Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont outlined three legislative proposals to address the threat posed by climate change at a virtual press conference Wednesday. They include codifying the state’s goal of a zero-carbon electric supply by 2040 and joining the Transportation and Climate Initiative Program (TCI-P) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles.
Lamont, joined by Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Commissioner Katie Dykes, state Sen. Christine Cohen, state Rep. Joe Gresko and Connecticut Green Bank CEO Bryan Garcia, said Superstorm Sandy in 2012 was a “wake-up call” for him on the damaging effects of climate change.
“I saw what coastal flooding could do to our communities, what it could do to our homes, what it does to our electric grid,” Lamont said.
Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont | State of Connecticut
Dykes said that “the science is clear: Climate change is real; it’s human-caused; and it has already altered Connecticut’s climate.” She said the sea level in Long Island Sound could rise 20 inches by 2050, increasing the frequency of coastal flooding and creating storm surges “on the level of what we saw from Superstorm Sandy” without a significant reduction in carbon emissions. Average temperatures in Connecticut could increase by 5 degrees Fahrenheit by 2050, including a five-fold increase in the number of days above 90 F and a decrease in frost days from 124 to 85 days per year.
Cohen, who represents an area that includes the shoreline communities of Branford, Guilford and Madison, said that if lawmakers “don’t provide real solutions for curbing global warming and sea-level rise … whole neighborhoods will cease to exist because of flooding.”
In December, Lamont joined Massachusetts, Rhode Island and D.C. in committing to TCI-P, which aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles by 26% from 2022 to 2032 and invest $300 million per year in cleaner transportation choices and public health improvements. (See NE States, DC Sign MOU to Cut Transportation Pollution.)
“We cannot address climate change if we do not put in place a program that can help us invest in clean transportation options,” Dykes said.
TCI-P projects to increase retail gas prices in participating jurisdictions by 5 cents/gallon beginning in 2023, assuming fuel suppliers choose to pass down 100% of allowance costs to consumers. Multiple consumer protection safeguards, including a cost-containment reserve, are designed to limit the program’s impact on prices at the pump and would kick in at 9 cents/gallon.
“There are folks that have been cherry-picking studies that were done quite a while ago with very skewed assumptions to suggest that the price of gas for consumers would be higher than this,” Dykes said. “I don’t know what else to say except that those are inaccurate projections.”
“We can issue more credits that keep [an increase] at 5 cents and not more than 5 cents,” Lamont said. “Maybe it trends up to 9 cents over a period of time; again, we can control that and set those limits, so I think that’s worth noting.”
Dykes was also asked about the power outages experienced this week in ERCOT, MISO and SPP because of extreme winter weather. She called it “a catastrophic situation,” with several million people without electricity in “dangerously cold temperatures.”
She added that she is glad that FERC and NERC will be investigating the situation, which is something that Connecticut officials will be following “closely” to ensure that ISO-NE “is appropriately planning” for potentially similar weather events. “Protecting the grid has to be the first priority.”
According to Connecticut law, the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) must prepare a biennial assessment of future electric needs and plan to meet them. Since 2012, the state’s Integrated Resources Plan (IRP) has taken a holistic look at supply and demand to formulate recommendations for its electricity needs.
A draft of the latest IRP, released in December and the public comment period for which closed Wednesday, is Connecticut’s first evaluation and identification of pathways to achieve a carbon-free electric supply by 2040, as directed through an executive order from Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont.
Connecticut has made significant investments in clean energy and efficiency programs to put the state on a zero-carbon path. Through competitively bid long-term contracts, state ratepayers currently support more than 600,000 MWh/year of grid-scale renewables and more than 9 million MWh/year of nuclear resources. That is equivalent to nearly 65% of the electric consumption by ratepayers of Eversource Energy and Avangrid, Connecticut’s two principal distribution utilities. By 2025, that percentage is expected to increase to 91%, or 24.5 million MWh/year, as newly contracted but not yet constructed, offshore wind and grid-scale solar projects come online.
“The bottom line is that our modeling and our analysis show that a 100% zero-carbon electric supply by 2040 is feasible; it’s achievable,” Dykes said in a recent interview with RTO Insider. “Because of the [resource] investments that we’ve already made, we are already well on our way to meeting that target.”
She added that upgrades in the transmission system and more proactive planning are “critical” for Connecticut and the entire region “to unlock the potential for additional renewable resources, particularly offshore wind,” in the pursuit of decarbonization efforts.
“We’re facing a climate crisis; we’re running out of time; and we know that urgent action is necessary to reduce emissions and prevent the worst impacts of climate change from occurring,” Dykes said.
While the transmission system can support wind and solar, Dykes said the IRP’s modeling demonstrates that intermittent resources will be curtailed in each of the pathways. Thus, “we need to act urgently on upgrading our transmission system to unlock the potential for additional renewable resources,” Dykes said.
Upgrading the transmission system over the next two decades can reduce the amount of clean energy that will be wasted. Dykes said a scenario-based proactive planning process is needed. “We’re going to be plugging in resources in places that the grid has never built out to serve, and at the same time, New England has a terrible track record in terms of paying some of the highest prices per mile for transmission.”
Dykes said that Connecticut has been “very successful” with competitive procurements over the last few years. The capital cost of renewables has been falling, a subject of debate during a NEPOOL Markets Committee meeting in October between a stakeholder and a consultant hired by ISO-NE. (See “Face-off on Offshore Wind,” NEPOOL Debates Parameters for 2025/26.)
“It tells you a lot about the contrast between competitive markets that states have developed around the procurement for long-term contracts of renewable resources and the administratively determined rules in the ISO’s capacity market constructs,” said Dykes, a longtime proponent of reforming ISO-NE wholesale markets. “Essentially, in our competitive procurements … you don’t set those kinds of administratively determined rules around bid reviews where we have to get into the business of determining in advance what the cost of solar is or what the cost of offshore wind should be.”
Dykes said that “every single time” Connecticut has run a request for proposals for renewables, “it’s been a surprise and a shock sometimes to see the pricing that comes in. … The technology costs are coming down in shocking ways. …
“The competitive designs that states have been using toward these renewables procurements ensure that ratepayers are getting the benefits of seeing those prices coming down,” Dykes said. “By contrast … some of the challenges that we’ve had with the capacity market construct is that it relies on administratively determined preconditions and rules that in my view have some discriminatory impacts on the ability for different types of resources to clear that market and be counted towards our capacity requirements.”
DEEP expects to release the final IRP on March 12.
NERC’s Standards Committee moved forward with two standards projects in a brief meeting on Wednesday, but not before revisiting an ongoing argument about the standards development process.
SAR Approval Meets Process Objection
A proposal to approve the standard authorization request (SAR) for Project 2020-03 (Supply chain low impact revisions) and appoint the standard drafting team (SDT) met with an objection from Barry Lawson of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. Lawson noted that the SAR did not appear to have been modified in reaction to negative feedback received during the informal comment period that ended last June.
“I know [that] on an informal comment period, a written response is not required at all, but I’m concerned about the broad range of comments that were … negative and were not addressed, at least in any modifications to the SAR,” he said.
Lawson’s issue with the SAR drafting team’s lack of response echoed an argument in the committee’s December meeting, when members voted to reject the SAR for Project 2020-01 on the grounds that the drafting team had made no effort to address industry concerns raised in the informal comment period. (See “SAR Rejected over Industry Comments,” NERC Standards Committee Briefs: Dec. 9, 2020.)
Marty Hostler, reliability compliance manager for the Northern California Power Agency, led the effort to reject 2020-01 and joined Lawson’s objection to 2020-03 as well.
“Before SARs come to the Standards Committee, it says right in the Standard Processes Manual that they need to have stakeholder support. And I don’t see stakeholder support in this SAR, so it needs to be rejected,” Hostler said.
Although the committee ultimately agreed to approve the SAR — with Hostler and Lawson casting the only votes against it — Lawson warned that the issue is likely to arise again. He suggested that the committee consider revising the Standard Processes Manual to allow the option of remanding a problematic SAR back to the drafting team for revisions, rather than just approving or rejecting it.
Members Question SAR Team Experience
Charles Yeung, SPP | NERC
A proposal to appoint the SAR drafting team for Project 2020-05 (Modifications to FAC-001-3 and FAC-002-2) proved less contentious, with members voting unanimously to approve NERC’s slate of 12 nominees, including the chair and vice chair. Nominees were not identified by name during the meeting.
Though members raised no objections to the slate, some questioned the relative lack of experienced members on the slate. Of the 12 candidates, only four have previously served on a SAR drafting team or SDT. Charles Yeung of SPP asked Howard Gugel, NERC’s vice president of engineering and standards, if there was a reason for the apparent decision to weight the team toward newcomers.
Howard Gugel, NERC | NERC
“There’s been some complaints, from the Standards Committee and others, that we need to bring in some fresh blood, so to speak — get people that aren’t familiar, that maybe aren’t as entrenched in things as other folks might be,” Gugel answered. “So we think this is a good blend of some folks with experience, but also some folks that can bring us some fresh ideas.”
In response to further questions, NERC Senior Standards Developer Latrice Harkness assured the committee that NERC still considers SDT experience essential for drafting team members, and that the organization is careful to balance the talents and backgrounds that might be useful for different projects. Gugel also reminded participants that NERC’s policy is to seek additional nominations if it feels the needs of the project are not being met.
The inability of grid operators to recover quickly from this week’s extreme winter weather drew increasing customer anger Tuesday, along with scrutiny from legislators and regulators.
ERCOT, MISO and SPP continued to shed load Tuesday, with some customers warned that a second round of storms is expected to roll through the Southwest, and they may not get their lights back until Thursday. The storm and its record-breaking low temperatures, which left millions without power, has been blamed for at least 17 deaths, and prompted FERC, NERC and Texas officials to launch investigations.
Ice covers back yard in Austin as the storm approaches | Ken Bruce
The situation is especially dire in Texas, where ERCOT has been struggling to bring back load without nearly 30,000 GW of thermal and nuclear generation that’s been literally frozen out of the market. Rotating blackouts have never rotated, leaving more than 3.1 million customers without power, according to PowerOutage.US. Some customers have been left in the dark and cold for more than 40 hours.
“It’s a very uncomfortable and frustrating event for many Texans,” said ERCOT CEO Bill Magness, who himself has been without power since Sunday. “Our No. 1 priority since this event began was getting customers’ service back on. The amount of time it’s taken is terrible. It’s unacceptable.”
“The wild card, the biggest variable … has been getting enough generation on the system,” he said.
At least four people have died in Houston area, where 1.3 million people were without power Tuesday morning. The deaths included a mother and her daughter who succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning after the family ran a vehicle in its attached garage.
Texans have noticed their downtown metropolises have retained power while they shiver in the cold. That led Austin Energy to release a statement explaining that downtown networks are excluded from load sheds during ERCOT’s controlled outages because they include critical facilities. The municipality said it was working with the downtown facilities to reduce nonessential power use.
Texas cities remain lit as consumers are left in the dark. Shay Tressa DeSimone via Twitter
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner made it clear to his social media followers that his city had no control over the outages. “The power outages are the responsibility of the state, and they must explain to Texans and Houstonians how this happened,” he tweeted.
On Monday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott promised “results are on the way,” with the news that about 200,000 residential customers “are coming back online now.” Tuesday, apparently unsatisfied with the results, he issued an executive order adding a new emergency item for lawmakers “to review the preparations and decisions by ERCOT so we can determine what caused this problem and find long-term solutions.”
“The Electric Reliability Council of Texas has been anything but reliable over the past 48 hours,” Abbott said in a statement. “Far too many Texans are without power and heat for their homes as our state faces freezing temperatures and severe winter weather. This is unacceptable.”
Abbott’s announcement came shortly after Dade Phelan, speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, called for the House State Affairs and Energy Resources committees to hold a joint hearing “to review the factors that led to megawatts of electric generation being dropped off the ERCOT system and the subsequent statewide blackouts.”
Phelan said he is asking the two committees to hold the hearing on Feb. 25 “for the express purpose of helping Texans understand what went wrong and how we can prevent these conditions from happening again.”
“We must cut through the finger-pointing and hear directly from stakeholders about the factors that contributed to generation staying down at a time when families needed it most, what our state can do to correct these issues, and what steps regulators and grid operators are taking to safeguard our electric grid.”
Magness welcomed the political oversight.
“Electricity is an essential service. It’s the lifeblood of Texas,” he said. “It’s completely appropriate to look at an issue like this, to look at ERCOT’s actions and everyone else’s actions, to ensure everything is done in an appropriate way. That will require a close look by the policy makers, the governor and everyone else. We’re happy to participate in that process.”
FERC, NERC Announce Joint Inquiry
Also Tuesday, FERC and NERC announced a joint inquiry into the grid’s operational issues in the Midwest and South.
“For now, the emphasis must remain on restoring power to customers and securing the reliability of the bulk-power system,” the agencies said in a joint statement. “In the days ahead, FERC and NERC will formally begin the inquiry, which will work with other federal agencies, states, regional entities and utilities to identify problems with the performance of the bulk-power system and, where appropriate, solutions for addressing those issues.”
In a separate statement Monday, FERC Chairman Richard Glick said the commission is in contact with ERCOT, SPP and MISO, and that he has directed staff to coordinate closely with the RTOs/ISO, utilities, NERC and regional reliability entities “to do what we can to help.”
Frozen instrumentation on an Entergy power plant | Entergy
“In the days ahead, we will be examining the root causes of these reliability events,” Glick said. “But, for now, the focus must remain on restoring power as quickly as possible and keeping people safe during this incredibly challenging situation.”
MISO spokesperson Brandon Morris said the RTO “will constructively cooperate with FERC and NERC to provide them with the necessary information during the inquiry.”
Although ERCOT is not bound by FERC regulation over its markets, it is subject to NERC reliability standards.
“There will be a lot of review and determination afterward, and there should be. We don’t want to see this happen again,” Magness said.
ERCOT Struggles to Balance Supply, Demand
The Texas grid operator’s senior director of system operations, Dan Woodfin, explained to the media the delicate balance between supply and demand following Sunday’s massive loss of generation. (See ERCOT, MISO, SPP Slough Load in Wintry Blast.)
He said about 15 GW of load was still off, with roughly 45 GW of generation online. Load basically fluctuated between 44 GW and 46 GW Tuesday.
“We’ve been able to bring some areas back online today as the day has progressed,” Woodfin said. “We’ve gotten some supply from certain generators, but we’re also losing some. We haven’t been able to add as much as we thought we could add back.”
The loss of renewable energy to frozen wind turbines and overcast skies has drawn national criticism, but Woodfin said of the 16 GW of installed renewable capacity offline, ERCOT only includes about 30% of that in its resource adequacy measures.
During an emergency meeting Monday night of the Public Utility Commission, which oversees ERCOT, the commissioners directed the ISO to modify its pricing models so they more accurately reflected the market’s scarcity conditions. Magness said staff discovered that energy prices were clearing at less than the maximum system-wide offer cap of $9,000/MWh.
ERCOT also received authorization from the U.S. Department of Energy to run the market’s power plants at maximum output levels, even if that results in exceeding pollution limits.
Midwest Briefly Joins MISO South’s Woes
After shedding load in portions of southeast Texas early Monday, MISO announced a continuation of emergency procedures for MISO South through Tuesday. The grid operator also separately declared a maximum generation emergency for Midwestern portions of its footprint that lasted until Tuesday afternoon as the cold snap dragged on.
MISO prices at noon Tuesday | MISO
However, the RTO extended conservative operations that were to begin on Valentine’s Day for the entire footprint through Wednesday night.
By midday Tuesday, prices at MISO’s Texas Hub exceeded $1,000/MWh.
The grid operator instructed members to continue making public appeals for electricity conservation to avoid further outages.
“We’re moving into uncertain territory, which is why we are asking the public for assistance,” System Operations Executive Director Renuka Chatterjee said.
Portions of the South saw temperatures plunge to their lowest in 85 years. Northern Minnesota experienced -40 F temperatures late Monday.
MISO characterized the deep freeze as a “highly unusual situation with … power demand nearly exceeding what current generation and transmission can supply because of the extreme weather.”
“The situation has been taking a toll on parts of the bulk electric system, limiting MISO’s ability to import electricity from neighbors that are in a similar situation,” the grid operator said.
SPP Expects Fluctuating EEA Levels
Real-time wholesale prices in SPP momentarily hit a staggering $55,000/MWh Tuesday after the RTO declared an EEA Level 3 alert for its 14-state Eastern Interconnection balancing authority that morning, saying capacity had dropped below its then-current load of about 42 GW. That spike represented the cost to bring an oil-fired peaker online, a market participant said.
SPP prices momentarily hit their $55,000/MWh cap on Tuesday. | SPP
The RTO downgraded the EEA to Level 2 shortly before noon and then again to Level 1 an hour later.
“It is likely its system will fluctuate between EEA levels over the next 48 hours,” SPP said, pointing to high demand and persistent cold weather.
The grid operator said it is continuing to urge its member companies to instruct consumers to conserve electricity at home and work and to follow their local utility’s directions.
The market for bonds that address climate change and related social issues is booming, according to Sean Kidney, CEO of the Climate Bonds Initiative.
“People are realizing that the capital-with-purpose story is the story of the times,” Kidney said Tuesday on a Bloomberg virtual panel. But green bond issuances that now exceed $1 trillion are not enough, he said.
Net-zero ambitions from companies and governments will require far greater environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing, of which green bonds are a part. To get there, near-term improvements are needed in emissions metrics and reporting mechanisms to instill long-term investor confidence, he said.
ESG investing requires the creation of standardized definitions for what constitute “the right kind of investments,” he said. Europe has been a leader in creating a taxonomy of definitions for sustainable investments, and Kidney believes that Europe’s approach must be universally adopted to make green investing much easier. All green sector investment guidance, he added, must be based on the goals of the Paris climate agreement.
The Volt seen here is a success story in one green sector to which investors are flocking, but clearer metrics and reporting are needed to boost environmental, social and governance investing. | Chevrolet
Using those goals as the baseline for green commitments allows investors to measure whether the claim of any given environmental benefit is sound, Kidney said.
A solid reporting framework is also necessary to build investor confidence, according to Deborah Ng, head of responsible investing for the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.
A company “can set a 20% [emissions reduction] target or a 50% target, but if we’re not seeing those numbers going down … we’re going to be more skeptical about their transition plans,” she said.
Jane Ewing, senior vice president of sustainability for Walmart, said that the company estimates direct, indirect and partial supply-chain emissions in accordance with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. The company has been reporting that information annually since 2006. She said Walmart also reports to the nonprofit CDP, which runs a global emissions disclosure system.
That system, Ewing said, “is a very comprehensive and detailed analysis that requires you to look at all areas of the organization.”
Amy West, global head of sustainable finance at TD Securities, said improving corporate sustainability reporting is critical for advancing ESG investments. She said that reporting standards, like those offered by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), will help investors compare corporate sustainability strategies “on an apples-to-apples basis.”
GRI says its standards for sustainability reporting create a common language for understanding the environmental impacts of organizational activities.
West said that standards like GRI will make it easier to identify benefits beyond the basic metrics for emissions reductions. If a company’s percentage improvement in emissions goes down, for example, it should not be perceived as a failure, she said. The company might, in fact, just be tackling difficult business challenges related to its net-zero commitment.
Investors also need transparency in the methodologies used to calculate emissions reductions, West said.
“How we calculate not just scope one and two, but scope three emissions, is largely undefined right now,” she said. “There is no agreed upon methodology that every company is using.”
Scope 1 emissions come from an organization’s direct activities, while scope two emissions come from electricity used by an organization. Scope three emissions are all other indirect activities of an organization.
“When we look at net zero, how each industry approaches that is a little different,” West said. “With investors, I think asking for transparency, asking for clarity and requests for information are all reasonable.”
Everyone needs to be speaking the same investment language, she said, so “then you can actually have a coherent conversation across investments and within sectors.”
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, who has made fighting climate change a focal point of his administration, announced on Tuesday that the state would invest $100 million in green transportation projects, many of which target disadvantaged or social justice communities.
The money will come from New Jersey’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and the state’s share of the legal settlement Volkswagen paid after being caught systematically cheating on air quality tests.
New Jersey is offering $9 million in grants for deployment of electric delivery and garbage trucks, like this Mack Truck with a Heil body. | Heil
Murphy’s office provided a breakdown of how the funds will be allocated:
$9 million in grants for local governments to improve air quality in disadvantaged communities through the deployment of electric garbage and delivery trucks;
$13 million in grants for low- and moderate-income towns to reduce emissions through the deployment of electric school buses and shuttle buses;
$5 million in grants for equitable mobility projects that will bring electric vehicle ride-hailing and charging stations to Gloucester City, Newark, Trenton and Woodbridge;
$5 million in grants for the deployment of fast charging infrastructure at 27 locations;
$36 million to reduce diesel and black carbon emissions in social justice communities by electrifying cargo handling and other medium- and heavy-duty equipment in port and industrial areas;
$15 million toward New Jersey Transit bus electrification; and
$15 million in “flex funding” to further the initiatives.
Jane Cohen, New Jersey Office of Climate Action and the Green Economy | New Jersey Govender’s Office
Murphy, who is up for re-election this year, also signed an executive order establishing the Office of Climate Action and the Green Economy. The department will address the impacts of climate change and transition the state to a green economy while making environmental justice and equity a priority. Jane Cohen, currently Murphy’s senior policy adviser on environment and energy, will be the office’s first executive director.
The Climate Office will also oversee the creation of the New Jersey Council on the Green Economy, which Murphy announced last month in his State of the State Address.
Under the governor’s executive order, the council will compile an initial report on its recommendations for developing a green economy strategy, to be delivered within a year. Ed Potosnak, executive director of the New Jersey League of Conservation Voters called the council’s creation a “terrific idea” that will create “good union jobs that cannot be outsourced,”
“Gov. Murphy’s announcement today gets us one step closer to realizing the 21st-century sustainable green jobs economy that most New Jerseyans say they want — and the future that we and our partners have been calling for,” Potosnak said in a press release.
New York regulators have proposed long-term natural gas planning procedures that could begin to address how utilities balance infrastructure needs with the state’s greenhouse gas reduction goals.
The New York State Department of Public Service (DPS) on Friday released a proposal to require that the state’s 11 local distribution companies (LDCs) file integrated resource plans every three years to supplement annual winter readiness reviews (20-00652/20-G-0131).
The IRPs would be a continuously updated model that considers load, peak demand and costs and investment opportunities for traditional natural gas solutions and for alternatives. Central to the proposal are requirements that the LDCs include “no-infrastructure” options and nonpipeline alternatives to address market demands and system needs.
According to the proposal, no-infrastructure options would include a mix of utility-sponsored demand reduction measures and contingency solutions, such as compressed natural gas or peaking services. In addition, utilities would need to improve infrastructure alternatives, such as energy efficiency, demand response and electrification.
“A comprehensive gas planning process is essential for protecting New Yorkers and ensuring they have the natural gas infrastructure they need and minimizing what they don’t,” said John B. Rhodes, chair of the state Public Service Commission, which will rule on the proposal. “It’s critical to ensuring reliability, keeping costs down and advancing State clean energy policies while combating climate change.”
A proposal for modernizing natural gas planning in New York state could shift some gas investments to renewable heating, such as the heat pump seen here. | Shutterstock
A coalition of clean energy advocates criticized the proposal, saying in a press statement that it does not provide clear metrics for gas reductions or address the needs of environmental justice communities, as required by New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA).
Some gas utilities in the state have placed a hold on new service connections, citing supply constraints. Those constraints, however, are not going to get any easier under CLCPA targets, and they are leading to customer hardships, according to DPS. (See Study: No Silver Bullet for Fossil-Climate Legal Tension.)
In a March 2020 order initiating a proceeding on gas planning procedures, DPS said that gas planning has not “kept pace with recent developments and demands on energy systems.” The gas planning proposal, released as part of that DPS proceeding, seeks to address multiple, conflicting priorities.
DPS said that utilities need to maintain reliability while adopting improved planning practices to meet current customer needs and minimize infrastructure investments to avoid stranded costs under the goals of the CLCPA.
Michaela Ciovacco, an organizer with New Yorkers for Clean Power, applauded a requirement in the proposal for modeling gas infrastructure investment costs based on fully depreciating them by 2050. Ciovacco said the next step would be to specify when gas infrastructure should be eliminated altogether.
“Without bolder signals that New York is phasing out gas, energy efficiency and clean heating solutions like heat pumps will not be scalable to reach our state’s energy and environmental goals,” Ciovacco said.
New Service Moratoria
DPS on Friday also released a proposal on how utilities impose moratoria on new service connections. The proposal would require LDCs to attempt to offset gas demand through energy efficiency and demand response.
“Moratoria impose significant hardship on customers, and for that reason are a last resort, to be avoided and mitigated to the maximum extent practical,” staff wrote in the proposal, which would ensure consumers have notice of the need for such measures and when they would be implemented.
National Grid’s Brooklyn Union Gas found itself at odds with Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2019 when the company issued a moratorium on new gas hook-ups that it attributed to supply concerns. The company resumed hook-ups under a settlement with the PSC. (See Online Protesters Reject NY Gas Supply Plans.)
Filing Requirements
The gas IRP process would include stakeholder engagement through technical conferences, comment periods and public meetings.
Each utility’s plan would include a demand forecast with a 20-year horizon, with peak day, peak hour and annual load projections. A supply forecast covering the same 20-year horizon would identify the supply portfolio for everything from pipeline contracts to contingency solutions such as compressed natural gas and demand-side resources such as electrification.
Proposals for new gas pipelines would be allowed within the long-term planning process, but DPS said they should be screened against non-pipeline alternatives. New pipelines that address immediate threats to reliability would be exempt from that screening process.
The proposal calls for “novel approaches” to building the supply portfolio, for example, peak pricing or payments for electric options that reduce gas demand. DPS said utilities should look for market examples of “imaginative solutions to demand-supply gaps,” and identify available renewable natural gas from landfills, wastewater treatment and anaerobic digestion.
DPS acknowledged that while utilities have expressed interest in renewable gas alternatives, “more work needs to be done to specify the environmental, and perhaps other, standards that should be applied to nontraditional methane to qualify a source as ‘renewable gas.’”
As part of its proposal, DPS invited interested parties to propose renewable gas standards in the gas planning proceeding for future commission consideration.
DPS also proposed establishing a best practices working group to calculate the “avoided cost of gas” for comparison with energy efficiency and other purposes. The working group would be open to interested parties but would also include state gas utilities, DPS staff and NYSERDA.
A stakeholder forum is scheduled for 1 p.m. March 25 to discuss the two proposals.
Initial comments on the proposals are due on May 3, with reply comments due June 4.
ERCOT, MISO and SPP cut loads Monday as an unprecedented winter storm shut down wind turbines and fuel shortages idled gas-fired generation, reducing supply in the face of record winter demand.
SPP initiated its first rolling blackouts in its history, while ERCOT did so for the first time in a decade. For MISO, it was the second load-shedding event in less than six months. ERCOT prices have been touching the $9,000/MWh cap since Saturday, while MISO saw prices close to $1,000/MWh.
In a press conference Monday, Dan Woodfin, senior director of system operations, said multiple generators began tripping offline Sunday night in “somewhat rapid progression due to the weather” after the grid operator had set a new winter peak record of 69,150 MW earlier that evening.
At 1:25 a.m. CT, ERCOT declared a level 3 energy emergency alert and asked transmission owners to take 16,500 MW — or about 3.3 million homes — of load offline based on load-ratio-share basis.
About 34 GW was unavailable as of noon, including a significant number of gas units because of restrictions on the gas system and wind facilities because of icing on turbine blades.
“As more generators tripped offline, we had to implement more of these controlled outages to protect the system as a whole,” Woodfin said. “It became such a big number that the transmission providers are having difficulty with their normal rotations. They just don’t have enough options that don’t have critical facilities like hospitals and first-responders. They’ve kind of used all the circuits that they can to balance supply and demand.”
He added that ERCOT has seen a slow down in the number of generators tripping offline. “We don’t think these outages will be multiday outages. We think they should be able to come back in a number of hours.”
The last time ERCOT had to institute rolling blackouts was in 2011, just days before Super Bowl XLV was played in Dallas. In its annual seasonal assessment of resource adequacy for the winter, released in November, ERCOT had said it expected to have enough installed capacity to meet a forecasted 57.7 GW of demand, in part because of a record amount of new wind resources. (See ERCOT: Record 5 GW of Installed Wind Capacity.)
“We are doing everything in our power, not just ERCOT, but the generation owners and the transmission owners, trying to keep the situation reliable,” Woodfin said. “We’re trying to reduce the length of these outages as much as we can to make sure the system as a whole can operate.”
“Every grid operator and every electric company is fighting to restore power right now,” ERCOT CEO Bill Magness said in a statement.
The sustained deep freeze also brought MISO South its second load-shedding event in less than six months.
MISO said the frigid temperatures contributed to generation and transmission outages, leaving it no choice but to direct rotating power outages. The blackouts began Monday morning for some customers in Southeast Texas, MISO said.
“We fully committed every available operating asset before the event to lessen the impact on our system, but conditions eventually deteriorated to a point where demand exceeded supply,” Executive Director of System Operations Renuka Chatterjee said. “The accelerated change in conditions led us to our last resort in order to maintain grid reliability, and we are in direct communication with our members to support their restoration efforts in the affected areas.”
MISO said it consulted with members before the load-shed to identify “the worst-case scenarios to limit the effects of temporary power supply interruptions to those areas that will provide the most relief.” The grid operator said their plan was informed by weather forecasts, predicted demand and worst-case reliability risks. Load-shedding is the last-ditch effort in a MISO maximum emergency event.
“This was truly a coordinated effort with all of our members to avoid a potentially larger grid outage,” MISO South Executive Director Daryl Brown said.
Entergy agreed in a press release that the outages were carried out to “prevent a more extensive, prolonged power outage that could severely affect the reliability of the power grid.” It said its demand had hit an all-time high and that outages could continue throughout the day.
“We apologize for the inconvenience these outages may cause, but we have an unusual situation right now driven by extreme weather conditions. We are working to respond and restore power as soon as it is safely possible,” Entergy Vice President of Customer Service Stuart Barrett said. “While our crews worked to prepare for this storm, a loss of generation combined with the peak load has caused a strain on the system. As a result, we are short of the power needed to meet our customers’ demands across southeast Texas.”
Pricing at MISO’s Texas hub flirted with $1,000/MWh at 10 a.m. ET.
Southern Renewable Energy Association Executive Director Simon Mahan took to Twitter on Sunday to criticize the $37 to $39/MWh real-time pricing across MISO South the morning before the emergency, when temperatures near MISO’s Little Rock, Ark., offices were around 18 degrees Fahrenheit. By 9 p.m., pricing in MISO’s Texas territory hit about $284/MWh, though other parts of MISO South hovered around $45/MWh.
It’s unclear how MISO will price load lost to the winter storm, as it is currently investigating how to better price force majeure events. Stakeholders have told the RTO that it made inappropriate after-the-fact price corrections to the $3,500/MWh value of lost load during and after Hurricane Laura. (See MISO to Outline New Pricing Plan for Hurricanes.)
SPP’s 1st Rolling Blackouts in History
SPP was spared from a load-shedding event until just after noon, when it said regionwide demand had exceeded available generation across its 14-state Eastern Interconnection footprint and its available reserve energy had been “exhausted.”
It is the first time SPP has ever resorted to rolling blackouts.
“In our history as a grid operator, this is an unprecedented event and marks the first time SPP has ever had to call for controlled interruptions of service,” COO Lanny Nickell said. “It’s a last resort that we understand puts a burden on our member utilities and the customers they serve, but it’s a step we’re consciously taking to prevent circumstances from getting worse, which could result in uncontrolled outages of even greater magnitude.”
SPP said it had to interrupt service given the decline in imports from its neighbors. It said it has directed its members’ transmission system operators to reduce electricity demand by an amount needed to prevent further uncontrolled outages.
Speaking in a Monday afternoon press conference, senior Vice President of Governmental Affairs Mike Ross said SPP planned for the weather and projected a new winter peak a week in advance. Ross said he was “pleased” to announce that the RTO only had to direct rolling blackouts for a little under an hour until about 2 p.m. CT.
“It doesn’t mean we’ll stay there,” he warned of SPP’s ability to serve load, citing record-high demand and record-low temperatures. “We’ve been coordinating power since 1941; this is the first time in the history of SPP that we’ve found ourselves in this position.”
SPP said that overall, it was just 641 MW shy of its load obligations.
“I don’t want to trivialize any load shedding,” Nickell said. “It’s unprecedented for us. It’s unprecedented for a lot of the country. … Thankfully it didn’t turn out as bad as we expected, and we’re not out of the woods yet.”
Nickell said SPP members already have plans in place to strategically withdraw load when necessary. “We could very well be in and out of this situation until Thursday,” he added. That proved to be the case, as just this morning, SPP was forced to declare another EEA.
The executives said talk about more stringent reserve requirements will be imminent.
“There’s no doubt there will be a lot of policy discussions forthcoming,” Nickell said.
SPP has canceled several stakeholder meetings over the next few days.
“FERC is closely monitoring the extreme weather conditions occurring in much of the country and the impact they are having on electric reliability,” Chairman Richard Glick said in a press release issued Monday afternoon. “The commission is in contact with ERCOT, SPP and MISO, as the regions served by these grid operators have been particularly hard hit by record cold and wintry precipitation. Safeguarding the reliability of the bulk power system is paramount, and I have directed FERC staff to coordinate closely with the RTOs/ISOs, utilities, NERC and regional reliability entities to do what we can to help.
“In the days ahead, we will be examining the root causes of these reliability events, but, for now, the focus must remain on restoring power as quickly as possible and keeping people safe during this incredibly challenging situation.”
Energy officials in New England are concerned that ISO-NE’s transmission planning process cannot adapt to the evolving resource mix, the growing investments in clean energy and the decarbonization of the grid. Without more robust transmission planning, they said, ratepayers in the region likely face higher costs and lower reliability, plus potential curtailment of the renewable resources needed to meet state policy goals and mandates.
Here is some of what we heard during a public online technical forum on Feb. 2, organized by New England states, to discuss reforms to the RTO’s transmission planning process.
Long-term Tx Planning ‘Key’
New Hampshire Public Utility Commissioner Kate Bailey said the region’s clean-energy transition requires “significant new investments” in renewable resources that are unlikely located close to load centers.
Bailey said changes resulting from an expansion of distributed energy resources, energy efficiency, electrification of the transportation and heating sectors and, “retirement of a good portion of the fossil-fired fleet” would likely produce “very different power flows across the grid of the future compared to today’s grid.”
“Two-way flows of power are likely to be much more common than they are today, which will make the transition even more complicated,” Bailey said. “All of this will require substantial additional spending on new transmission lines and upgrades to existing lines to accommodate the new, remotely located clean resources.”
According to Bailey, the region must complete the transition within a relatively short time, and “our goal should be to accomplish the transition at least cost for ratepayers.”
New England states have decarbonization targets of 30 to 45% by 2030 and 80% or net-zero by 2050.
Bailey said that “long-term transmission planning, which factors in the state’s collective requirements, is key.” One way to limit higher costs for ratepayers, she said, is to require competitive solicitation for all transmission construction, not just those projects that address reliability, and she hopes that “changes made to the process will require that.”
Judy Chang, undersecretary of energy for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, said the region could not afford to continue the traditional way of developing transmission by reacting to interconnection requests or conducting reliability upgrades.
ISO-NE, Eversource Weigh in
Robert Ethier, ISO-NE’s vice president of system planning, said the grid is “undergoing as big a change as it’s experienced in the last several decades.”
Ethier said the RTO’s transmission planning process has been driven by addressing reliability needs and the interconnection of new resources. The integration of renewables and storage to meet state public policy initiatives “in a timely and efficient way” will require new planning, approval and funding approaches, he said, along with greater engagement with both states and NEPOOL stakeholders.
Breakdown of the new resource proposals in the ISO-NE interconnection queue | ISO-NE
Bill Quinlan, president of transmission for Eversource Energy, said that an effective long-term transmission planning process is essential — especially when examining the timeline to execute major upgrades — to achieve decarbonization goals.
“It’s clear to us that to deliver the clean energy future that we’re all seeking … we need to take a hard look at the long-term planning process,” Quinlan said. And “that planning process needs to begin now. We need to then look for alignment with key policies, whether it’s at the federal level … or the state level. With good involvement by the stakeholders, I think we will be able to deliver that grid of the future that will enable the clean energy future we are all seeking.”
‘The Benefit of Consumers’
Rebecca Tepper, chief of the Energy and Telecommunications Division in the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office, said she “wanted to remind everyone” that the transmission system “was built for the benefit of consumers, and every penny of it was paid for by consumers, either directly or indirectly.”
“Over the last 10 years, New England ratepayers have spent $11 billion to develop and upgrade our transmission system,” Tepper said.
There are planned transmission upgrades “that will cost billions more,” so she said it is vital that the region makes “the best use of the transmission systems that customers have already paid for.”
“Right now, the overall utilization of our transmission system is actually low,” Tepper said. “Think about your car … you probably only use 10% capacity of your car, but it’s still really valuable when you want to drive it somewhere. …
“More efficient use of transmission lines can help save money by avoiding congestion, but it also can help integrate new kinds of uses like electric vehicles at lower costs,” she said.
Next Steps
Chang requested written comments on the forum’s topics and discussions. Those comments will be accepted through March 1 and posted publicly on the New England Energy Vision website. Additionally, she said the states would issue a joint summary of the issues identified and explain the potential solutions.
State officials have scheduled additional technical forums on governance reform (Feb. 25) and environmental justice (TBD).
Nevada lawmakers are planning to introduce an array of clean energy bills during the 2021 legislative session, including a measure that could pave the way for a massive expansion of electric transmission in the state.
Sen. Chris Brooks | Nevada Legislative Counsel Bureau
Sen. Chris Brooks (D) is crafting a bill that he says would incentivize and prioritize new electric transmission in the state, potentially creating about $10 billion worth of investment in clean energy.
“I’m really looking forward to being able to expand the clean energy opportunities in the state of Nevada through transmission investment,” Brooks said during a meeting this month hosted by the Nevada Conservation League. “I think it’s long overdue.”
Brooks told RTO Insider that he’s still working with stakeholders to hammer out details of the bill, which had not yet been introduced. While specifics of the proposal were not yet available, he said the incentives are not likely to be financial. Instead, the bill would provide ways to facilitate new transmission projects.
Transmission won’t be the only focus of Brooks’ omnibus legislation, which the senator informally called his “big energy bill.” Other components will include plans for electric vehicle charging infrastructure and measures that would create rooftop solar energy opportunities for renters and multifamily housing residents.
Another piece of the legislation aims to align electric utilities’ integrated resource planning process with the state’s carbon reduction goals.
“It won’t just be the renewable portfolio standard anymore that is guiding how we invest in clean energy in the state,” Brooks said. “We’re actually going to use the carbon reduction goals of the state to guide clean energy investments.”
| DOE
The Nevada legislature, which meets every other year, convened on Feb. 1 for a session that will run through May 31. Brooks and other lawmakers outlined their clean energy plans during a Nevada Conservation League meeting on Feb. 1, held via Zoom.
Although lawmakers are grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic’s economic impacts, they said they are still determined to make progress toward climate objectives this session. Nevada has set a goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
“Even in the midst of a pandemic, even in the midst of a massive economic downturn, we can take advantage of this legislative session to move the ball forward on climate and also create jobs — good-paying jobs — and tax revenues,” Brooks said. “We can achieve all of the goals at the same time.”
‘Classic Car’ Loophole
In addition to Brooks’ energy bill, Assemblyman Howard Watts (D) is planning a bill to reduce vehicle emissions by closing what’s been called the state’s “classic car” loophole.
The state allows cars that are 20 years or older to be registered as classic vehicles, which exempts them from smog checks. Critics point to cars that many people wouldn’t consider a classic — such as a 2000 Honda Accord — which may qualify for the exemption and remain on the roads as gross polluters.
Assemblyman Howard Watts | Nevada Legislative Counsel Bureau
Watts said his bill would not only close the classic car loophole but also increase smog check fees to raise funds for a variety of programs. Those would include assistance to low-income residents to repair their cars to meet emission standards or even to buy a new electric vehicle.
Chispa Nevada, a Las Vegas-based environmental conservation organization, has championed the proposal.
“We like the idea of creating/identifying funds for programs that help low-income customers repair their polluting vehicles or replacing them with cleaner versions like … low- or zero-emission cars,” Program Director Rudy Zamora said. “Oftentimes when we talk about electric vehicles, we forget about our communities — low-income communities, communities of color.”
Natural Gas Under Scrutiny
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is also crafting legislation for the 2021 session.
One proposed bill calls for increased scrutiny of investments in natural gas infrastructure.
“As Nevadans use less methane gas in homes and businesses … gas utilities are at risk of wasting ratepayer money on unnecessary construction projects,” said Dylan Sullivan, a senior scientist with the NRDC. Sullivan said Assemblywoman Lesley Cohen (D), had agreed to sponsor the bill.
NRDC’s second piece of proposed legislation would focus on energy efficiency programs. Although NV Energy runs a number of such programs, Sullivan said the utility is not doing enough. The bill would make some energy-savings targets mandatory and increase targets for programs geared toward low-income residents. The bill would also give regulators the option to designate a third party to run the programs.
Two bills are likely to come out of the Legislative Committee on Energy, a panel of six lawmakers that meets between legislative sessions to discuss energy matters. Assemblywoman Daniele Monroe-Moreno (D) chairs the committee, and Brooks is vice chair.
One of the committee’s proposals would amend the Nevada constitution to allow proceeds from gas taxes or vehicle license and registration fees to be used for transit projects. Currently, the use of those funds is restricted to the construction, maintenance, operation and repair of public highways.
The second proposal would establish a working group to develop preliminary plans for a sustainable system of transportation funding. The group would study topics including the needs of bicyclists, pedestrians and transit users, as well as ways to reduce transportation-related GHG emissions.
