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Steel Manufacturer Unveils Collaboration With Helion to Develop 500-MW Fusion Plant

September 30, 2023

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
September 30, 2023

Nucor Corp. on Sept. 27 announced a collaboration with fusion power company Helion to develop a 500-megawatt fusion power plant.

The project will offer baseload zero-carbon electricity from fusion directly to a Nucor steelmaking facility.

Nucor and Helion are working together to set a firm timeline and are committed to beginning operations as soon as possible with a target of 2030.

Nucor is making a direct investment of $35 million in Helion to accelerate fusion deployment in the United States.

Nucor and its affiliates are manufacturers of steel and steel products, with operating facilities in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Helion in May announced an agreement to provide Microsoft electricity from its first fusion power plant. Constellation will serve as the power marketer and will manage transmission for the project.

The plant is expected to be online by 2028 and will target power generation of 50 MW or greater after a 1-year ramp up period.

PJM Files Proposed Winter Storm Elliott Settlement With FERC

September 30, 2023

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
September 30, 2023

The PJM Interconnection and 80 other settling parties on Sept. 29 filed a settlement package with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to comprehensively resolve 15 separate FERC complaints regarding extraordinary non-performance charges resulting from Winter Storm Elliott in December 2022.

The settling parties requested that FERC approve the settlement no later than Dec. 29, 2023.

The proposed settlement is a result of expedited talks requested by PJM and approved by FERC.

“It is a product of collaboration among PJM and a significant number of diverse market participants — including complainants, intervenors who are net non-performance-charge payors, intervenors who have zero assessed non-performance charges, and intervenors who are net-performance payment recipients — that either support the settlement or do not oppose it,” PJM said.

Under the terms of the proposed settlement, swift resolution of the complaints relating to Winter Storm Elliott supports continuing reliable operations, confidence in PJM energy markets and overall generation fleet resilience, the settling parties told FERC.

Proposed settlement terms include:

Based upon FERC action on a waiver and the filing of the settlement, PJM will pause billing of the remaining, unbilled non-performance charges and concurrent disbursement of payments to suppliers that over-performed during storm events.

These changes are expected to take effect in the October billing cycle.

The proposed settlement does not resolve capacity market design issues recognized during Winter Storm Elliott.

PJM and its stakeholders have been discussing additional changes to capacity market rules as communicated in a letter from the PJM Board of Managers dated Sept. 27, 2023.

A final report on Winter Storm Elliott was presented to FERC Commissioners on Sept. 21.

The report recommends completion of cold weather reliability standard revisions stemming from 2021’s Winter Storm Uri and improvements to reliability for U.S. natural gas infrastructure.

California CCA Peninsula Clean Energy to Receive 220 MW from New Mexico Wind Project

September 29, 2023

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
September 29, 2023

California community choice aggregator Peninsula Clean Energy will receive 220 megawatts of wind power as part of the largest renewable energy procurement project contract the CCA has signed to date, it said on Sept. 28. 

Peninsula Clean Energy will begin receiving power for 15 years in 2026 from Pattern Energy’s SunZia Wind project in New Mexico.

The 220 MW of renewable energy will supply 13 percent of the agency’s total annual electricity demand.

Peninsula Clean Energy is the first CCA to sign a contract to receive power from the SunZia Wind project, which in total will generate up to 3,515 MW of nameplate wind power serving the western United States grid.

“As the agency’s first out-of-state renewable project contract, SunZia will provide both geographic and seasonal diversity to Peninsula Clean Energy’s electricity generation as the agency makes headway toward its 24/7 renewable power goal,” the CCA said.

That includes providing higher wind generation during the winter months, when solar energy generated in California is at its lowest during the year.

Senators Urge EPA to Rescind Proposed Reconsideration of Standards for Particulate Matter

September 27, 2023

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
September 27, 2023

A group of Republican senators recently sent a letter to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan arguing that EPA should rescind its proposed reconsideration of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for particulate matter.

The letter, which was signed by 23 Republican senators, specifically addresses EPA’s proposal to reconsider the PM 2.5 NAAQS and review the NAAQS under the Clean Air Act’s regular five-year review schedule.

EPA Published Proposed Reconsideration of PM NAAQS in January

In January, EPA published a proposed reconsideration of the PM NAAQS. The proposal seeks to lower the primary annual PM 2.5 standard from its current level of 12 micrograms per cubic meter (µg/m3) to within the range of 9-10 µg/m3 and retain the secondary annual PM 2.5 standards, primary and secondary 24-hour PM 2.5 standard, and primary and secondary 24-hour PM-10 standard. 

EPA accepted comments on a lower limit range of 8.0 ug/m3 for the annual PM 2.5 standard. The reconsideration has been controversial because, in December 2020, EPA completed a comprehensive review and published a final decision to retain the 2013 NAAQS for particulate matter PM.

Thirty-three days later, the newly elected Biden administration issued an executive order directing the EPA to review and revise prior agency decisions if appropriate.

EPA also stated it was reconsidering its 2020 decision because the available scientific evidence and technical information indicate that the current standards may not be adequate to protect public health and welfare, as required by the Clean Air Act.

Senators Weigh in

As the PM2.5 standard “is approaching natural background levels, there are fewer sources available to regulate in order to achieve compliance,” the lawmakers said in their Sept. 20 letter. They said that according to the Association of Air Pollution Control Agencies, wildfires and miscellaneous sources accounted for over 70 percent of domestic PM2.5 emissions in 2022.

In addition, the EPA’s policy assessment for the PM NAAQS reconsideration estimated that only 16 percent of PM2.5 emissions come from power plants and industrial sources, “while the vast majority of the emissions are from non-point sources, such as wildfires, construction, road dust, and international transport,” the senators said in their letter.

Many of these non-point sources “are exceedingly onerous or impossible to control, or like wildfires, are beyond the scope of the Clean Air Act’s regulatory authorities. In light of this, sharply lowering the current PM2.5 annual standard would increase nonattainment levels across the country,” the lawmakers said. “This would increase permitting and regulatory burden on manufacturers, energy producers and several other key industries to our economy without a feasible path to attainment given the high costs and diminishing returns of additional control technologies.”

This would result in “Americans inheriting all of the negative consequences of nonattainment: offshoring of our domestic manufacturing, job loss, electric reliability concerns, higher prices, reliance on China, energy insecurity, and slow economic growth,” the letter went on to say.

At the same time, “it would produce little to no measurable public health or environmental benefits,” the senators argued.

This proposal, “particularly with its confounding inclusion of a request for comments on a standard as low as 8 µg/m3 that the EPA attests it is not even considering, is already causing uncertainty in the business community.”

The EPA’s proposal “fails to consider several important factors that will make implementation of a lower annual standard extremely difficult, or in some cases impossible, to no measurable benefits to public health, the environment, or the economy,” the senators said, adding that the EPA “should not finalize a discretionary reconsideration of a PM2.5 NAAQS that is unattainable and will likely lack an accompanying, detailed implementation plan.”

APPA Signs on to Letter to EPA

APPA recently signed on to a letter to Regan that urged the EPA to maintain the current particulate matter standard. 

That letter stated that lowering the standard would “put large swaths of the country in non-attainment and permitting gridlock,” threatening investments and jobs.

IRS to Open Low-Income Bonus Credit Application Process on October 19

September 27, 2023

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
September 27, 2023

The Internal Revenue Service on Sept, 27 announced that applications for the Low-Income Communities Bonus Credit program under Section 48(e) of the Internal Revenue Code will open on October 19.

The Low-Income Communities Bonus Credit Program will allocate 1.8 gigawatts of capacity available through competitive application for the 2023 program across four categories of qualified solar or wind facilities with maximum output of less than five megawatts.

The IRS intends to allocate up to:

Depending on the availability of capacity, applications for the 2023 program are expected to be accepted through early next year.

The Treasury Department and IRS may choose to reallocate capacity between categories in the event of oversubscription in any category, and unclaimed capacity will roll over into the 2024 program year, when another base 1.8 GW of capacity will be available via application.

To provide information about the application process ahead of this date, Treasury and the Department of Energy will be launching a program “help desk” and hosting a webinar about the application process on September 29.

Potential applicants can register for the webinar here. The webinar recording will be made available online after the event for those who cannot attend.

Additional materials to help applicants prepare their submissions will be made available on the Department of Energy landing page in the coming weeks.

For more information about this program and other energy tax provisions included in the Inflation Reduction Act, see the American Public Power Association’s “Guidance on Energy Tax Credits for Utilities” located here.

The page is intended to provide a collection of materials and guidance for public power utilities from APPA, the Internal Revenue Service, and others related to accessing energy tax credits.

APPA Members Encouraged to Participate in DOE Webinar on Transformers

September 26, 2023

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
September 26, 2023

The Department of Energy on Sept. 29 will host a webinar related to a survey that the agency plans to release related to the nation’s current supply of distribution transformers.

DOE is trying to get a better sense of the utility sector’s current supply of distribution transformers that can be put into service if replacement transformers are required to restore their networks after extreme weather events, wildfires, or other emergency situations. 

The webinar will take place on Sept. 29 at 2:00 pm (ET).

 The survey will be administered under the Protected Critical Infrastructure Information Program under the Critical Infrastructure Information Act of 2002. 

The Act protects information voluntarily shared with the government about the security of private and state/local government critical infrastructure.

For additional information about how to register for the webinar or related questions, contact Michael Coe, Vice President, Physical and Cyber Security Programs, at APPA at: mcoe@publicpower.org.

Officials with Energy Northwest, Douglas County PUD Detail SMR, Hydrogen Efforts

September 26, 2023

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
September 26, 2023

At a recent Northwest Public Power Association conference, Jason Herbert, Senior Director for External Strategy at Energy Northwest, detailed the joint action agency’s plans for the development of small modular reactors, while Meaghan Vibbert, Public Information Officer, at Washington State’s Douglas County PUD, provided an update on the PUD’s renewable hydrogen project.

Herbert and Vibbert participated in a panel at the Northwest Public Power Association’s Northwest Innovations in Communications Conference in Santa Rosa, Calif., last week.  Another panelist, Brent Bischoff, General Manager and CEO of Oregon’s Coos-Curry Electric Cooperative, discussed the cooperative’s pursuit of an offshore floating wind project.

In July, Energy Northwest and X-Energy Reactor Company LLC announced the signing of a joint development agreement for up to 12 advanced small modular reactors in central Washington capable of generating up to a total of 960 megawatts of electricity. 

Under the agreement, the project is expected to be developed at a site controlled by Energy Northwest adjacent to the JAA’s Columbia Generating Station. 

“We think this is an ideal place to build and to tap into some existing infrastructure capacity and transmission capacity that we have out there,” Herbert said.

One of things that is attractive about the SMR technology is that there is continuous online refueling, Herbert said.

While existing traditional nuclear power plants have to undergo refueling outages, X-Energy’s SMR design never has to go offline for a refueling outage, he pointed out.

In addition, the SMR design is attractive to Energy Northwest because it is scalable, said Herbert. “We can license up to 12 80-megawatt modules – so 960 megawatts of total output on one site, but we don’t have to build all 12 of them at first,” he noted.

“We can start with four, which is what our current plan is to do, so 320 megawatts, but we’ll license it” with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for 12 modules.

“The plan is to have this come online in 2031 and, if in 2035, a big industrial end user or a data center comes to us and says, hey, we need 400 megawatts – we can say, OK, in three years we can add in four more modules because we’ve already gotten the license for them, we don’t have to go back to the NRC,” he said.

“The way I describe it is we’re building a parking lot with 12 spaces and we’re only allowing four cars, but anytime we want to buy more cars we don’t have to build additional spaces,” he said.

Another advantage with the SMR technology is that fuel is a variable cost. “When you back this reactor down, your fuel is not cycling through the plant anymore, whereas with existing plants, your fuel is a fixed cost, you’re refueling every two years,” he said. With SMRs, “we could save up to forty percent on our fuel when we load follow, which is a huge advantage, especially as we see more penetration of intermittent renewables on the grid.”

Herbert also detailed the safety features of the X-Energy SMRs.

Energy Northwest is a Washington state public power joint operating agency. Energy Northwest comprises 28 public power member utilities, serving more than 1.5 million customers.

Douglas County PUD Hydrogen Project

Meanwhile, Douglas County PUD’s Vibbert provided details on the PUD’s green hydrogen project.

Earlier this year, the PUD said that it was moving ahead with the second phase of its green hydrogen project.

Specifically, Douglas County PUD Commissioners Ronald Skagen, Aaron Viebrock and Molly Simpson recently approved the purchase of a second 5-megawatt electrolyzer. Delivery of the second electrolyzer is expected to take 24 months.

The pilot project will provide flexibility to Douglas PUD operations at its Wells Hydroelectric Project.

Generation requests can be sent to the hydrogen electrolyzer to reduce the mechanical adjustments necessary at the Wells Hydroelectric Project to balance the grid. This will reduce the maintenance necessary on the turbine units and associated equipment.

Vibbert noted that the hydrogen project is being designed so that it can be scaled up to approximately 100 megawatts.

The hydrogen will also be sold for industrial purposes and as transportation fuel, Vibbert said.

She said that the PUD anticipates production to start at the hydrogen facility in June 2024.

APPA Emphasizes Need to Streamline and Reform Hydropower Licensing Process

September 25, 2023

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
September 25, 2023

The American Public Power Association on Sept. 19 underscored the need to streamline and reform the licensing process for hydropower projects.

Desmarie Waterhouse, Senior Vice President of Advocacy and Communications & General Counsel at APPA, outlined APPA’s positions on hydropower in a Statement for the Record submitted for a hearing held by the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy, Climate, and Grid Security.

In the statement, Waterhouse also noted APPA’s strong support for legislation sponsored by Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., who is Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

The legislation is H.R. 4045, the Hydropower Clean Energy Future Act, which would confirm that hydropower is an essential renewable energy resource and reform the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission‘s licensing process to protect existing hydropower resources and encourage the development of small and next-generation projects.

There is significant potential for new hydropower to be generated at non-powered dams throughout the country and to increase output at existing hydropower facilities, Waterhouse said in the Statement for the Record. “But there are excessive barriers to tapping this potential.”

FERC is the primary federal agency responsible for the licensing and relicensing of such non-federal hydroelectric projects, “but the process can be lengthy, difficult, costly, and uncertain for applicants,” Waterhouse said.

Under the Federal Power Act, FERC must establish requirements in conjunction with the license that give “equal consideration” to not only power needs, but also Endangered Species Act requirements, water quality issues, marine navigation, and other public-interest concerns.

”FERC must carefully evaluate many aspects of a hydropower project, but at the same time, state and federal agencies can impose ‘mandatory conditions’ that FERC cannot balance or modify in the public interest,” Waterhouse said.

“While it is appropriate to consider a broad array of factors, this process must be streamlined and reformed. Critical new additions to existing hydropower facilities are languishing under bureaucratic and often contradictory processes that can span a decade or more or which simply become too costly,” she said.

“The byzantine licensing and permitting processes are also a significant impediment to simply maintaining existing hydropower capacity.”

Between now and 2030, 281 facilities representing nearly 14 gigawatts of hydropower generation and pumped storage capacity (roughly 30 percent of FERC hydropower licenses) are up for relicensing.

“We simply cannot afford to lose existing hydropower capacity without threatening to miss emission reduction goals and grid resiliency,” Waterhouse wrote.

APPA commended McMorris Rodgers’ recognition of the importance of hydropower and her efforts to protect and expand its use in her bill, H.R. 4045, the Hydropower Clean Energy Future Act.

The bill would establish a sense of Congress that hydropower “is a renewable resource for purposes of all Federal Programs and is an essential source of energy in the United States,” ensure any “mandatory conditions” are directly relevant to the project, and designate FERC as the lead agency for purposes of National Environmental Policy Act review with respect to all federal authorizations required for licensing.

Federal Power Marketing Administrations

The Statement for the Record also addressed the key role that federal hydropower and federal Power Marketing Administrations play as “critical, though often overlooked, elements of the nation’s power supply.”

“APPA supports the continued existence and federal ownership of the PMAs and the sale of federally generated hydropower at cost-based rates,” wrote Waterhouse.

“APPA strongly opposes any efforts to disproportionately assign costs to federal hydropower users for which they receive no additional benefit,” Waterhouse said.

In the statement, APPA highlighted a May 2023 letter from the four PMA administrators to Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works Michael Connor regarding Corps policies and practices that are impacting the economic viability of federal hydropower and are leading to permanent reductions in generation capability.

APPA also submitted a policy resolution approved by APPA’s membership, “In Support of Hydropower, the Federal Columbia River Power System, and Opposing Breach of the Lower Snake River Dams.”

Details from Hearing

Witnesses at the hearing on Sept. 20 were Terry Turpin, Director of the Office of Energy Projects, FERC, John Hairston, Administrator, Bonneville Power Administration, Thomas Smith, Chief of Operations and Regulatory Division, Army Corps of Engineers and Matt Lee-Ashley, Chief of Staff, Council on Environmental Quality.

Subcommittee members unanimously said that they supported hydropower and highlighted its benefits to grid reliability.

But Democrats and Republicans split when discussing the specific provisions of H.R. 4045.

Republicans said the legislation is urgently needed to reform and streamline the licensing/relicensing process, noting that nearly half of the non-federal U.S. hydropower fleet will be up for relicensing by 2035 and citing the fact that only three percent of the nation’s 90,000 dams provide hydropower.

Democrats said that H.R. 4045 would create significant exemptions that bypass some of the most important environmental laws.

Democrats, including Subcommittee Ranking Member Diana DeGette, D-Colo., expressed concern with certain provisions of the bill including its exemption of projects 40 megawatts or less from certain licensing and environmental reviews from the previous exemption level of 10 megawatts.

FERC’s Turpin said that about 80% of the existing dams regulated by FERC are 40 megawatts or less.

Departments Of Energy, Interior Release Plan Outlining Path to Connect Offshore Wind to Grid

September 25, 2023

by APPA News
September 25, 2023

The Department of Energy and the Department of the Interior recently released a plan outlining the actions they say are needed to connect the first generation of Atlantic offshore wind projects to the electric grid, as well as to increase transmission resources over the next several decades.

An Action Plan for Offshore Wind Transmission Development in the U.S. Atlantic Region, which was developed by DOE’s Grid Deployment and Wind Energy Technologies Offices and DOI’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, aims to coordinate planning in order to speed up timelines and lower project costs, while strengthening grid reliability and resilience.

Over the mid- to long-term, increased intra-regional coordination, shared transmission lines, and an offshore network of high voltage direct current interlinks can more efficiently bring offshore energy onshore, the DOE said.

At the same time, the DOE also announced the launch of the Tribal Nation Technical Assistance Program for Offshore Wind Transmission, which offers education and training resources to support engagement in offshore wind planning and was created in direct response to tribal input.

The recommendation include:

Together, the action plan and the tribal assistance program will advance equitable and sustainable offshore wind energy development, domestic manufacturing, and grid integration, as part of broader efforts across the Biden-Harris administration to deploy 30 gigawatts of offshore wind in the United States by 2030, unlocking a pathway to 110 GW or more by 2050, the DOE said.

Bureau of Land Management Approves Geothermal Project in Utah

September 25, 2023

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
September 25, 2023

The Bureau of Land Management recently approved the Rodatherm Geothermal Test Bed project, which would assess the commercial viability of an advanced geothermal electricity generation facility on BLM-managed lands in Beaver and Millard counties, Utah.

Successful testing has the potential to support future commercial development, continuing the BLM’s commitment to clean energy development on our nation’s public lands.

The project is expected to operate for approximately 12 months and will involve the development of two well pads, drilling of five wells, testing of two closed geothermal loops, and construction of necessary access roads. The project approval comes along with a Finding of No Significant Impact, a step in the environmental review process. 

The decision record, Finding of No Significant Impact, and the environmental assessment may be found on BLM’s ePlanning website: https://eplanning.blm.gov/eplanning-ui/project/2022615/510.

Geothermal was the first type of renewable energy that the BLM approved for production on public lands, with the first project approved in 1978.

Today there are 48 operating power plants developing geothermal energy from BLM-managed lands, with a combined total of more than 2.5 gigawatts of generation capacity. Learn more at the BLM’s Geothermal Energy page.