Virginia Mercury. Other amendments would have required that one-quarter of the buses go to districts serving low-income students and given the State Corporation Commission authority to determine whether the program was “in the public interest.”
Dominion would have paid the increased cost of the buses and owned the batteries, while school districts would own the buses. The State Corporation Commission reportedly estimated the cost — excluding charging infrastructure — at $345 million, including $108 million in profit. Dominion would have offset the cost by raising residential customers bills by $12 annually.
Observers said some of the opposition to the bill came from resentment over Dominion’s efforts to block legislation that would have restored state regulators’ power to conduct rate reviews, legislation that the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee killed Feb. 15.
Maryland’s largest school district last month approved a contract to lease 326 electric school buses over the next four years — the largest single procurement of electric school buses in North America and one that would double the number of battery electric school buses in the U.S.
But the real significance of the deal may be not its size — Montgomery County in suburban D.C. runs the 14th largest district in the U.S. — but its contract structure.
Battery electric buses’ fuel and maintenance costs are about 60% lower than conventional diesel vehicles, and they emit no carbon dioxide or particulate matter, which can contribute to asthma and other respiratory diseases. But sticker shock — BEBs cost two to three times as much as diesels — has limited most districts to one or two buses, based on available grant funding.
The contract Montgomery County Public Schools approved with Highland Electric Transportation is “budget neutral” — meaning the school district will pay no more than it would have to acquire traditional diesel vehicles. Highland will pay for the buses and recoup its investment through decreasing vehicle prices, less expensive fuel and maintenance savings. It also will be able to sell power from idled bus batteries to the grid when prices are high.
“As far as MCPS and the vendor know, this is the first budget-neutral, non-grant-dependent, school bus fleet electrification plan available,” schools Superintendent Jack R. Smith told the county’s Board of Education in seeking approval of the four-year $168.7 million contract. “This is the leading edge of the trend that is expected to sweep through the school bus industry.”
Nat Kreamer, CEO of Advanced Energy Economy, said the innovative contract could help meet President Biden’s pledge to electrify the nation’s 500,000 school buses within a decade.
“This leadership step taken by Montgomery County Public Schools shows that it’s possible today to electrify transportation at scale. Comprehensive solutions like Highland Electric’s can leverage private capital, meet the needs of fleet operators and serve communities now without burdening ratepayers or taxpayers.”
“Like solar, where the upfront technology costs are ‘sticker-shock’ high, but the value created for customers over time is substantial, selling EV as a service makes it affordable for customers to make the switch,” said Kreamer, co-founder of SunRun. “I believe Highland’s business model can accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles in the same way SunRun did for residential solar.”
He added: “These school buses do double duty, providing pollution-free transportation for schoolchildren and grid services that benefit all electric customers, while also being available as mobile backup for communities affected by power outages.”
Creating a Stir
Montgomery County intends to replace all of its more than 1,400 diesel buses by 2035.
The district will receive 25 Daimler Thomas Built buses with Proterra batteries for fall 2021, 61 in fall 2022 and about 120 — representing one-twelfth of its fleet — in each of the two years thereafter.
The district’s contract includes use of the buses, all charging infrastructure, charge management and electricity. Separately, it will be responsible for vehicle liability insurance, tags and any damage to vehicles.
“Budget neutrality depends on achieving all of the savings associated with not using the equivalent number of diesel buses,” Smith said. “As some of the diesel infrastructure is scaled back, there may be some modest cost in the early years, which will be offset in later years as the whole fleet is electrified.”
“It’s created quite a stir,” Todd Watkins, the district’s director of transportation, said of reaction to the contract. “If [the contract model accelerates BEB deployment] we’re certainly happy to play that role.”
The contract calls for Highland Electric to provide charging infrastructure at all five of the district’s bus depots, beginning this summer with one near Bethesda — less than a mile from a Pepco switching yard — which will need no power upgrades.
“In one [depot] we need a new loop, I’m told. In others, we just need some transformers. It varies across the different depot locations,” he said in an interview with NetZero Insider. For the first depot, “there was nothing else that Pepco had to do.”
Highland Electric agreed to allow the district’s staff to perform maintenance on the new buses and reimburse the district for the costs, “so we don’t all of a sudden lay off a bunch of our fleet maintenance employees,” Watkins said.
Watkins said the district’s routes average under 100 miles per day, with the longest about 130 miles. The depots will be equipped with Level 3 DC fast chargers, “so we know if we need to boost them in the middle of the day, we can do that.”
Watkins said he attended meetings where the three major American school bus manufacturers predicted that within 10 years, all orders for new school buses will be for electric versions.
But, even if the cost concerns are addressed, the limited range of the batteries and lack of charging infrastructure will make it a difficult sell in some districts. (See related story, Rural Va. Schools Skeptical on Electric Buses.)
