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DOE Plans to Invest Up to $1 Billion to Support Clean Hydrogen Hubs

July 7, 2023

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
July 7, 2023

The Department of Energy recently released a Notice of Intent to invest up to $1 billion in a demand-side initiative to support its regional clean hydrogen hub program.

The Regional Clean Hydrogen Hubs initiative is funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and aims to support the establishment of a national clean hydrogen network to help reduce emissions from energy-intensive sectors, such as industrial and chemical processes and heavy-duty transportation.

The Notice of Intent includes a Request for Information on the program’s design that the DOE said it intends to use to refine and validate its approach to providing demand-side support for the hubs to enter the clean hydrogen market.

A demand-side initiative is critical to ensuring the early commercial viability of a clean hydrogen hub because demand formation for a new energy source typically lags creation of reliable supply, the DOE said.

The demand-side initiative aims to support the growth and sustainability of clean hydrogen hubs by providing revenue certainty that hydrogen producers require to attract private sector investment, the DOE said. It said that the program also aims to help meet the needs of end-users who often prefer the flexibility to purchase hydrogen on shorter-term contracts and require confidence in the long-term availability of clean hydrogen before making critical, long-term investments.

Potential demand-side mechanisms could include one or more design factors such as pay-for-delivery contracts, offtake backstops, feasibility funding to support analysis by offtakers, or other measures that strengthen demand for clean hydrogen and increase revenue certainty for regional clean hydrogen hubs, the DOE said in the NOI.

The demand-side support mechanism should provide multi-year support for clean hydrogen produced by competitively selected projects affiliated with regional clean hydrogen hubs and help diverse entities take advantage of the potential of clean hydrogen, including non-profits, local government, and Tribes, the DOE said.

The White House, later this year, plans to announce the selection of six to 10 regional clean hydrogen hubs that will receive a total of up to $7 billion in federal funding.

Stakeholders all across the country have formed consortiums to bid for the clean hydrogen hub funding, including the Northeast, Southeast, Southwest, and Midwest.

Florida’s Lakeland Electric Pursues Microgrid Pilot Project

July 7, 2023

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
July 7, 2023

Florida public power utility Lakeland Electric is partnering with Block Energy in pursuing a pilot microgrid project, which was detailed by Cindy Clemmons, Manager of Legislative and Regulatory Relations at Lakeland Electric, in a presentation on June 30.

Joining Clemmons at the meeting held by the Lakeland, Fla., Utility Committee were several officials from Block Energy and Michael Beckham, Lakeland Electric’s General Manager.

The microgrid pilot project would include battery storage and solar panels.

In providing background on the project, Clemmons noted that she has been conducting research on available federal incentives over the past two years.

“What I quickly learned is that the large grants that we could get our hands on” involved working with a partner. She identified one grant in particular offered by the Department of Energy through its Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships (GRIP) Program.

Then, through conversations with energy industry contacts, Clemmons was introduced to Block Energy. She noted that Block Energy is known “for being very focused on the utility and wanting to do business models and projects that benefit the utility. That appealed to us,” she said, noting that the company strives to help utilities stay relevant.

“We formed a consortium with them and went out for the GRIP grant,” Clemmons said. The hope is that Lakeland Electric and Block Energy will hear back on a decision on their grant application in September, she noted.

A big positive related to the project is the fact that “we will get tax credits,” Clemmons noted, through the Inflation Reduction Act. “We will get almost thirty percent back on this project just through tax credits.” The tax credits element “is really going to make this project viable,” she said.

In her presentation, Clemmons detailed a number of other benefits that will flow from the project. She noted, for example, that the microgrid project will have a 100% off-peak design and will be designed so as not to add capacity constraints.

Another positive of the project is that it calls for a utility ownership model. “Everything is controllable by the utility, and we don’t even have to change our rate. It’s a residential rate, so that makes it easier,” Clemmons said.

The utility ownership approach “allows us to be experts. It allows us to dip our toe into what a microgrid is and how it runs.” Another benefit that could flow from utility ownership involves staff development. “There are staff members that we could train, and they become apprentices and learn how to manage a microgrid,” Clemmons said.

At a later point, she said that the projected cost for the project is $2.75 million, which would cover 50 homes participating in the pilot. If the GRIP grant is approved, the project could be expanded to one hundred homes.

“We are covering this in our 2024 budget,” she said, with half coming from production capital and the other half coming from capital for energy delivery.

“I’m still looking for federal funding opportunities,” Clemmons noted, mentioning, in particular, low interest to no interest loans that are forgivable.

“There is no incremental impact to the ratepayers,” she said.  

In terms of the project’s timeline, the first draft of a contract between Lakeland Electric and Block Energy for the two-year microgrid pilot project is under review and “we will bring that to you for approval in the next couple months – we’re thinking either September or October,” she told the committee. If that is approved by the committee, pilot construction would begin in the second quarter of 2024.

Block Energy will install and operate and maintain the microgrid the first two years and then, once the contract expires, Lakeland Electric will take over O&M of the project.

Beckham noted that he and Clemmons were joined by City of Lakeland officials in attending the American Public Power Association’s 2023 National Conference in Seattle, Washington, “and heard quite a bit about microgrids.”

At APPA’s National Conference, Clemmons was awarded the Harold Kramer-John Preston Personal Service Award. This award is given to individuals who have shown outstanding service to APPA.

Kansas City BPU Sees Improved Customer Satisfaction, Boost to Digitalization with Texting

July 7, 2023

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
July 7, 2023

The Kansas City Board of Public Utilities (BPU) has discovered that texting can help it reach its digitalization goals, as well as improve employee efficiency and customer satisfaction.

This Kansas public power utility first embraced texting in 2021 when it began using TextPower to help improve and streamline several functions at the utility.

“Our strategy is to not only increase our customer engagement with our electric and water customers, but also the reliability of our grid, our IT applications, and employee communications in general,” Jerry Sullivan, Kansas City BPU’s Chief Information Officer said. “This means our goals are to reduce calls to the call center, reduce the frustration of disconnects, improve reliability, and reduce overall costs to run our operations, which means lower costs for our customers.”

In 2011 and 2012, Kansas City BPU became an early adopter of advanced metering infrastructure.  In the coming months, Kansas City BPU plans to add “full service move in, move out, and transfer service” to its customer self-service portal.  Their goal is to reduce the time and effort involved for service requests, add real time kiosk payments expediting turn-ons and payment processing, and improve interactive voice response call flow menus. 

In 2021, Kansas City BPU began a comprehensive project covering more than 30 use cases to meet the goals of reliability, safety, and customer experience. They started texting to send important employee safety notices and IT application outages. Prior to using TextPower, Kansas City BPU would send alerts about information technology outages via email, however, that often meant a message was not seen for hours, particularly if the outage occurred during off hours creating longer lags in addressing and fixing technology issues.

With texting, an employee can receive and read a text message during the night and often solve a problem such as resetting a server or addressing a memory overload issue quickly. “In the past, IT outages that occurred in off hours lasted four or five hours on average,” Sullivan said. “Now, the average response time is down to 25 or 30 minutes.”

Kansas City BPU also started using TextPower to alert employees about electric or water outages affecting industrial, residential and commercial customers.

Kansas City is home to several large industrial companies. For those customers, loss of electric power can result in thousands of dollars in lost revenues. If an outage affecting an industrial facility occurs, “we want to know immediately so we can put all our resources to work to solve the problem,” Sullivan said. “Alerting staff via text about an industrial outage helps improve customer relations by ensuring the utility staff is aware and ready to respond to the customers’ needs,” he said.

While it began the rollout of TextPower internally, Kansas City BPU was also bringing staff up to speed on the capabilities of its advanced metering infrastructure and preparing for the integration of texting with its other operating systems, such as outage management.

Enabling texting for internal operations provided an environment that was more easily tested, monitored and better prepared the utility for its ultimate goal, texting customers about outages. “We proved out the functionality and value proposition of the software before implementing more broadly,” Sullivan said.

Kansas City BPU began using TextPower to send notices to staff internally in August 2022 and by December had expanded its use of texting externally when it began sending customers billing notices via texts.

“Externally, we started with customer notifications because our focus groups and executives analyzed and determined that through informing customers of their billing payments or related notifications via text, would improve the customer experience while also reducing calls to the call center, improving our collections, and decreasing cut-offs for non-payment,” Sullivan said.

The utility also sends customers similar notices regarding arranged payments and can text customers confirmation that their payment has been received or to tell them that their payment is overdue. And, if it comes to it, the utility can provide customers with warnings that they are eligible to be disconnected or that they are scheduled for disconnection.

Before switching to TextPower to send billing notifications, Kansas City BPU would often receive volumes of phone calls from customers asking when their bill was due or if the utility had received their payment or if they were still on the list to have their power cut off. “That has gone away,” said Sullivan. By switching to TextPower to send billing notifications, customers know immediately when their payment has been received and they know whether or not their services will be disconnected for nonpayment.

Since it began texting billing notifications, the utility has seen an increase in prompt payments as seen in the steep declines – ranging from about 75 percent to 50 percent –in the number of billing notices it has had to send to customers. There has also been “a dramatic decrease in disconnects,” of nearly 34 percent monthly on average for the first four months of the year, said Sullivan.

There could be a lot of reasons why disconnects have dropped, Sullivan said, including lower bills, low-income assistance monies still available from the winter, leaving customers with a balance, and, certainly, he said, texting. “As a more direct linkage, TextPower billing and payment alerts have contributed to a significant decrease in calls.”

Kansas City BPU has a 28 percent reduction in call center calls, Sullivan said. “We have also seen a reduction in the average speed that operators can handle calls of about 50 percent, from three minutes to two minutes,” he said.

Since its rollout of billing notifications in the first quarter, Kansas City BPU has begun the rollout of texting for outage management. As with billing notifications, Sullivan anticipates a dramatic impact on the utility’s call center. “Customers will know that we know they are out, so they don’t have to call.”

Sullivan and his team prepared a detailed strategy for the rollout of outage notifications. The utility is marketing both use-cases – customer billing and outage alerts – together as a way of getting more customer buy-in regarding the potential benefits customers will see with text alerts.

Kansas City BPU used a variety of platforms to make customers aware of the availability of text notifications, including printing notices on bills and bill envelopes, interactive voice response messages, notices on the utility’s website, as well as notices on the utility’s Facebook and Twitter accounts. And, finally, Kansas City BPU used a direct mail campaign, press releases, and notices in BPU Connection, the utility’s newsletter.

The utility’s strategy also included platforms to avoid email and robocalls. They often generate a lot of calls and questions from customers regarding potential fraud, Sullivan said, adding, “People don’t read emails, and many people are afraid that robocalls are scams.”

Those views are backed by industry data. Many people now routinely ignore phone calls if they do not recognize the caller, but “less than 5 percent of text messages are spam, so customers are less likely to ignore them,” Mark Nielsen, executive chairman and co-founder of TextPower, said. “On the other hand, 98 percent of text messages are opened and 95 percent are read within three minutes.”

Social media would seem to be a good tool for customer engagement, but according to industry information, only 16 percent of followers are likely to see a post on social media and only 30 percent of followers on Twitter are likely to see a tweet. “It is hard to beat texting,” Nielsen said. “There is no other form of communication that comes close to the reach and immediacy of texting.”

The next step for Kansas City BPU, Sullivan said, will be sending customers service restoration notifications. “Outage notifications are good but, combined with restoration notifications, they will be a powerful combination.” For example, he said, a restoration notification could, in some cases, let customers know their service is back on, so they don’t need to plan to eat out instead of cooking at home.

Texting, in Sullivan’s words, has enabled Kansas City BPU to “empower employees and customers with timely and actionable information,” he said, adding, “TextPower is one of the most beneficial things we’ve ever done.”

For more information about TextPower, visit the company’s website.

Bureau Of Ocean Energy Management Approves Offshore Wind Project in New Jersey

July 7, 2023

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
July 7, 2023

The Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management recently approved the 1,100-megawatt Ocean Wind 1 project off the New Jersey coast.

The announcement is the third commercial-scale, offshore wind energy project in the United States approved by the BOEM, joining the Vineyard Wind project offshore Massachusetts and the South Fork Wind project offshore of Rhode Island and New York, which are both under construction.

The Ocean Wind project, about 13 nautical miles southeast of Atlantic City, was originally developed by New Jersey’s Public Service Enterprise Group and Danish multinational company Orsted, which became the sole owner of the project in January 2023 when it bought out PSEG’s 25 percent stake.

The developers were selected for the project through a New Jersey Board of Public Utilities solicitation in June 2019.

The wind project calls for deployment of up to 98 wind turbines, up to three offshore substations, inter-array cables linking the individual wind turbines to the offshore substations, and substation interconnector cables linking the substations to each other.

The project also calls for development of up to three offshore export cables, installed in two export cable route corridors, to connect to onshore export cable systems and two onshore substations with connections to New Jersey’s electrical grid at BL England and Oyster Creek. The BL England export cable route corridor will make landfall in Ocean City, New Jersey. The Oyster Creek export cable route corridor will make landfall in Lacey Township, New Jersey.

Onshore construction work for the project is expected to begin by the end of 2023, with offshore construction beginning in 2024 and the project online by 2025.

Orsted plans to use GE Renewable Energy’s 12-MW Haliade-X offshore wind turbine, one of the largest in the world. General Electric says the Haliade-X stands 260 meters high with a rotor diameter of 220 meters and blade lengths of 107 meters, which enable the turbine to operate consistently through a range of wind speeds, giving the turbine a capacity factor rating of about 60 percent.

The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection approved Ocean Wind I in April 2023. The project is expected to contribute to New Jersey’s goal of having 11 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2040 as called for in the Governor’s Executive Order No. 307, issued in September 2022.

New Jersey’s Energy Master Plan calls for the state to achieve 100 percent clean energy by 2050.

California Offers $150 Million to Help Schools Switch to Zero-Emission Buses

July 7, 2023

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
July 7, 2023

California is offering $150 million to help California public school districts and charter schools put more electric and zero-emission school buses on the roads.

A collaboration between the California Air Resources Board and the California Energy Commission, the state is accepting applications through Sept. 29, 2023, and award recipients can receive up to $495,000 to replace older, fossil fuel-powered buses with zero emission options, as well as charging equipment.

This is the second year of the program, which is part of California’s efforts to replace aging buses with zero-emission technology.

Last year, 81 school districts purchased more than 300 zero-emission buses with the state’s support.

APPA Voices Concerns About EPA Proposed Rule Tied to Plant Emissions

July 5, 2023

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
July 5, 2023

The American Public Power Association has concerns about the legal basis and technical underpinnings of an Environmental Protection Agency proposed rule that would amend the National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants for Coal- and Oil-fired Electric Utility Steam Generating Units Residual Risk and Technology Review.

This regulation is known as the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, or MATS RTR.

In particular, APPA said it is concerned about the agency’s analysis of the filterable particulate matter and mercury baselines, on which the proposed limits are founded, the removal of compliance measure flexibilities, and the assumptions in EPA’s regulatory impact analysis.

“We believe EPA’s decision to affirm the robust and technically sound residual risk analysis concluded in 2020 is well supported. We also support EPA’s analysis to retain the current mercury standard for bituminous coal units and non-lignite units,” APPA said in the June 23 comments. The acid gas and organic hazardous air pollutant work practice standard should also be affirmed, as proposed, the trade group said.

APPA noted that public power utilities “continue to be dedicated to clean air in our communities and the protection of the environment. Our members have made significant investments to reduce emissions and become compliant with the suite of air regulations that EPA has promulgated over the last ten years.”

Many members “continue to pay for those environmental compliance investments through loan obligations. For these reasons, APPA members have a significant stake in the revisions proposed in this rulemaking, which will have a significant financial impact on our members.”

APPA said that despite warnings about the nation’s grid reliability, “EPA proceeded with releasing an unparalleled suite of environmental regulations impacting the power sector. Heedless of major air quality strides, these rulemakings propose costly emissions reductions that EPA projects to cause further fossil fuel retirements. The MATS RTR is part of EPA’s portfolio, directly affecting fossil generation assets that power America’s cities and municipalities. Public power entities require time and resources to pivot to EPA’s environmental policy agenda while maintaining safe, affordable, and reliable power,” the trade group said.

EPA released the proposed rule “at a time when fossil fuel-fired electric generating units are contending with significant rulemakings that will create a sizeable cumulative cost burden on the industry in a short time period, most by 2028,” APPA said.

The costs of the proposed rule should be considered as required by Section 112 of the Clean Air Act, APPA argued.

“It is crucial for EPA to evaluate the overall regulatory context. The burden of environmental compliance on municipalities and other public power entities and their customers is cumulatively affected by the compliance timelines of these concurrent rulemakings. Entities with limited resources require time to triage environmental compliance costs.”

EPA uses the MATS RTR process to justify substantial changes to the MATS rule, far beyond what Congress directed in Section 112(d)(6) of the Clean Air Act, APPA said.

“To technically justify these changes, EPA made choices to skew the filterable particulate matter and mercury baselines, which the proposed lower limits hinge,” the group said. “Next, EPA went beyond the health and technology reviews requirements by proposing to reduce the MATS rule’s compliance measure flexibilities and created technical challenges with proposed changes to monitoring provisions. Some of the proposed requirements will even increase fossil fuel emissions.”

EPA also “makes unrealistic assumptions in the proposed rule’s regulatory impact analysis that the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 will fuel a dramatic energy transition in only seven years,” APPA said.

APPA applauded EPA’s decision to “affirm the robust and technically sound residual risk analysis concluded in 2020.”

Although the technology review is a separate analysis, CAA Section 112(d)(6) statutory considerations, such as cost, must be viewed in the context of the lack of an unacceptable health risk or adverse environmental effects posed by the covered EGUs, the group said.

EPA’s benefit-cost analysis “for this regulatory proposal does not factor in any air toxics-related avoided health impacts as benefits of the proposed regulatory changes. APPA urges EPA to place more weight on the cost impacts, reliability considerations, and practical challenges this proposed rule presents.”

APPA noted that the current MATS rule protects overburdened communities from unacceptable health or environmental effects.

In the comments, the group asks EPA to take a number of steps to reconsider and revise its approach in the proposed rule.

Among other things, APPA urged EPA to correct the flawed fPM baseline to accurately account for current EGU emissions and fPM control device capabilities and retain many of the monitoring compliance options.

It also asked for “consideration of public power entities as a unique set of generators with special cost sensitivities, human resource limitations, financing, project timing, and reliability characteristics.”

Northeast Grid Operators Support Proposal by States to Enhance Transmission Planning

July 4, 2023

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
July 4, 2023

ISO New England, the PJM Interconnection, and the New York Independent System Operator have voiced support for a proposal from eight Northeast states to develop a new approach to the development of interregional transmission coordination.

Earlier this month, officials from the six New England states as well as New York and New Jersey asked for help from the Department of Energy to form a Northeast States Collaborative on Interregional Transmission.

The officials said the proposed partnership between DOE, the states, and the three affected regional transmission organizations could help “strengthen our power grid, drive down consumer costs, and accelerate the deployment of clean energy,” particularly offshore wind.

In a response, the three RTOs said they agreed they have a key part to play. Leaders of the RTOs sent a letter to Maria Robinson, Director of the DOE’s Grid Deployment Office on June 27.

The letter notes the three RTOs already share information and cooperate extensively around system planning studies and projects with cross-border impact.

“Offshore wind development is a key component of the larger reviews of interregional transfer capability across the Eastern Interconnection,” the executives wrote. “Accordingly, the NYISO, PJM, and ISO New England welcome the opportunity to leverage the expertise, tools, and processes we have in place to serve the work of a Northeast States Collaborative.”

JEA, Gainesville Regional Utilities, Others Begin Active Energy Trading on Platform

July 3, 2023

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
July 3, 2023

The Southeast Energy Exchange Market on June 28 said that Duke Energy Florida, JEA, Tampa Electric Company, and Gainesville Regional Utilities have initiated active energy trading, which now allows them to buy and sell power using the SEEM platform.

SEEM launched operations supporting enhanced energy trading in November 2022.

Duke Energy Florida, JEA and Tampa Electric Company joined as members of SEEM effective Jan. 1, 2023.

Gainesville Regional Utilities will be a non-member participant. JEA and Gainesville Regional Utilities are Florida public power utilities; Duke Energy Florida and Tampa Electric are investor-owned utilities.

Members have a seat on the SEEM Board and related committees and pay all operational, audit, administrative and legal expenses, which allows non-members to participate in SEEM at no cost.

During the first seven months of operation there have been more than 45,000 transactions representing more than 1 terawatt of power transacted across all Participants including transactions in 73% of all hours since market launch, SEEM said. 

The SEEM platform facilitates automated, sub-hourly trading, allowing participants to buy and sell power close to the time the energy is consumed, utilizing available unreserved transmission. Participation in SEEM is open to any entity that meets the qualifying requirements set forth in the SEEM Agreement.

The SEEM footprint includes 23 entities in parts of 12 states with more than 180,000 MW (summer capacity; winter capacity is nearly 200,000 MWs) across two time zones.

EPA Launches $7 Billion Grant Competition to Fund Residential Solar Programs

June 30, 2023

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
June 30, 2023

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on June 28 launched a $7 billion grant competition to increase access to solar energy for low-income households and disadvantaged communities.

The Solar for All competition, which was created by the Inflation Reduction Act’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, “will expand the number of low-income and disadvantaged communities primed for residential solar investment by awarding up to 60 grants to states, territories, Tribal governments, municipalities, and eligible nonprofits to create and expand low-income solar programs that provide financing and technical assistance, such as workforce development, to enable low-income and disadvantaged communities to deploy and benefit from residential solar,” EPA said.

The new grant competition will provide funds to expand existing low-income solar programs as well as develop and implement new Solar for All programs nationwide.

EPA said that Solar for All programs ensure low-income households have equitable access to residential rooftop and residential community solar power, “often by providing financial support and incentives to communities that were previously locked out of investments. In addition, these programs guarantee low-income households receive the benefits of distributed solar including household savings, community ownership, energy resiliency, and other benefits.”

The deadline to apply to the competitive grant competition is September 26, 2023. 

Eligible applicants to Solar for All include states, territories, Tribal governments, municipalities, and eligible nonprofit recipients. Coalitions, led by an eligible lead applicant, are also eligible to apply to the competition.

Additional detail on eligibility can be found in Section III of the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO). 

EPA intends to make up to 60 awards under this competition with three award options for applicants.

These award options will include:

EPA anticipates issuing awards of varying amounts, calibrated to the number of households the applicant intends the program to serve.

Applicants for all three award options can apply for a small-sized program ($25 – $100 million), a medium-sized program ($100 – $250 million), or a large-sized program ($250 – $400 million).

Applicants to Solar for All can submit separate applications to one or multiple of the three options. The final quantity of awards will be determined by the number and quality of the applications as well as the optimal combination of awards across the three award options to achieve maximum geographic coverage and benefits of the Solar for All competition.

All applicants are required to submit a Notice of Intent to apply.

The deadline for the NOI differs by applicant type and are:

EPA’s Solar for All competition will host an informational webinar to provide information on the Solar for All grant competition and the application process on July 12, 2023, 1:00pm – 3:00pm ET (Register Here). The webinar will be recorded and posted on EPA’s GGRF webpage.

Tools and resources for prospective grantees, including webinar links and templates, can be found on EPA’s GGRF webpage.

Florida Municipal Power Agency Enters Agreements to Purchase Three Power Plants

June 29, 2023

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
June 29, 2023

The Florida Municipal Power Agency has entered into agreements to acquire three power plants, comprising approximately 339 megawatts of natural gas-fired combined cycle generation in central Florida, FMPA said on June 29.

The acquisitions include Orlando Cogeneration (120 MW), Orlando Mulberry (115 MW) and Orange Cogeneration (104 MW).

FMPA is a wholesale power agency owned by municipal electric utilities in Florida.

The acquisitions are expected to close in 2024 and 2025, following the expiration of each facility’s current long-term power purchase contracts.

“We are extremely pleased to announce the entry into purchase agreements for these facilities that will help FMPA further its mission of providing low-cost, reliable, and clean power,” said Jacob Williams, FMPA’s General Manager and CEO.

“Completing the acquisition of these high performing plants will represent a significant step toward meeting our growing power needs for the next 15 years. We are looking forward to working with teams at these three facilities, that have operated so well for over 25 years each,” he said.

Howard McKinnon, FMPA Executive Committee Chairman added: “We are very excited that we have reached agreement for the facilities and the many benefits they will bring to our members. These plants are the most economical alternative for adding low-cost power resources as FMPA’s Stanton coal unit resources ramp down in 2025.”

FMPA is acquiring the generation facilities from organizations whose owners include Northern Star Generation LLC, as well as Atlantic Power & Utilities, LP.

In 2026, following the expected completion of the three acquisitions, FMPA will control 2,100 MW of generation resources to support the All-Requirements Project participating utilities’ needs. 

The All-Requirements Project serves all the power needs of 13 cities from a variety of power generating units.