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February 22, 2021

NY Needs ZEV Job Training, Strategy, Officials Say

New York’s push to electrify its transportation system will require a “massive” job training effort and public policies sharply focused on putting more electric vehicles on the road, experts said last week.

Rather than adopting a business-as-usual approach to the phase-in of EVs, the state should accelerate the goals expressed in the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA), said Jared Snyder, deputy commissioner of New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation.

New York ZEV — NYSERDA EV chargers: An employee’s vehicle charging at a GE facility in Schenectady, New York | *NYSERDA*

The CLCPA mandates that the state consume 70% renewable electricity by 2030, 100% carbon-free electricity by 2040, and reduce emissions 85% by midcentury from 1990 levels.

“We’re going to be talking about policies that accelerate the transition so that by 2035 we’re seeing 100% electric vehicle sales, with a goal that by 2050 practically all cars are going to be electrified,” Snyder said Thursday at a meeting of the New York Climate Action Council’s transportation advisory panel, which met to discuss zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) job training requirements and adoption strategies that it might recommend to the Council.

A similar transition will be necessary for trucking, he said, “so we need to think about how do we accelerate that workforce transition at the same time,” he said.

Electrification of the transportation sector is helping attract young talent into the industry in New York, according to Porie Saikia-Eapen, director of environmental sustainability and compliance for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the agency managing public transportation in the New York City area.

“We are getting a lot of young people interested in coming to work for public transit — environmental scientists coming straight out of college,” Saikia-Eapen said.

Back to Basics

The coming wave of EVs will require “a massive training component” for both technicians and drivers, said Kendra Hems, president of the Trucking Association of New York.

New York aims to have 850,000 EVs on the road by 2025, up from about 100,000 now, and two million by 2030. The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) runs ChargeNY, a program to support the adoption of EVs with incentives such as rebates, as well as utility and geographic data on vehicle sales and the installation of charging stations.

The state’s Public Service Commission last July approved over $700 million to install more than 50,000 light-duty EV charging stations throughout the state through 2025. (See NYPSC Approves $700 Million for EV Chargers.)

Internal combustion engine technology has changed so dramatically over the years that the number of computers onboard a vehicle to measure timing and atmospheric conditions and adjust the engine all became a real training issue for technicians, said Steve Finch, senior vice president of the American Automobile Association in western and central New York.

“All those were ‘additive’ technologies, whereas what we’re talking about now with electrification is a total disruption to that industry,” Finch said. He recounted that AAA recently got a call for a Tesla vehicle that had run out of charge on the side of the road, but the tow truck driver didn’t know how to hook up the vehicle to move it.

“We’re not talking about repairs to the engine — he didn’t know how to pick up the vehicle and put it on the flatbed truck to move it,” Finch said.

Kerene Tayloe, director of federal legislative affairs at WE ACT for Environmental Justice, said the evolution to ZEVs will happen in cycles, so the workforce training strategy for a midcareer worker should be different from how schools prepare a 10-year-old student for transportation-related work.

Paul Allen, M. J. Bradley & Associates | *NYDPS*

“We have to reach children now, because they are going to be the workforce of the future,” said Paul Allen, senior vice president with M. J. Bradley & Associates consultancy.

Allen also wrote in the chat area of the webinar that the power industry has an ongoing program with the U.S. military services to bring qualified, highly skilled workers into complex technical jobs — helmets to hardhats — which could be a good source of well-trained midcareer workers for green transportation.

Forward Strategies

Adam Ruder, NYSERDA project manager for transportation R&D and market development, presented on two strategies to encourage development of the EV market: one for transitioning to 100% zero-emission light-duty vehicles and the other for switching to medium- and heavy-duty EVs. (See related story, NY Considers Rulemaking for Medium to Heavy ZEVs.)

“These are two of the strategies we think will have a great impact on overall transportation emissions, but these alone are not going to achieve our 2030 and 2050 goals,” Ruder said. “We will need contributions from the other policies under consideration, as well as the ones focused on system efficiency and other alternative tools.”

The role of utilities elicited differing opinions on the proper parameters for utility engagement.

New York’s six local distribution companies split over whether to adopt “passive” or “active” approaches to managing EV charging in proposals submitted to the PSC in December. (See NY Utilities Diverge on Managed EV Charging.)

As a general rule, Allen said, increased electric revenues actually depress electric rates for all ratepayers, so the net-net economic impact of moving to electricity as a fuel for transportation is going to tend to lower electric rates across the state for all ratepayers, “especially given the way the PSC is likely to look at the issue.”

Some of the debate about the role of utilities is policy-related, said Elgie Holstein, senior director for strategic planning at the Environmental Defense Fund.

“We’ve been approached by national organizations representing service stations, dealers, and also that rather large group that represents convenience store operators, and they don’t want electric utilities involved in this business at all,” Holstein said. “They don’t want electric utilities investing in charging stations, and they want federal prohibitions that prevent it. I don’t know where that’s headed, and I don’t think we’re going to support that, but they’re trotting out all kinds of claims that costs to consumers and ratepayers will go up if electric utilities are allowed into this space.”

The role of the utilities is not necessarily owning charging stations, but in New York, that role is already being defined through the make-ready order that was passed in May 2020 by the PSC, Ruder said. (See NYPSC Launches Grid Study, Extends Solar Funding.)

He said the upgrades are necessary for reliability purposes “and for ensuring that there is a managed charging capability.”

“If someone wants to use electricity, the utilities in this country have an obligation to serve them. I’m aware of what these national organizations are saying, and I just think they have their facts wrong in many instances,” he said.

February 22, 2021March 9, 2025

Glick Eyes New Standards Following Texas Outages

Map of ongoing outages in Texas. As of 3:17 p.m. Feb. 18, more than 375,000 outages were still reported statewide. | PowerOutage.US

FERC Chairman Richard Glick said Thursday he may seek new reliability standards to ensure generators and grid operators are prepared for severe winter conditions following this week’s devastating outages in Texas and neighboring states.

While praising the efforts of those working to restore power to the affected areas — particularly Texas, where more than 350,000 outages were still reported across the state as of Thursday afternoon — Glick emphasized that losing electricity for days in the middle of a record cold snap was “simply unacceptable” and “constitutes a humanitarian crisis.” (See related story, ERCOT: Grid was ‘Seconds and Minutes’ from Total Collapse.)

Many customers were without power for days, and more than 35 deaths have been attributed to severe weather in Texas and other states. FERC and NERC announced on Tuesday that they will conduct a joint inquiry into the causes of the crisis. (See Anger Rises over Midwest Power Restoration.)

On Monday, FERC announced that the Office of Enforcement’s Division of Analytics and Surveillance will be combing through wholesale natural gas and electricity market data to determine if any market participants engaged in market manipulation or other violations. The Division uses trading data to screen transactions at most physical and financial natural gas trading hubs in the U.S. and the organized and bilateral wholesale electricity markets. Evidence of wrongdoing would become the subject of non-public investigations.

Separately, FERC announced that it will open a new proceeding to examine the threat that climate change and extreme weather events — including droughts, extreme cold, wildfires, hurricanes, and prolonged heat waves — pose to electric reliability and how grid operators prepare for them. The proceeding will include an opportunity for parties to submit comments, followed by a technical conference.

Glick Open to Changing ERCOT Status

Although ERCOT’s markets are not under federal jurisdiction, Glick noted that Texas is subject to NERC’s reliability standards, which are approved by FERC. He promised that the organizations’ inquiry would recommend steps necessary to prevent similar events in the future, possibly including “the imposition of new mandatory standards” for cold weather preparedness.

“[We] need to ensure that the results of the inquiry don’t just sit on the shelf gathering dust, like so many other reports of this kind, and that we don’t do what happened after the 2011 event in Texas and Arizona — rely on voluntary guidance to protect the public. We don’t have to guess how effective that was,” Glick said. “Instead, I’m prepared, if necessary, to support the imposition of new mandatory standards to make sure that electric generators and others are better prepared when weather strikes next time. And there will be a next time.”

Glick also said Congress and Texas should reconsider what he called the “go-it-alone approach” — ERCOT’s limited connection to the Eastern and Western Interconnections, which has allowed it to avoid being covered by the federal government’s jurisdiction over interstate transmission. “Does it really make sense to isolate yourself and limit your ability to get power from neighboring regions just to keep FERC at bay?” he asked.

He added that with climate change “already having a dramatic impact on our weather,” there is a clear need for quick action to reform readiness standards for the grid.

While commending Glick for his response to the emergency, Commissioner Neil Chatterjee argued that until the FERC-NERC inquiry is complete it is “too soon to try to advocate for solutions” including new mandatory standards. Chatterjee also distanced himself from Glick’s suggestion that Texas consider strengthening its ties to the other interconnections, urging participants to “let the experts dig into it.”

A snow-covered sidewalk in Deep Ellum, Texas. | Matthew T Rader, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Commissioner James Danly urged deliberation as well, observing that it has been “extraordinarily difficult to get even the basics” for comparing the performance of different types of generation during the cold spell.

“It is my fervent hope that my colleagues will show the solicitude to Texas that they often seem willing to afford all of the other states in pursuing their policy goals,” Danly said. “I see no reason to change ERCOT’s status unless Texas itself wants to.”

Anger at Premature Blame

Commissioners joined Glick in expressing frustration about what he called “interest group flacks trying to pin blame on one generation source or another.” Some figures in media and politics have speculated that renewable energy resources such as solar panels and windmills bear most of the blame for the widespread outages, although ERCOT data shows greater loss from thermal resources than from renewable ones. ERCOT said renewable performance “has been around the levels planned for.”

“Propagating such misinformation is irresponsible, and it’s callous, in light of the serious emergency situation we’re facing,” said Commissioner Allison Clements. “And presenting the cause of the outages should be done in a thorough, deliberate fashion, after we get the official data released. … For now we should continue to focus on the restoration of power.”

Chatterjee Questions Closing Resilience Docket

Also Thursday, the commission voted 4-1 to close the resilience docket it opened in January 2018, after rejecting then-Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s call for cost-of-service payments to coal and nuclear generators (AD18-7). (See FERC Rejects DOE Rule, Opens RTO ‘Resilience’ Inquiry.)

Some commissioners acknowledged the apparent inconsistency of closing the docket considering the ongoing energy crisis in Texas and the Midwest.

The docket sought feedback on how to define resilience and how each of the RTOs and ISOs assess resilience in their footprints. (See RTO Resilience Filings Seek Time, More Gas Coordination.) But the majority said it concluded that a “generic” response to resilience concerns in all regions was inappropriate and might violate the Federal Power Act.

“That is not to suggest that resilience concerns are no longer an issue or that RTOs and ISOs have addressed all threats to the resilience of the bulk power system,” they said. “To the contrary, the resilience and reliability of the bulk power system must — and will — remain one of the commission’s paramount responsibilities and concerns.”

Instead, they said the issues should be addressed “on a case-by-case and region-by-region basis. Be it wildfires in the West, hurricanes in the Southeast, or even the extreme cold weather experienced this week in Texas and the Great Plains, these threats present stark, but different challenges to the reliability of the electric grid. Addressing those individual challenges in a manner that is both effective — for the grid and the region — and consistent with our statutory authority under the FPA requires an approach that is tailored to the specific threats and circumstances in a particular region, not a one-size-fits-all solution.”

Commissioner Chatterjee dissented, saying he was “not satisfied with a piecemeal, passive approach to ensuring its resilience, especially in the face of anticipated load increases due to economy-wide electrification goals.”

“The commission is well positioned to, for instance, adopt a definition of resilience that could be implemented in all regions, describe categories of resilience concerns that would include extreme weather events and common-mode failures, and then take additional steps to ensure that the commission, RTOs/ISOs, and stakeholders can understand how each RTO/ISO assesses the resilience of its region,” he said. “Such a holistic review would not only assist RTOs/ISOs and their stakeholders in considering different approaches to these efforts, but also help the commission understand how to best assess and address bulk power system resilience.”

Commissioner Danly filled a concurrence, but said he was concerned “that the resilience issues raised in this proceeding have not been solved — indeed, in most cases they have not even been addressed.”

He said the blackouts this week in ERCOT, SPP and MISO — following those last summer in CAISO — indicated an “urgent need for reform” to address market failures that are leaving dispatchable generation without enough revenue to invest in necessary upgrades.

“Many regions lack meaningful capacity markets, and the regions that do have capacity markets often allow state-subsidized resources to suppress prices such that the capacity markets cannot achieve one of the goals they were designed to achieve, which is to provide for revenues adequate to create incentives for the construction and operation of sufficient generation capacity to ensure reliability,” Danly said.

He also said RTO rules have been insufficient to persuade most gas-fired generators to obtain firm fuel contracts. “Increasing penalties when generators fail to obtain natural gas is a poor substitute for a market structure that compensates them for ensuring adequate fuel supplies in the first place,” he said. “Another increasingly serious problem is that intermittent resources largely are planned for, operated and compensated as if they provide reliability benefits that they, in fact, are incapable of providing.

“We have tended to focus too much on low, short-term prices and development of new, clean power sources to the detriment of reliability,” he continued. “I do not believe these latest power crises to be yet another perfect storm, but a case of reaping what we have sown.”

Commissioner Mark Christie joined with Clements on a separate concurrence, saying RTOS and ISOs “must be willing to face and speak inconvenient truths about what is — and is not — feasible from an engineering standpoint, given the state of technology. They must also tell the public and the elected political leaders at both the state and federal levels about the realistic impacts on the bills consumers will have to pay for reliability. Politically driven mandates and deadlines may not be grounded in engineering reality, and we depend on the leadership of each RTO and ISO to provide forthright information about what is needed to ensure the 24/7 power supply Americans expect.”

Resilient Society’s Rehearing Request Addressed

Separately Thursday, the commission sustained its 2018 ruling rejecting Perry’s request for a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and addressed issues raised by Foundation for Resilient Societies in a rehearing request (RM18-1-001). The rehearing request had been automatically denied when the commission failed to act on it within 30 days.

“Resilient Societies raises various arguments that the commission should have considered specific issues or should have initiated additional proceedings, but none of its arguments persuade us that the January 2018 order was in error on the threshold question of whether the proposed rule and the record in Docket No. RM18-1-000 satisfied [FPA] Section 206,” the commission said. “For example, while Resilient Societies raises concerns about ‘ghost capacity’ in ISO-NE, those concerns do not demonstrate that ISO-NE’s existing tariff or the tariffs of other RTOs/ISOs are unjust and unreasonable.”

February 21, 2021

Southern Calif. Could Fail RA Test, WECC Says

The Western Interconnection’s California-Mexico (CAMX) subregion cannot maintain resource adequacy without imports, and the greatest risk of failing to meet load is in Southern California, WECC said last week.

Southern California RA — WECC’s CAMX subregion contains most of California and extends into Mexico. | *WECC*

“In 2021 and beyond, even with all planned resource additions, the CAMX subregion needs external assistance to maintain resource adequacy,” WECC said in a recent report and an online presentation last week. The summer-peaking CAMX subregion includes most of California and parts of Nevada and Baja California, Mexico.

Although imports “greatly reduce the probability of being resource inadequate, growing supply and demand variability across the interconnection increases the risk that imports may not be available when needed,” WECC said.

WECC said Southern California could experience two hours of unserved load this year and eight hours in 2022 under a one-day-in-ten-year (ODITY) threshold in a scenario that includes imports and resources currently under construction (Tier 1), or that have begun licensing, siting or permitting processes (Tier 2).

When analysts excluded Tier 2 resources, the number of hours Southern California would fail to meet the ODITY threshold increased to 10 in 2021 and 29 in 2024, WECC said.

If imports are excluded and only Tier 1 resources are available, the number of hours with potential demand at risk increases to 140 this year.

Unseasonal heat waves and Southern California’s dependence on capacity imported from other states make it especially vulnerable to blackouts like those it experienced last summer, the report said. Southern California Edison, which serves 15 million residents, has the largest percentage of demand and the widest variability in resource availability in the CAMX subregion, it said.

“The biggest problem … we’re facing is variability, and I think everyone’s aware of that,” Matt Elkins, WECC’s manager of performance and resource adequacy, said in the Feb. 16 webinar. “You really have to start looking at ‘What could the potential be?’”

Extreme heat waves in the West and frigid weather in Texas show traditional “expectations are off, and those are the kind of things we have to start planning for, especially with variable resources” such as wind and solar, Elkins said.

Northern California, mostly served by Pacific Gas and Electric, has a lower risk of resource inadequacy in the coming years and should be able to meet the ODITY threshold with imports and the addition of resources under construction or in the later planning stages, the report said.

In addition, changing weather and variable generation from renewable resources could mean a 15% reserve margin across all months is no longer adequate for CAMX, it said.

“In May and June, the months when variability in energy supply and demand is highest, a planning reserve margin near 40% may be needed,” to meet the 1-in-10 standard, the report said. “In fact, if a flat 15% planning reserve margin were applied to all hours of 2021, over 40% of the hours would not meet the [1 in 10] threshold.”

CAMX is expected to peak this year in late August at about 51,300 MW, with a 5% probability that the peak could hit 63,000 MW, a 25% load forecast uncertainty. The expected availability of resources on the peak hour is 57,800 MW, with a 5% chance of having only 44,400 MW available.

WECC’s latest subregional analysis followed its recent report on the Desert Southwest, which concluded that region is also at risk of failing to meet peak loads in 2021 and 2022 even under a best-case scenario. (See SW Faces RA Shortfall in 2021 and Beyond, WECC Says.)

The next and final subregional report on the vast Northwest Power Pool is expected Feb. 26 with a webinar scheduled on March 2.

The subregional reports build on WECC’s Western Assessment for Resource Adequacy, released in December, which found that the Western Interconnection could experience one to eight hours in which some of its subregions fail to meet load under the ODITY threshold. It recommended that Western utilities and state regulators increase coordination and adopt dynamic planning reserve margins to ensure the grid has adequate resources as it takes on more variable generation. (See Western RA Planning Must Change, WECC Says.)

Potential resource shortfalls have become a growing concern in California and other parts of the West as fossil fuel plants retire and renewable resources multiply. The issue took on new urgency in August and September 2020, when widespread heat waves prompted rolling blackouts in California and grid emergencies in neighboring regions.

Shortages occurred in the early evening as solar waned, not during the peak demand hour in the afternoon.

“That hour’s no longer the riskiest hour,” Elkins said. “It’s still the highest demand hour, but we’ve got to account for variability in other hours.”

February 19, 2021

UPDATED: ERCOT System Returns to Normal Operations

ERCOT said reserves had been restored and declared a return to normal conditions Friday morning, ending an operational nightmare that began around midnight Sunday and left more than 4 million Texans without power at its peak.

ERCOT returns to normal operations — The skies have cleared over much of Texas and its capitol, where legislators next week will hold hearings on the industry’s response to this week’s winter storm. | *Shutterstock*

The Texas grid operator said it had not required any additional outages Thursday night to maintain the balance between supply and demand and that only a few generating units tripped.

ERCOT load on Friday morning — ERCOT’s load approached 59 GW Friday morning, its highest since Sunday night. | *ERCOT*

ERCOT dropped down from its level 3 energy emergency alert (EEA) at 9 a.m. CT Friday, saying the system was recovering and rotating outages had ended. An hour later, it moved to EEA Level 1, ending the latter alert 35 minutes later.

“We have enough generation on the system that folks are getting their power restored at a very regular clip,” CEO Bill Magness said during ERCOT’s daily media briefing.

System load neared 58.5 GW Friday morning, the highest it’s been since Sunday night. As the severe weather swept through Texas that night, staff saw about 40% of the system’s generation rapidly drop offline, forcing ERCOT to call for an immediate load shed. (See related story, ERCOT: Grid was ‘Seconds and Minutes’ from Total Collapse.)

ERCOT had as much as 45 GW of capacity offline at one point. By 7:30 a.m. Friday, 34 GW of generation, comprising 20 GW of thermal generation and 14 GW of renewable resources, remained on forced outage.

More than 36,500 customers were still without power Sunday, according to PowerOutage.US, down from 170,000 on Friday. The remaining outages are likely because of ice damage on the distribution system, large industrial facilities that voluntarily went offline or because load-shed areas need to be restored manually, ERCOT said.

Magness acknowledged the “immense human suffering we saw throughout this event.”

“Watching the heartbreak was terrible,” he said. “The bottom line, while fellow Texans had to experience this, we made a tough decision. The choice we had was to manage as best we could with 60% of the supply we had left. The only way we could do that was to reduce demand, and the only way we could do that was with outages.

ERCOT's Bill Magness and Dan Woodfin — ERCOT CEO Bill Magness (left) and Dan Woodfin brief the media once again. | *ERCOT*

“The outages served a purpose, as difficult as it was. Doing nothing was not really an option,” Magness said.

SPP has also returned to normal operations for its entire 14-state balancing authority area, saying it ended conservative operations at 10 p.m. Saturday. The RTO said it had enough generation to meet demand and available reserves and that it did not foresee extreme or abnormal threats to reliability.

The grid operator called off an EEA 1 Friday morning, five minutes shy of 15 complete hours. SPP declared the alert at 6:25 p.m. CT Thursday and ended it at 9:20 a.m. Friday.

February 19, 2021March 9, 2025

Glick Hits ‘Refresh’ at 1st FERC Open Meeting

FERC Chairman Richard Glick began cleaning house Thursday during his first open meeting at the agency’s helm, refreshing the commission’s work on several issues while closing the books on others.

Most notably, the commission issued another Notice of Inquiry seeking comment on revising its 1999 policy statement on natural gas pipeline certificates, a review that began under Chairman Kevin McIntyre in April 2018 (PL18-1).

FERC eventually received more than 3,000 comments in response to the original NOI. (See FERC Flooded with Comments on Pipeline Permitting.) But until Thursday, the docket had sat untouched.

Since then, the commission said, there have been numerous changes in U.S. environmental policy, including the Trump administration’s rules intended to speed up the National Environmental Policy Act review process and President Biden’s executive orders on climate change. (See Biden Signs Sweeping Climate Orders.)

“We are providing an opportunity for stakeholders to refresh the record and provide updated information and additional viewpoints to help the commission assess its policy,” FERC said. “We seek comments that reflect additional information developed and insights gained during the interim period.”

The commission stressed that it would consider previously submitted comments in the docket and urged stakeholders not to simply refile them.

The topics on which the commission is seeking information remain the same:

the reliance on precedent agreements to demonstrate project need, and how contracts with pipeline affiliates should be treated;
landowner interests and the use of eminent domain;
the evaluation of alternatives and environmental effects under NEPA and the Natural Gas Act; and
the efficiency and effectiveness of the commission’s certificate processes.

But FERC also wants comments on another broad topic: “the commission’s identification and addressing of any disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental effects of its programs, policies and activities on environmental justice communities and the mitigation of those adverse impacts and burdens.”

| Shutterstock

FERC explained that environmental justice communities include those of color and low income, which are particularly vulnerable to pollution and the effects of climate change.

Glick gained unanimous support for the new NOI, comments on which are due 60 days after publication in the Federal Register, though Commissioner James Danly’s was tepid.

“I, for one, don’t believe there is any need whatsoever to revisit our certificate policy,” Danly said. “But there’s certainly nothing legally infirm about the commission examining its policies and asking questions. I don’t have any particular point to make about the substance of the NOI other than to say that it’s obviously rather contentious, and I will likely oppose most of the initiatives that the chairman is likely to embark upon.”

But Danly also praised Glick for seeking his input and incorporating his requested edits, even though he knew that he did not support the effort.

Next Chapter on RTO Capacity Markets

FERC on Thursday also turned the page in the saga of electricity capacity markets, ending several proceedings while also promising to take a new look.

The meeting marked the end of one of the most contentious issues at FERC over the past few years, PJM’s minimum offer price rule (MOPR), with the commission vacating the infamous Footnote 134 (EL16-49-006, et al.).

FERC in October accepted PJM’s compliance plan to expand the MOPR to include new state-subsidized resources. In accepting the compliance filing, the commission also clarified that resources procured in state-directed default service auctions are not subject to the expanded MOPR. However, a footnote in the order caused confusion among stakeholders, leading to a rehearing request from several generating companies who said the footnote’s language conflicted with that of the order itself.

On Thursday, the commission said it agreed and vacated the footnote.

Danly dissented; at his last meeting as chair last month, he had proposed issuing an order that his colleagues, including predecessor Neil Chatterjee, rejected, saying it would only cause further confusion. (See FERC Ends Trump Era with a Busy Agenda.)

“I believe that FERC has both the right and the obligation to protect their jurisdictional markets from the price-suppressive effects of state policies,” Danly said. “I think that to have anything but a bright line against the participation of subsidized resources is simply an error and a dereliction of our duty to keep the markets properly insulated from the effects of those policies. … To vacate [Footnote 134] now … imperils the integrity of the market and also does not honor the earlier decision that the commission made.”

Similarly, FERC partly backed off an order in NYISO’s buyer-sider mitigation rules proceeding, ruling that commercial demand response resources are exempt from the rules. (See related story, FERC Backtracks on NYISO BSM Exemptions.) The commission also ended its long languishing docket on grid resilience, with Glick saying the issue was best handled regionally. (See related story, Glick Eyes New Standards Following Midwest Outages.)

But Glick also announced the commission would hold a series of technical conferences on modernizing capacity market design, beginning with PJM’s next month and continuing with ISO-NE and NYISO. After that, the commission will examine modernizing energy and ancillary services markets.

February 19, 2021

House Subcommittee Debates Keeping Grid Clean, Resilient

Texas and its unprecedented winter weather and power outages loomed large over a U.S. House Energy Subcommittee hearing Thursday, with Democrats and Republicans disagreeing on how to ensure the country’s grid is clean, reliable and prepared for the next catastrophic weather event.

Grid reliability should not be a partisan issue, said Rep. Michael Burgess (R) in his opening remarks at the Feb. 18 hearing on pathways to a clean energy future.

“When the temperature drops below zero, no one cares which party the electricity comes from. They just want the heat to come on, the lights to go on when they flip the switch,” Burgess said.

“We can’t allow the Texas crisis to be used as an excuse to discourage movement toward renewables,” said Rep. Frank Pallone (D), who chairs the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. “What failed here was an energy sector that didn’t consider our changing climate. It was a failure to fully recognize that the 100-year storm of yesterday may now be the 10-year storm of today.”

Pallone said he and other Democrats in the House would soon re-introduce an updated version of the Clean Futures Act — originally proposed last year — that would include a national clean energy standard and other policies to reduce emissions in the building, transportation and industrial sectors. Both Pallone and subcommittee Chair Bobby L. Rush (D) promised future hearings on the power outages in Texas.

Burgess and other Republicans on the subcommittee countered that legislation like the Clean Futures Act and President Joe Biden’s plan to decarbonize the U.S. grid by 2035 represent “top-down, one-size-fits-all mandates” that would cost American jobs and hurt families and communities. In their view, ongoing fossil fuel generation will be critical for grid reliability.

clean resilient grid — | © *RTO Insider*

“We cannot afford to rapidly transition our energy system without assurance of its reliability,” Burgess said. “We cannot support policies that destroy entire industries.”

The rhetoric aside, the subcommittee heard a range of policy recommendations from experts representing diverse approaches to the clean energy transition. For example, Paula Glover, president of the Alliance to Save Energy, said her organization is working on legislation to improve energy efficiency for small businesses, with an emphasis on minority-owned businesses and those in disadvantaged communities.

“This plan for Main Street efficiency will target federal grants to match existing utility programs to provide low- or no-cost efficiency upgrades to small businesses,” Glover said. “Since 80% of energy efficiency contractors are small businesses themselves, this is small business helping small business.”

Another proposal would retrofit mission-critical public buildings around the country, leveraging federal funding to draw private capital “and importantly ensure that at least 40% of the projects are in low-income or disadvantaged communities,” she said.

Inclusive, Realistic, Pragmatic

Craig Gordon, senior vice president for government affairs at Invenergy, put transmission at the top of his list.

“There’s simply no way to achieve the ambitions of this administration and the American people without more of it,” Gordon said. “Massive investment in transmission infrastructure connecting diverse regions of the country and different technologies with complementary generation profiles is key to solving this challenge.”

To support such investments, he also recommended a transmission investment tax credit that could be monetized at 100% of its value.

Rich Powell, executive director of ClearPath, a conservative clean energy advocacy group, called for federal policies that are “politically inclusive, realistic and pragmatic. Too often, solutions are oversimplified to a set of false choices,” he said.

Beyond renewables and battery energy storage, getting to net zero will require technologies that are not yet commercially available, including long-duration storage, carbon and direct-air capture and advanced nuclear, Powell said. While year-end legislation provided funding for 20 new demonstration projects, the challenge ahead is getting them built, which means faster, more streamlined permitting to bring down costs, he said.

He also called for a technology-neutral energy innovation tax credit to encourage more investment in emerging clean energy technologies. “Energy-intensive, trade-exposed industries like steelmaking absolutely require affordable new technologies to help them decarbonize,” Powell said. “Without them, we risk not only losing central U.S. jobs, but [ceding] the industrial activity to countries with worse emissions.”

Social Disruption Already Occurring

A focus on technology often minimizes the social and economic impacts of the U.S. energy transition, especially for communities that are dependent on fossil fuel jobs. A recent study from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine calls for “a national transition task force to identify workers in communities at risk, and regional centers where state and local leaders can learn about what’s coming and how to manage it,” said Princeton University Professor Stephen Pacala, who led the study. (See Report: ‘Social Contract’ Needed for Decarbonization.)

“Some might be tempted to view policies targeting the deployment of net-zero technology as the highest priorities,” Pacala said. “This view has it backwards because the technological transition and the social disruption that goes with it are already occurring.”

The study acknowledged that the jobs created by clean energy will not completely replace fossil fuel jobs — which would put natural gas communities in Western Pennsylvania at risk, said Daniel Camp, chairman of the Beaver County Board of Commissioners.

While Camp offered no recommendations, he asked subcommittee members to consider that fossil fuel jobs provide $23 billion in wages for workers across Pennsylvania. For many, the potential loss of those jobs “jeopardizes their ability to put a roof over their families’ heads and continue to put food on their tables.”

February 19, 2021

Paris GHG Targets not Ambitious Enough, Study Says

The Paris Agreement on climate change set a goal to keep Earth from warming by more than 2 degrees Celsius by 2050.

But if global warming proceeds at its present pace, the world’s temperatures will likely grow 2.8 C by that date, according to a University of Washington study.

The Paris agreement target of cutting carbon emissions by 1% annually should be increased to 1.8%, said the study, published Feb. 9 in Communications Earth & Environment.

Paris greenhouse gas targets — Adrian Raftery | *University of Washington*

The projected 2.8-degree figure “is very discouraging,” said Adrian Raftery, a professor of statistics at the university, who tackled the study with then-doctoral candidate Peiran Liu.

The study concluded that 2100 would likely see a 2.1- to 3.9-degree increase with 2.8 degrees being the median. However, the median could decrease to 2.3 degrees, if nations meet their 2030 carbon-cutting goals. These conclusions are based on complex statistical models involving population growth, gross domestic product growth and carbon intensity, a measure of carbon dioxide produced per dollar of GDP.

The 2021 analysis builds on a 2017 study by Raftery that concluded Earth had only a 5% chance of meeting the 2 degrees-or-less target in 2100.

Raftery’s work for the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change led to the 2017 study, and that led to the question of what would be the likely temperature rise between now and 2100.

“Obviously, this is what inquiring minds want to know,” Raftery said.

The Paris Agreement included goals for individual nations with deadlines of 2025 to 2030. The study showed the U.S., Brazil, China, Australia and much of Europe being among the least likely to reach their targets in 2025 and 2030, while Russia is among the most likely. But Russia has promised to do very little under the accord, Raftery said.

Meanwhile, Raftery pointed to France — with high-speed trains and a high number of carbon-free nuclear plants — as a nation to pay close attention to regarding dealing with global warming.

The 2021 study noted that the world’s carbon intensity has decreased 2% annually since 1960. But that is offset by global GDP growth of 2% annually, which essentially leads to the two factors canceling each other out.

Work has begun on the next study: looking at the relationship between global warming and specific locations. For example, how big a role does the distance from the equator have on global warming impacts.

“Global warming doesn’t affect everywhere equally,” Raftery said. Further study would examine the relationship between carbon emissions and agriculture and health, he said.

Raftery would also like to see the nations in the Paris Agreement set annual goals for reducing carbon emissions, instead of aiming for targets such as 2030, 2050 and 2100. That’s because far-in-the-future goals “make it harder for people to focus on them,” Raftery said.

February 19, 2021February 2, 2024

NY Considers Rulemaking for Medium to Heavy ZEVs

New York state hopes to adopt medium- and heavy-duty zero-emission vehicle (M-HD ZEV) standards by the end of this year.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) on Wednesday presented its plan for a rulemaking on the standards in a session with stakeholders. The rulemaking would build on the state’s commitment last year to address M-HD emissions through coordinated action with 14 other states.

Jeff Marshall of the DEC’s Air Resources Board said the department anticipates publishing a proposed rulemaking by June and adopting a final rule by December. Under that timeline, he said, the rule would be effective for the 2025 vehicle model year, which can start as early as January 2024.

New York would adopt California’s M-HD ZEV standards, also known as advanced clean truck (ACT) standards, under existing New York regulations on emission standards for motor vehicles. The M-HD ZEV standards are similar to a light-duty ZEV program already in effect in New York.

The Clean Air Act allows states to adopt California’s more stringent standards instead of federal standards. Marshall said that New York first adopted the California motor vehicle emissions program starting with the 1992 model year for light-duty vehicles. The new rulemaking would expand on several iterations of standards New York has adopted since then.

Last year, New York signed a multistate M-HD ZEV memorandum of understanding that suggested states consider adopting California’s ACT standards. The DEC also plans to add to the rulemaking California’s omnibus heavy-duty low oxides of nitrogen (NO_x) standards and Phase 2 greenhouse gas standards, which advance the M-HD emissions reductions originally set by the federal heavy-duty national program, or Phase 1 GHG standards.

ACT

The ACT standards have an original equipment manufacturer annual sales requirement that ensures car makers are placing a target number of vehicles for sale in New York each year. Marshall said that the sales requirement increases annually, with a goal of having 100% ZEV in the applicable vehicle classes by 2045. Manufacturers can earn credits for vehicles that comply with the regulations and use those credits for flexibility on future requirements.

In addition, the standards have a one-time, large entity reporting requirement for organizations that meet specific M-HD ownership criteria. Those entities include businesses with more than $50 million in annual revenue and at least one M-HD vehicle as well as state and local governments with at least one M-HD vehicle. The one-time report submitted by the covered entities would provide the DEC with information on existing use cases and gaps in EV infrastructure to inform future rulemakings, Marshall said.

Omnibus Standards

The omnibus heavy-duty low NO_x standards that the DEC is considering apply to exhaust emissions for vehicles over 10,000 pounds with heavy-duty diesel engines. They would set heavy-truck NO_x emissions at 0.05 grams per brake horsepower-hour (g/bhp-hr) through model year 2026 and 0.02 g/bhp-hr in model year 2027. The standards also set heavy-truck particulate matter emissions at 0.005 g/bhp-hr starting in model year 2024.

Useful life and warranty requirements are included in the omnibus standards.

“Diesel engines last a long time, and you want the emission control portion of the engine to last a long time as well,” James Symon of the DEC Air Resources Board said during the stakeholder presentation. “A warranty would ensure that the engine emission control system is free from defects and make sure that the equipment is durable and lasts throughout the useful life of the vehicles.”

Phase 2 Standards

The Phase 2 GHG standards that the DEC also plans to add to the rulemaking are based on California’s version of the federal Phase 2 standards. The increased M-HD emissions reductions under the federal Phase 2 GHG standards apply through model year 2027 and vary by vehicle type.

Symon said that while California’s standards are aligned with the federal standards, they include a group of additional stipulations. California’s standards include, for example, a credit adjustment to incentivize use of low-global-warming-potential refrigerants and advancements in minimum ranges for plug-in-hybrid electric vehicles.

Comment Period

Although the DEC is not in a formal comment period for the planned rulemaking, Marshall said it is seeking input from stakeholders on the potential regulations. He encouraged interested parties to submit comments by March 10.

February 19, 2021

Eversource Reports Profit Increase, Carbon Decrease

Eversource Energy CEO Jim Judge said Wednesday that the utility posted profits of $1.2 billion ($3.55/share) in 2020, even as it dealt with “the highest level of storm activity ever for our company.”

The figure represents about a 33% increase over 2019’s earnings of $909.1 million ($2.81/share).

Despite severe damage from Tropical Storm Isaias and other weather-related events, Eversource, which supplies electricity, natural gas and water service to 4.3 million customers in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, also reported net income of $271.9 million for the fourth quarter last year, a nearly 9% increase over the same period in 2019. The quarter-over-quarter increase was off a comparable increase in total revenue, which the company said was led by gains in its transmission and distribution segments.

Judge also detailed Eversource’s long-term strategy of being “the principal catalyst to greenhouse gas reductions in New England.” He said that Eversource has divested all its fossil-fuel generation, reduced methane leaks in the distribution system and improved “the efficiency of our delivery system, our facilities and our vehicles.”

“This has enabled us to be in sync with all the states of New England, which are targeting greenhouse gas reductions within their borders of at least 80% by year 2050,” Judge said. “Our long-term strategy is built around being a principal enabler of that reduction.”

Judge said Eversource has set a goal of net-zero emissions. The company invested more than $500 million in custom energy efficiency initiatives in 2019 that will reduce emissions by 3.2 million metric tons, he said.

Eversource Earnings — Eversource Energy’s reported progress toward net-zero emissions | *Eversource Energy*

“Efforts to significantly expand our zero-emissions vehicle charging infrastructure and reduce the number of homes heated with oil offer very significant additional opportunities to reduce the region’s emissions,” Judge said.

Eversource’s “most significant initiative,” Judge said, is its partnership with Ørsted, which the company expects to result in the construction of 4,000 MW of offshore wind facilities off the coast of Massachusetts. It expects that will annually reduce GHG emissions by approximately 6 million tons.

Judge added that all the steps in the South Fork Wind Farm review process in New York have either been met on or ahead of schedule since the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management established its revised schedule last summer.

Judge said that recent action at the federal level underscores the “government’s support for these projects” like South Fork, Sunrise Wind and Revolution Wind.

President Biden signed an executive order in January requiring that the Department of the Interior to conduct a full assessment of OSW siting processes to align with the administration’s renewable energy production goals. In December, Congress and the IRS provided additional financial incentives for OSW development that include a 30% investment tax credit for projects that commence construction before January 2026, with a 10-year safe harbor for eligible projects.

“Taken together, these changes add more certainty to the tax benefits available for offshore wind and underscore the federal government’s support for these projects,” Judge said.

February 19, 2021

Maine Regulators Open Distribution Grid Investigation

The Maine Public Utilities Commission on Thursday opened an investigation into the design and operation of the state’s electric distribution system.

“To address climate change in the years ahead, we will be placing new demands on our electric distribution system, and we must assess how to modernize the grid at the lowest cost for Maine people,” PUC Chairman Philip Bartlett said in a statement. “Recent issues related to interconnection of distributed resources highlight both the challenges we face and the urgency of the need for effective planning.”

On Feb. 11, the PUC opened a separate investigation into the interconnection practices of Central Maine Power (CMP).

Maine Public Utilities Commission — An investigation of Maine’s power grid is underway to ensure that renewable energy projects like this solar farm in Rockland can connect to the grid in a timely and cost-effective way in the future. | *Crispins C. Crispian, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons*

Maine Gov. Janet Mills on Feb. 8 sent a letter to Bartlett asking for the investigation into CMP, saying she was dismayed by reports that the utility would need to upgrade more than 100 substations in order to complete existing interconnection agreements. Mills also asked the PUC to conduct a broader review of the grid to ensure it can handle growth of renewables and distributed energy resources. (See Lawmakers Chase Affordability in Energy Transition in Maine.)

CMP must respond to the PUC by Friday regarding concerns that its recent notices to customers about changes to interconnection costs jeopardizes “hundreds of millions of dollars in investment … for Maine homeowners and businesses,” according to the PUC’s notice of filing.

The PUC will retain experts to prepare a report about the current design and operation of Maine’s distribution grid. It will follow up with a formal investigation so stakeholders can comment on the report’s findings. The commission did not provide a timeline for when the report will be released.