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February 14, 2021

NYISO Proposes ‘Grid in Transition’ Metrics

NYISO on Feb. 9 proposed a three-tier approach to its Grid in Transition initiative and measuring the effects of market changes to make sure they are working as intended.

The ISO in December 2019 issued a report on reliability and market issues related to integrating a host of clean energy resources into the electric power system over the next few years, a “grid transition” driven primarily by state policy. (See Public Policy Challenges Top NYISO Grid Plans.)

NYISO proposed categorizing projects under the initiative as imminent or underway; medium-term; or long-term.

The first category includes carbon pricing, which went through the NYISO stakeholder process but has yet to receive the state support needed to move beyond the planning stage, James Pigeon, manager of distributed resource integration, told the Installed Capacity Working Group.

Other projects underway now and expected to be completed this year and next are the ISO’s Comprehensive Mitigation Review, which involves updating its buyer-side mitigation processes. (See NYISO Explores Improving BSM Processes.)

There is also a separate effort to refine NYISO’s participation model for distributed energy resources. The ISO this year will deploy a software‐defined wide area network, an enabling technology for telemetry that could potentially be used by market participants, including demand‐side ancillary services program resources and energy storage resources (ESR).

Tracking and Metrics

The new recommendations build on a more detailed analysis presented to stakeholders in December, with NYISO now proposing tracking and metrics to establish an early warning system to review if the market rules are inconsistent with what is needed for reliability, starting with whether net forecast uncertainty is causing inefficiencies.

The ISO’s strategy is informed by its own Climate Change Study and Reliability Gap Assessment of last year. The proposal “addresses that narrow subset of the recommendations … with the idea being that these tracking and metrics would really address some of the questions that we have based on that gap analysis,” Pigeon said. “Part of it is to see if some of these metrics can give us an early-warning indicator … on a monthly or quarterly outline basis to keep an eye out for any problems indicative of a changing fleet and grid.”

One stakeholder asked if the ISO is going to have metrics for when the early-warning system is triggered, and how long it would have to be tracked before the need for a change became obvious.

NYISO Grid in Transition — A possible decarbonization path assuming a capacity addition model with “high electrification” load forecast, New York state policies and current wholesale market rules | *NYISO*

“We don’t know yet because it requires further analysis,” Pigeon said. “The first question concerns net forecast uncertainty and whether or not there are some inefficiencies being born out of that,” which the ISO would answer by starting to track some units’ revenues and other aspects of inflexibility in the system.

The main point is to provide accurate price signals for the market to run efficiently, said Michael DeSocio, NYISO director of market design. “Given the way the system is evolving and the way the market tools are committing resources that we have access to today, can we come up with more efficient ways to run the grid, given the resources we have in front of us, or are the current market processes best?”

To the extent that there are resources that get day-ahead market awards that then self-schedule in the market and take flexibility away, “we probably need to go back and reconsider the market rules to consider whether that should be allowed,” DeSocio said. “And if it shouldn’t be allowed, what’s the penalty or the market incentive to prevent it? So those are the kind of things we’re trying to get at here.”

The ISO also needs to “get a good grasp” on some of the existing run-limited resources to understand the services they provide and their limitations, Pigeon said.

Run-limited resources include ESRs, demand response, emissions-restricted output and noise-restricted output resources.

NYISO will come back in early March “and talk more in detail but limit the ballooning of hypotheticals that would sidetrack discussion,” Pigeon said. It would ten begin discussions in the second quarter on energy market improvements.

February 12, 2021

ERCOT Bracing for Winter Storm, Record Demand

ERCOT has issued several notices and advisories as it prepares for expected record electric usage into early next week.

The Texas grid operator on Monday declared an operating condition notice through Feb. 16 for extreme cold weather expected in the region. It has since issued an advisory and a watch; a watch indicates the control room anticipates tight grid conditions.

ERCOT CEO Bill Magness said the weather system is projected to bring the coldest weather that Texas has seen in decades.

Based on the current load forecast and dropping temperatures, staff expect ERCOT to set a new all-time winter peak demand record Feb. 15.

ERCOT Winter Demand — ERCOT is bracing for wintry conditions over the weekend. | *Xcel Energy*

“With temperatures rapidly declining, we are already seeing high electric use and anticipating record-breaking demand in the ERCOT region,” he said in a statement released Thursday.

The grid operator’s current winter peak demand high is 65.9 GW, set in January 2018.

Senior Meteorologist Chris Coleman expects temperatures in the 20s and 30s into the weekend, “peaking” on Feb. 16 in the single digits. The winter storm will drop several inches of snow on Dallas and bring ice to Houston next Monday, he said.

ERCOT has asked generators to prepare their facilities by reviewing fuel supplies and planned outages and implementing winter weatherization procedures. Staff are also working with transmission operators to minimize transmission outages.

The grid operator said the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality will maximize dispatched generation by exercising “its enforcement discretion” for resources’ “exceedances of emission and operational limits … that exceed air permit limits.”

February 12, 2021

New Mass. Bill Targets 1M Home Retrofits

Members of the Massachusetts legislature on Thursday announced new bills to lower emissions, launch a new source of employment and combat racial inequities.

The Building Justice with Jobs Act, supported by Rep. Maria Robinson (D), Rep. David LeBoeuf (D) and Sen. Marc Pacheco (D), seeks to retrofit 1 million homes to be energy efficient in 10 years by strengthening insulation and upgrading heating and cooling systems.

Retrofitting 100,000 homes per year for the next decade would bring unionized jobs to the state for those struggling financially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Robinson said at a launch event for the Mass Renews Alliance, a coalition of labor, youth, climate and social justice organizations focused on climate, racial and economic justice issues in the state.

Massachusetts Home Retrofits — A new bill in Massachusetts seeks to retrofit 1 million older homes, like these brick tenements in Holyoke, that make up much of the state’s housing stock. | *Simtropolitan, CC-BY-SA-4.0 via Wikimedia Commons*

Alan Palm, director of 350 Mass’ organizing efforts, said most homes in Massachusetts are older, with poor insulation and ventilation. Those homes also have low indoor air quality from burning fossil fuels on site and high utility bills.

Heating and cooling infrastructure in homes and commercial buildings are the second-largest source of emissions in Massachusetts after transportation, according to state data.

Massachusetts is also home to three of the top 100 asthma capitals of the U.S., according to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America. Springfield is at the top of the list, followed by Boston at No. 8 and Worcester at 30.

“The Building Justice with Jobs Act puts substance to the commonwealth’s goal of net-zero emissions by 2050 by fixing the homes in the greatest need,” Palm said. The legislation would allow for the installation of electric heat pumps and weatherization measures to make homes “healthier, more comfortable and more resilient,” he said.

Concentrations of housing that do not meet those efficiency standards fall along racial and income lines because of “generations of discriminatory policies,” Palm said. Environmental justice communities will be prioritized in the legislation’s outreach and access to program benefits.

U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D) said the announcement of new legislation and the launch of the Mass Renews Alliance “cannot be more relevant or more timely given what’s at stake for our collective future.”

“We can’t find the most durable and lasting policy changes until and unless every community is included in the decision-making process,” Pressley said of the new bill, which aims to holistically address the intersection of climate change, racial injustice and economic recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Pacheco said the group’s work complements what is happening at the federal level with President Biden’s pandemic recovery plan, which he said puts climate change and justice for communities impacted the most at the center of his response to the virus.

State Sen. Joseph Boncore (D) and Rep. Adrian Madaro (D) are also introducing the Food Justice and Climate Act, which aims to create a local food system that reduces food waste and lessens the environmental impact of the state food system. The bill would also encourage gardening in environmental justice communities, Boncore said.

February 12, 2021January 29, 2024

FCA 15 Closes with Big Jumps in Clearing Prices

ISO-NE’s 15th annual Forward Capacity Auction (FCA 15) cleared with prices ranging from $2.48/kW-month to $3.98/kW-month — the high in Southeast New England (SENE) nearly doubling last year’s record-low figure, the RTO announced Thursday.

Outside of SENE, prices cleared at $2.48/kW-month in Northern New England (NNE) and Maine and $2.61/kW-month in the rest of pool (ROP), with a total cost of approximately $1.36 billion. In FCA 14, prices for all the RTO cleared at only $2.01/kW-month.

“The clearing prices in FCA 15 reveal the different values across the region based on the individual capacity needs for each zone,” said Robert Ethier, ISO-NE vice president for system planning. “In addition, new this year is a large amount of energy storage — almost 600 MW — that has cleared the market.”

Before FCA 15 took place, 199 MW of resources submitted retirement bids. An additional 43 MW of resources submitted permanent de-list bids to leave the capacity market; de-list bids of 101 MW cleared prior to the auction and 141 MW additionally during it.

ISO-NE said the FCA 15 results will be submitted to FERC by the end of the month.

The auction, conducted in up to five rounds of bidding Monday for capacity commitment period 2024/25, cleared 34,621 MW, a 1,351-MW surplus over the net installed capacity requirement of 33,270 MW. These comprised 29,243 MW of generation, with 950 MW of new resources and 630 MW battery storage resources; 3,891 MW of demand resources (170 MW new); and 1,487 MW of imports from New York, Québec and New Brunswick.

ISO-NE did not break down the storage figure, only saying that it included both new and existing resources, but it did report that more than 2,525 MW of new resources cleared. Approximately 19 MW of new renewables cleared under the renewable technology resource exemption in its final year. The exemption allowed a certain amount of new renewable capacity to clear without being subject to the minimum offer price rule, with nearly 600 MW clearing since FCA 9.

FCA 15’s capacity zones were identical to those for FCA 14: NNE, which includes Vermont, portions of Maine and New Hampshire; the rest of Maine; SENE, comprising eastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island; and ROP, composed of Connecticut and western and central Massachusetts.

Reaction

Dan Dolan, president of the New England Power Generators Association, said FCA 15 represents “a diverse set of technologies to meet capacity requirements in the years 2024 and 2025.”

“This capacity auction delivered strategic investments at power plants to increase capabilities and provide robust, cost-effective reliability services for consumers,” Dolan said. “Those investments will help facilitate and enable a transforming electricity grid to meet the demands of electrification and integrate large-scale renewables.”

He added, however, that “the electricity market must evolve.”

“State decarbonization policies are not today adequately accounted for, and it is past time that a solution is put in place,” Dolan said. “Whether through meaningfully pricing carbon dioxide emissions, or other proposals, market solutions exist.”

Theodore Paradise, senior vice president of transmission strategy and counsel at Anbaric, said the price separation in FCA 15 shows how important it is to look at total consumer benefits when considering competitive transmission, “rather than just upfront capital costs.”

“The capacity market is long, and what raised prices in this auction were transmission transfer limitations,” Paradise said. “Anbaric took those transmission system limitations into account when it designed the Mystic Reliability Wind Link. It was clear there would be transfer limitations into the Boston area that would very likely raise prices with the loss of 1,400 MW and in the absence of energy supply being injected via new transfer capability.”

Brandon Keefe, general manager at Plus Power, said his company was “excited to open New England to large, standalone energy storage” after it won two bids for battery plants in Massachusetts and Maine that “will help decarbonize the grid while improving regional reliability.”

“If Congress were to pass a federal investment tax credit for standalone storage, it could level the playing field and bring these kinds of projects, investment and jobs benefits across the country,” Keefe said.

February 12, 2021

Duke Plans for $59 Billion in Capital Investment

Duke Energy executives said Thursday they have put the challenges of 2020 behind them, predicting a 5 to 7% annualized increase in earnings per share through 2025.

“2020 was the year for agility and transformation,” Executive Vice President and CFO Steve Young said during the company’s fourth quarter 2020 earnings call. He said the company plans $59 billion in capital spending over the five-year planning period ending in 2024, about 70% of which will be for clean energy and “green infrastructure.” Capital investments from 2025-2030 are expected to grow to $65 to $75 billion, Young said.

The company’s reported earnings were hurt by charges from the cancellation of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and a $1 billion coal ash settlement in North Carolina for Duke Energy Carolinas and Duke Energy Progress.

CEO Lynn Good framed Duke’s coal ash settlement as an achievement, despite the $77 million loss (-$0.12/share) the utility reported for the quarter. Adjusted fourth quarter earnings were $1.03/share. A year earlier, the company posted fourth quarter net income of $660 million ($0.88/share) and adjusted earnings of $0.91/share.

For all of 2020, Duke reported net income of $3.77 billion ($1.72/share) and adjusted earnings of $5.12/share.

Good was upbeat throughout the call, expressing optimism about the utility’s 2020 integrated resource plans for North and South Carolina and its goal of reducing its carbon emissions 50% by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. She said the IRPs were developed with broad stakeholder involvement and illustrate “the trade-offs between the pace of transition and the cost implications.”

The IRPs offer six different pathways to net zero, from a base case that still includes substantial new natural gas generation, to a no-gas option that would accelerate emissions reductions to 70% by 2030.

Duke Energy’s IRPs for North and South Carolina include six possible pathways to get the utility to net zero by 2050. | *Duke Energy*

The North Carolina IRP is now before the state’s utility commission, with public comments due in April and the commission’s own comments due possibly in the fall, Good said.

Questions from analysts on the call focused on regulatory and legislative initiatives underway in North Carolina. Following a series of stakeholder meetings throughout 2020, a recent report by the Rocky Mountain Institute and the Regulatory Assistance Project included recommendations for new laws to transition the state to performance-based regulation (PBR) and help accelerate the retirement of fossil fuel generation.

PBR links utility compensation not to traditional capital investment in infrastructure, but to the achievement of specific performance metrics. Other recommendations in the report included changes to wholesale power markets and more competitive procurement processes.

Good said Duke worked with stakeholders around common objectives including “moving away from coal, carbon reduction, regulatory mechanisms that incent that move and then, of course, increase investment in renewables, all with the construct of maintaining reliability and affordability.”

But some solar and environmental groups have been strongly critical of both the North and South Carolina IRPs, in particular for the utility’s plans to continue building new natural gas plants. A recent report from the Sierra Club gave Duke’s North Carolina IRP 5 points out of a possible 100. The South Carolina Solar Business Alliance filed extensive comments on Duke’s South Carolina IRP, calling the utility’s ongoing reliance on natural gas generation risky and inconsistent with its 2050 net-zero goal.

Positive Population Migration

Other takeaways from the call included:

While the COVID-19 pandemic reduced commercial and industrial demand, Duke saw a significant increase in residential customers and demand. The customer growth was caused by “positive population migration” in Duke’s service territory, Young said.
Duke Energy Florida reached a settlement with consumer groups, committing the utility to scrapping a planned nuclear project and investing instead in solar energy, smart meters and grid modernization projects. Deployment of electric vehicle charging stations and development of an energy storage pilot project are also included in the settlement.
Duke recently announced that GIC, a Singapore-based infrastructure investor, had acquired a 19.9% interest in Duke Energy Indiana for $2.05 billion. The investment “displaces all common equity needs” in its five-year plan.

February 12, 2021March 9, 2025

FERC’s Glick Lays out Priorities in Press Conference

FERC Chairman Richard Glick on Thursday told reporters he has five broad priorities in his new role, chief among them ensuring electricity market rules do not discriminate against new technology.

Speaking to the press for the first time since President Biden appointed him chair of the commission Jan. 21, Glick also listed:

enabling “significant” transmission buildout and speeding up generator interconnection processes to facilitate the surge of renewable resources;
accommodating state energy programs;
improving the commission’s approval processes for natural gas infrastructure; and
working with NERC to strengthen cybersecurity.

He also committed to building public confidence in FERC decision-making. As part of that, he pledged to be “as transparent as possible” with reporters and announced he would reinstitute post-meeting press conferences, which Commissioner James Danly halted while he was chair.

FERC Commissioner Richard Glick | © RTO Insider

“I’m going to try my best to avoid saying, ‘The order speaks for itself,’ to avoid your questions,” Glick said.

Still, he declined to go into specifics on the many topics about which he was asked, including RTO minimum offer price rules (MOPRs); offshore transmission planning; and how he would address the commission’s languishing docket to consider how to revise its 1999 natural gas policy statement, instituted by Chair Kevin McIntyre before his death.

While Glick said he would work to gain unanimous support for orders, he also pledged not to “sit on” orders indefinitely if he did not have the full support of his colleagues, anticipating that he and follow Democratic Commissioner Allison Clements would issue some dissents before the expiration of Republican Neil Chatterjee’s term at the end of June. The Republicans will hold a 3-2 edge until Biden can fill the next vacancy on the commission.

Details to Come

Glick also announced he would create a new senior position to incorporate environmental justice into the commission’s decision-making.

The chairman did not go into specifics, such as under what office or division the official would work, saying he would have more details at FERC’s next open meeting Feb. 18. But he said the position would ensure decisions across the commission would take into account the concerns of historically marginalized communities.

“This position is not just a title,” Glick said in a statement. “I intend to do what it takes to empower this new position to ensure that environmental justice and equity concerns finally get the attention they deserve.”

He also said he would give more details about implementing FERC’s Office of Public Participation, to which Congress gave a budget under the Energy Act of 2020 — 42 years after the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act directed the commission to establish it.

On the Agenda

Later on Thursday, FERC released the preliminary agenda with a number of high-profile issues for next week’s open meeting. Included are the natural gas policy statement docket (PL18-1); the PJM MOPR docket (EL16-49-006); the NYISO buyer-side mitigation rules docket (EL16-92-004); and the ISO-NE Competitive Auctions with Sponsored Policy Resources docket (ER18-619-002).

It also lists the long stalled grid resilience inquiry docket (AL18-7), opened after the commission rejected the Energy Department’s 2017 proposal to order RTOs and ISOs to compensate the full operating costs of generators with 90 days of on-site fuel, the docket for which is also on the agenda (RM18-1). (See FERC Rejects DOE Rule, Opens RTO ‘Resilience’ Inquiry.)

February 12, 2021

SPP Board to Consider Controversial Kansas Project

SPP said Wednesday it will schedule a special Board of Directors meeting to consider Evergy’s request to restudy a competitive project in southeastern Kansas that the utility said collides with its regional planning efforts.

SPP Kansas Project — SPP originally identified the Butler-Altoona-Tioga project (below) in its transmission planning process, but has since recommended a greenfield project (top). | *SPP*

The board approved the 138-kV project last month despite protests from Evergy, the incumbent transmission owner. The Kansas City utility requested staff instead re-examine the project and said it would request an immediate restudy should the project be approved. (See “Board Approves Tx Project Soon to be Re-evaluated,” SPP Board of Directors/MC Briefs: Jan. 27, 2021.)

SPP issued a request for proposal on Feb. 2 for the competitive upgrade, which would replace an aging Evergy line between the Butler and Tioga substations. Three days later, Evergy Kansas Central asked that the project be re-evaluated, saying it had originally been identified through the RTO’s planning process as a “substantial” rebuild of the existing 99-year-old facility, not a 100% greenfield project that qualified as a competitive project.

“As a result, all analysis conducted to-date was based on assumptions and cost estimates which are no longer applicable to the current project scope,” Evergy wrote in its re-evaluation request.

The utility said the restudy was necessary because the scope change in the RFP is “significant and substantive” and no longer aligns with the original assessment.

Evergy has begun work on a 35-mile rebuild of the Butler-Altoona line, which it said has been identified as a need in three SPP planning assessments since 2017. The utility expects to complete the work by the end of next year.

The competitive upgrade “is definitely a collision of local and regional planning,” said Denise Buffington, Evergy’s director of federal regulatory affairs. “We think the facilities we are putting in the area should be considered as SPP determines whether or not to move forward with the project. SPP should not be building redundant infrastructure.”

Buffington said that, based on her understanding of competitive project restudies, the upgrade could not be modified to pick up where Evergy’s work leaves off, resulting in the redundancy.

“We have been trying since 2017 to get in line with SPP on needs of this area,” she said. “We need to do what is right for our customers. It isn’t all about economics for us.”

During the board meeting, staff will recommend whether the competitive restudy should be performed. Under the tariff, SPP can also recommend whether it is necessary to suspend the project’s transmission owner selection process.

Should the board direct a restudy, staff will conduct the re-evaluation and provide a recommendation as to whether the competitive upgrade should be withdrawn. If it is, the applicable RFP would be withdrawn and the selection process terminated.

If the competitive project survives the challenge, the selection process will continue or be reinstated. The RFP response window will close on the original close date or 60 days after the selection process is reinstated, whichever is later.

February 12, 2021

NYISO Business Issues Committee Briefs: Feb. 10, 2021

NYISO’s Business Issues Committee on Wednesday approved revisions to the Transmission and Dispatch Operations Manual that relate to generator fuel and emissions reporting (GFER) and are expected to become effective approximately two weeks after the Operating Committee approval on Feb. 11.

“Based on stakeholder feedback, we have developed the functionality within the GFER application to issue surveys both weekly and as requested survey by fuel type,” said John Stevenson, senior gas and electric analyst at the ISO. “Before we were surveying all generators just like we currently do and will continue to do in the annual survey, and this functionality allows us to hone that in on fuel types we may be interested in, such as fossil fuel generators, and allows us not to overwhelm stakeholders for whom these questions may not be applicable.”

The revisions say that NYISO may only solicit responses from generators that use fossil fuels to produce electricity, and all installed capacity suppliers must submit fuel and environmental restriction data at weekly and yearly intervals and as requested by the ISO. Yearly fuel surveys must be completed within 30 days of NYISO notification of their availability; weekly surveys by 1:00 p.m. of the first business day of each week; and as-requested surveys by 1:00 p.m. the day prior to the operating day the survey covers.

Stevenson agreed with one stakeholder that the rationale for the manual and GFER changes is to make the reporting requirements more practical, recognizing, for example, that wind turbines cannot predict how much wind is available for generation in future periods. “We’ve been getting feedback for a couple years now and … implemented that change,” he said.

ICAP Manual Revisions

The BIC also approved Installed Capacity Manual revisions to update the External Import Rights Limits for the 2021/22 capability year and reflect the maximum amount of import capacity allowed from neighboring control areas.

The proposed revisions affect Section 4.9.6 of the manual.

NYISO Business Issues Committee — NYISO ICAP external import rights | *NYISO*

GE Multi-Area Reliability Simulation (MARS) simulations were performed on the locational minimum installed capacity requirements MARS database to determine capacity imports allowed without violating the loss of load expectation criterion.

The import capability for each control area will be subjected to a deliverability test, with any megawatts not deemed deliverable deducted from final values.

Deliverability results for import rights limits are scheduled for completion in mid-February, with final numbers to be released along with other summer capability period auction information on Feb. 26. That auction opens at the end of March.

February 12, 2021

EEI: Net Zero by 2035 ‘Incredibly Difficult’

The Edison Electric Institute is skeptical about the industry’s ability to meet the Biden administration’s goal of carbon-free electricity by 2035, insisting natural gas generation will be needed for the foreseeable future.

The transition to wind and solar backed by energy storage in just 15 years would be an extremely difficult goal, EEI’s President Tom Kuhn said during its annual Wall Street briefing Wednesday. “I think the 2035 date was a campaign initiative and would be an incredibly difficult situation to handle for most of the companies in the industry,” he said.

Edison Electric Institute Net Zero — Coal’s share of the U.S. generation mix has dropped by more than half since 2010, while wind has quadrupled and natural gas has almost doubled. | *Energy Information Administration*

Instead, EEI says its investor-owned utility members are “collectively … on a path” to cut their carbon emissions by at least 80% by 2050 from 2005 levels.

The association’s top executives said although its members strongly advocate renewable energy, the rollout of electric vehicles and rejoining the Paris climate accords, meeting climate goals will require a massive expansion of the transmission grid, including electronic control systems still being developed and federal investments.

EEI’s presentation highlighted changes in the generation mix (“nearly 40% carbon-free”), which it said had resulted in the lowest level of CO₂ emissions in 30 years.

Even if an expanded grid eliminates bottlenecks that impede delivery of renewables to load centers, EEI said gas-fired power plants and nuclear energy must remain in the generation mix. The nation’s 94 nuclear reactors produce nearly 20% of electricity and 50% of carbon-free power it said. The group said it supports “strong and cost-effective” federal regulations to reduce methane emissions throughout the natural gas supply chain.

Brian Wolff, vice president of public policy, noted that EEI has partnered with environmental groups to figure out the mix of sophisticated technologies that will be necessary to squeeze the last 20% of carbon out of the industry. In 2018, EEI and the NRDC unveiled 21 policy recommendations and made it clear that it would be expensive. And funding continues to be an issue.

“While we did a down payment on those technologies in the energy bill that passed in the lame duck session [of Congress] last year, we are really looking now to set the stage for the budget coming up that Congress will be dealing with as well as the administration putting forth their own budget to make sure [there are] appropriate levels of investments in these technologies,” Wolff said. (See Wind, Solar, EE, CO2 Storage Win Tax Breaks.)

EEI’s “carbon-free technology initiative” is focusing on five areas:

advanced, dispatchable renewables (e.g., superhot deep geothermal) and advanced power electronics;
zero-carbon fuels, such as hydrogen or ammonia, “from a variety of sources”;
advanced nuclear energy (fission and fusion);
carbon capture, utilization and sequestration, especially for natural gas facilities; and
advanced demand efficiency and long-duration storage.

Phil Moeller, vice president for business operations, said the industry has invested more than $1 trillion since 2010 to build smarter energy infrastructure and to integrate new generation. “These investments continue to be central to our vision of a cleaner, smarter, strong energy future,” he said, noting 75% of U.S. households now have smart meters.

But the leap to the kind of integrated national grid the industry envisions will need a raft of new public policies, he said. Some of these policies are certain to encounter pushback at the local level.

“We are focused on advocating for public policies that enable us to get critical transmission and grid infrastructure built more quickly,” he said. “The transmission system is key to increasing the integration of clean energy. It enhances the resiliency of the grid, powers electric transportation and facilitates the adoption of a broad array of smart technologies.”

Richard McMahon, vice president for energy supply and finance, warned that the industry’s plans could be hurt by federal tax increases. The Biden administration has signaled it wants to raise the current 21% corporate tax rate to 28%.

February 12, 2021

FERC Fines NY Generator on Fuel Data

FERC on Monday approved a settlement agreement requiring Alliance NYGT to pay nearly $900,000 for running two small power plants on natural gas for more than three years while being reimbursed for more expensive kerosene (IN21-4).

Under the terms of the agreement with the commission’s Office of Enforcement, the company will pay NYISO $463,984 for restitution and compensating market participants and remit a $420,000 civil penalty to the U.S. Treasury.

The agreement also requires that Alliance submit two annual compliance monitoring reports, with a third annual report at the office’s option, and to conduct at least one training program relating to compliance with the commission’s regulations and the NYISO tariff.

New York fuel data — Alliance’s 40-MW Hillburn plant in Hillburn, N.Y. | *Alliance Energy Group*

Alliance bought the Hillburn and Shoemaker generators in 2007. The units are located in Orange County, and each has a 40-MW nameplate capacity. Between January 2009 and January 2012, Alliance operated the generators exclusively on kerosene while making repairs to remedy operational issues that were most pronounced when burning gas.

Alliance completed the generators’ gas equipment upgrades in 2012 and contacted NYISO to request information about updating the reference prices in advance of the repairs being completed. Alliance failed to start on gas in response to a January 2013 dispatch request, but thereafter “the generators began operating primarily on gas to fulfill their awards.” However, the units’ reference prices remained indexed to the more expensive liquid fuel, the commission said.

NYISO in September 2013 began communicating with Alliance about the type of fuel used to operate the generators, but the company’s responses were “untimely, inaccurate or incomplete,” according to FERC, and it wasn’t until March 2016 that the firm began updating its reference prices to reflect gas capabilities for both generators.

During the period that it failed to notify NYISO of the generators’ ability to operate on gas, Alliance received inflated make-whole payments.