Sonoma Clean Power Program Helps Commercial Customers Navigate Storage Options
June 23, 2020
California community choice aggregator Sonoma Clean Power (SCP) has developed a program under which commercial customers can receive a complimentary backup energy audit.
SCP said the audit can help these customers to answer the following questions:
* Whether battery storage is financially feasible;
* How much storage would be needed to power critical electrical loads during a power shutoff; and
* How storage could be integrated into existing operations to benefit their business throughout the year.
The CCA said that as investor-owned utility Pacific Gas & Electric’s Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) events become regular occurrences for communities in California, “and as natural disasters such as wildfires intensify, having a reliable source of backup power has become a necessity for nearly every business.”
That is why SCP developed the Energy Resiliency Audit Program (ERAP).
ERAP will help businesses have a better understanding of their backup energy options, including more sustainable options such as battery storage. Battery-stored energy is cleaner, safer, and quieter to use than gas powered generators, and can also help lower a site’s overall electric costs.
SCP has partnered with the Center for Sustainable Energy, a nonprofit energy program administration and advisory services organization, to connect local businesses with energy experts and engineers who will evaluate businesses’ operations and advise the best steps to take moving forward.
An ERAP audit will provide the information needed to implement a solution to improve resiliency during PSPS events, develop a cost-saving strategy which may lower electricity bills, and estimate the cost of installing commercial battery storage.
Small and medium commercial customers, essential businesses, and businesses that were impacted by prior PSPS events are all eligible to participate in the program for free.
SMUD Utilizes Goats To Help With Fire Risk Reduction
June 23, 2020
by Taelor Bentley
APPA News
Posted June 23, 2020
For the first time, California public power utility SMUD has found an innovative ally in its fire risk reduction efforts – goats.
SMUD has contracted with a company to supply nearly 400 goats that are reducing vegetation along its transmission line corridors in Sacramento County. The goats provide a safe and environmentally sustainable service while also reducing costs and improving safety in SMUD’s community.
Goat have four stomachs, making it easy for them to consume and digest tough roughage and brush in hard-to-reach terrain. The goats can consume 2-3 acres of vegetation a day before they are moved to a new location.
SMUD has a Right of Way Stewardship Accreditation that requires ongoing reaccreditation, environmental stewardship goals, and operational targets that will all benefit from using Integrated Vegetation Management across its system. Utilizing livestock is one of many tools that are executed to provide safe, reliable, and affordable energy to SMUD’s communities.
As part of the utility’s ongoing maintenance (vegetation management work), the goats will move around SMUD’s service territory to reduce vegetation, create fuel breaks and mitigate potential fire risk. SMUD’s territory is mainly urban and considered lower risk, however, it does have transmission lines through open space and rural areas that require weed abatement.
The goats are carefully guarded by two Anatolian Shepherds named Heidi and Ricki. According to the goat’s owners, Capra Environmental Services Corp., benefits of using goats for vegetation management include preserving the integrity of the land and wildlife on it, reducing the use of herbicides, natural fertilization of land, reducing safety risk from humans and machines having to reach dangerous terrain, and community enjoyment.
SMUD will continue to use and explore additional opportunities for livestock grazing on its system. Going forward, site grazing is expected to start in the spring.
To learn more about SMUD’s wildfire mitigation plan, visit SMUD.org/WildfireSafety.
Public Power Utilities Urged To Reach Out To Lawmakers In Support Of Financial Aid Bill
June 22, 2020
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
Posted June 22, 2020
The American Public Power Association is urging its member utilities to reach out to their congressional delegation this week in support of legislation that would provide direct COVID-19 pandemic-related aid for public power utilities.
Past legislation has provided aid that will help public power at the margins, such as Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) funding increases to help customers pay their bills, Coronavirus Relief Funds to state and local governments, and assistance in paying unemployment benefits for laid off workers.
But APPA now estimates that public power utilities will lose up to $5 billion in revenue due to pandemic-related declines in load and customer arrearages.
APPA on June 22 urged its member utilities to take steps to educate lawmakers on the issue and to ask the lawmakers to join in signing a letter in support of public power being circulated by House Energy and Commerce Committee member Doris Matsui, D-Calif.
The due date for signing onto the letter is Friday, June 26, 2020.
The letter invites House members to join Matsui in encouraging House leadership to include assistance to public power providers in any upcoming coronavirus relief package.
Matsui noted that in previous coronavirus relief bills, the public power sector “has been uniquely left out of certain programs that could provide financial assistance during this hardship, including the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and the employer payroll tax credit for qualified family leave wages.”
As an essential service, public power utilities “continue to provide electricity to customers’ homes, enabling many of us to continue working from home or enabling children to proceed with at-home learning opportunities,” Matsui said in the letter. “Moreover, most public power utilities instituted voluntary moratoriums on shutoffs for nonpayment soon after the pandemic struck, recognizing that no one should be without power during this period of unique hardship.”
Public power “is essential, but has not been treated so by previous coronavirus relief measures. Please join me in urging House Leadership to include direct assistance to public power in any future relief bill. Doing so will ensure that public power can remain solvent and prioritize reliability and affordability in the years to come,” Matsui said.
APPA recently urged Congress to provide direct aid to public power utilities
In a June 16 Statement for the Record submitted for a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing that examined the impacts of the pandemic on the energy industry, APPA said that it is vital that Congress provide direct aid to community-owned utilities.
APPA also submitted a Statement for the Record for the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy June 16 hearing on COVID-19’s impact on the energy sector in which APPA discussed the impact of COVID-19 on public power utilities and the need for direct assistance for public power.
Omaha Public Power District Wins Grant For Its First Utility Scale Storage Project
June 22, 2020
by Peter Maloney
APPA News
Posted June 22, 2020
The Omaha Public Power District (OPPD) has won a $600,000 grant to fund a pilot project that would be the first utility scale battery energy storage device on the utility’s system.
The grant, from the Nebraska Environmental Trust, included matching funds from OPPD. Together, those funds are being used to build an approximately 1 megawatt (MW) battery at an OPPD substation.
The aim of the pilot project is to test how battery storage can be integrated into OPPD’s grid to provide load relief and voltage support at the substation level.
“This is a very big deal and the grant helps us accelerate our utility scale storage efforts,” Michal Lisowyj, alternative energy specialist at OPPD, said in an article in The Wire, OPPD’s newsletter. “We want to understand how various use cases and recurring cycling degrades the battery, much like a cell phone battery that doesn’t hold the same charge over time.”
OPPD said the battery would be small enough to fit in a storage container, enabling the public power utility to perform research that could be beneficial for its operations and customers, as well as for other utilities in Nebraska.
In addition, OPPD says the research gleaned in the pilot project will help it understand the procurement, construction, and operations of small energy-storage applications and how to scale for potential future applications.
“Given changes to OPPD’s generation mix – adding more variable renewable resources and retiring conventional resources – and grid operations, we see energy storage as a valuable technology in the future,” Courtney Kennedy, manager of alternative energy programs at OPPD, said via email.
“As costs come down, policies are being developed, and technology is evolving. We see now as the right time to test out the technology on a smaller scale to understand its opportunities and challenges to integrating it in our operations.”
For the past 10 years, OPPD has been growing its renewable energy portfolio, which has been primarily wind generation with smaller amounts of landfill gas, community solar, and hydroelectric power.
The public power utility is in the process of adding between 400 MW and 600 MW of solar power and natural gas backup to meet load growth and maintain system resiliency.
OPPD has set of goal of having net zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 and is studying several initiatives to meet that target.
Nebraska Environmental Trust is funded by Nebraska Lottery proceeds. The organization says it has awarded more than $320 million in conservation projects in the state since 1994.
NPPD solar project tied to storage
Another public power utility, Nebraska Public Power District, has also been pursuing energy storage.
In 2019, the City Council for Norfolk, Neb., approved an agreement for the state’s largest community solar project with NPPD that will be tied to a battery energy storage system (BESS) demonstration project expected to be in operation by mid-2020.
APPA storage tracker
The American Public Power Association recently launched a Public Power Energy Tracker, which is a resource for association members that summarizes energy storage projects undertaken by members that are currently online.
The tracker is available here.
Report Recommends West Coast Corridor of Electric Truck Charging Stations
June 22, 2020
by Peter Maloney
APPA News
Posted June 22, 2020
A group representing over a dozen West Coast utilities has released a report that recommends adding electric vehicle charging stations for freight haulers and delivery trucks along the interstate corridor running from Canada to Mexico.
The West Coast Clean Transit Corridor Initiative proposes a phased approach to installing charging stations along the Interstate-5 corridor.
The first phase calls for 27 charging sites along the 1,300-mile length of I-5 at 50-mile intervals for medium-duty electric vehicles, such as delivery vans, by 2025. Then, 14 of the 27 charging sites would be expanded to accommodate charging for electric big rigs by 2030. Of the 27 proposed sites, 16 are in California, five are in Oregon and six are in Washington.
The report proposes an additional 41 sites on other highways that connect to I-5. Those highways are Interstates 8, 10, 80, 210 and 710 and state routes 60 and 99 in California, I-84 in Oregon, and I-90 in Washington.
In the report’s scenario, each charging station would be equipped with up to 10, 350-kilowatt (kW) charging ports for a total peak load of 3.5 megawatts (MW). Each of the combined medium-heavy duty charging stations would be equipped with up to an additional 10, 2 MW charging ports for a maximum 23.5 MW peak load. The co-location approach would minimize the need for additional grid upgrades, reduce permit processing times, and minimize costs, the report said.
Although heavy-duty trucks account for only 5% of the vehicles on U.S. roads, they contribute 23% of all transportation emissions, the report said. In California, the transportation sector accounts for nearly 80% of the state’s air pollution and more than 40% of all greenhouse gas emissions, and Washington and Oregon face “similar environmental challenges” with transportation being the largest contributor to air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions in those states as well, according to the report.
By 2030, medium and heavy-duty electric trucks could make up over 8% of all trucks on the road in California, Oregon, and Washington, the report said.
“Electrifying transportation is a key component to reaching our goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2040,” Bill Boyce, manager of electric transportation at Sacramento Municipal Utility District, one of the report’s sponsors, said in a statement.
The report was commissioned by three public power utilities; Los Angeles Department of Water & Power, Sacramento Municipal Utility District, and Seattle City Light, two agencies: Northern California Power Agency and Southern California Public Power Authority, and six investor-owned utilities: Pacific Gas and Electric, Pacific Power, Portland General Electric, Puget Sound Energy, San Diego Gas & Electric, and Southern California Edison.
The report was completed by engineering firm HDR with analysis by CALSTART, S Curve Strategies, and Ross Strategic.
Several California utilities already have programs that support the adoption of electric trucks, but more support would be needed to reach electrification levels identified in the study and to meet state climate goals, the report said. The report recommends expanding state, federal or private programs that provide funding for electrification that could accelerate electric truck adoption.
The report does not give a total cost for implementing its recommendations, saying that such costs “can be challenging to predict given the numerous variables,” such as equipment selection, site location, distance from a utility interconnection, electric circuit capacity, permits, and labor costs. Total costs would have to be determined by individual assessments with in-person site visits on a site-by-site basis, the report said.
The report acknowledged that the proposed electric truck charging sites could take “significant” time to plan, permit, design, and build, presenting a chicken-or-the-egg dilemma in terms of whether to build charging stations or to wait for electric vehicle penetration rates to rise before building charging stations for them.
The report’s authors estimated that the medium-duty truck charging stations could each take between one and two years to plan and build while charging sites for heavy duty trucks could each take between three and five years to plan and build.
The report also noted that most electric utilities in California, Oregon, and Washington have enough capacity in urban areas along the I-5 corridor to support interconnections with the proposed medium duty charging sites.
In rural areas, however, capacity constraints would be encountered for some electric utilities in the three West Coast states and the potential need to install new distribution circuits in rural areas could significantly increase the cost of a charging site interconnection and would most likely require additional time and planning.
In all locations, most loads over 10 MW would require extensive upgrades to the electric grid and, most likely, a new customer-dedicated substation, which would likely translate into a “high probability” the proposed heavy duty truck charging sites would require a new substation and a new line interconnection, the report said.
The report argues that a network of publicly available charging sites could help promote standardization of electric charging infrastructure for electric trucks and says electric utilities are “uniquely positioned” to build on opportunities to overcome the challenges identified in the report.
FERC Commissioner McNamee Says He Intends To Serve For The Foreseeable Future
June 19, 2020
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
Posted June 19, 2020
Federal Energy Regulatory Commissioner Bernard McNamee on June 18 said that he intends to continue serving as a Commissioner for the foreseeable future.
He made his remarks at FERC’s monthly open meeting.
In January, McNamee announced that he would not seek another term at the Commission but said he would stay longer at the agency if needed. McNamee’s current term expires at the end of this month.
He is permitted to remain a Commissioner until a successor is confirmed or the end of the current Congress.
The U.S. Senate in December 2018 confirmed McNamee to join FERC as a Commissioner. McNamee, a Republican, previously served in several high-level positions at the U.S. Department of Energy, as well as at McGuireWoods LLP and the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
McNamee filled the seat on the Commission vacated by Robert Powelson, a Republican, who left the Commission to become President and CEO of the National Association of Water Companies.
Calif. Community Choice Aggregators Sign PPAs For Solar-Storage Capacity
June 19, 2020
by Peter Maloney
APPA News
Posted June 19, 2020
Two California community choice aggregators, Monterey Bay Community Power and Silicon Valley Clean Energy, have signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) with 8minute Solar Energy for the output of a solar-plus-storage plant the company is building.
8minute Solar Energy’s 200-megawatt (MW) Aratina Solar Center includes 150 megawatt-hours (MWh) of storage and is scheduled to come online before year-end 2023. It is being build in Kern County, Calif., where 8minute built eight other solar projects.
Monterey Bay Community Power has contracted for 120 MW of solar power and 30 MW of battery storage with a three-hour discharge duration from the Aratina project, which is sufficient to meet between 7% and 8% of its retail load. Silicon Valley Clean Energy has contracted to buy 80 MW of solar power and 20 MW of battery storage with a three-hour duration from 8minute Solar Energy, which will be able to meet 6.6% of the utility’s annual retail load.
The PPA came out of a joint request for offers issued by Monterey Bay Community Power and Silicon Valley Clean Energy in April 2019.
In addition to the PPA with 8minute Solar Energy, the April request for proposals also resulted in the community choice aggregators signing a 20-year PPA in late May with NextEra Energy for output from its 500-MW Yellow Pine Energy Center in Clark County, Nevada, starting in December 2022.
Monterey Bay Community Power has contracted for 75 MW of solar capacity and 39 MW of energy storage, enough to meet 5% of its annual retail load. Silicon Valley Clean Energy has contracted for 50 MW of solar capacity and 26 MW of energy storage, enough to meet 4% of its annual retail load.
The solicitation also resulted in the community choice aggregators signing contracts for geothermal power, one with Coso Geothermal Power Holdings and the other with Ormat Technologies, as well as another solar-plus-storage contract with Rabbitbrush LLC.
The contract with Coso calls for Monterey Bay Community Power to receive 67.5 MW per year and for Silicon Valley Clean Energy to receive 43 MW per year for five years. For the following 10 years, power deliveries to the aggregators drop to 50 MW per year and 28 MW per year, respectively.
Under the Ormat contract, Monterey Bay Community Power and Silicon Valley Clean Energy will each purchase 7 MW from Ormat’s 30-MW Casa Diablo-IV geothermal project in Mammoth Lakes, Calif., which is due online by year-end 2021.
The 10-year PPAs have a fixed MWh price that includes energy, capacity, environmental attributes, and all other ancillary benefits. The remaining 16 MW of capacity from the geothermal plant is contracted to be sold to Southern California Public Power Authority under a PPA signed in early 2019.
Monterey Bay Community Power and Silicon Valley Clean Energy also signed 15 year PPAs for a combined capacity of 100 MW of solar power and 20 MW of battery storage from a project Rabbitbrush is building in Rosamond, Calif., that is due online in June 2022.
“The Aratina Solar Center, complete with battery storage, will allow us to store and deliver solar power when our customers need it — well into the evening hours — reducing our reliance on carbon-emitting gas plants and moving us ever closer to a decarbonized grid,” Girish Balachandran, CEO of Silicon Valley Clean Energy, said in a statement.
House Bill Includes Several Items of Importance To Public Power
June 19, 2020
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
Posted June 19, 2020
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, on Jun 18 announced additional details on Democrats’ comprehensive infrastructure package, the Moving America Forward Act, which includes several items of importance to public power.
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee recently completed consideration of the Investing in a New Vision for the Environment and Surface Transportation in America (INVEST in America) Act, a five-year surface transportation bill that would authorize $494 billion for transit, highways, and rail. On the evening of Thursday, June 18, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee approved the INVEST in America Act.
This will serve as the basis for the Moving America Forward Act, which will add several significant provisions, including on clean energy, tax, healthcare, drinking water, and broadband.
The Moving America Forward Act includes the following sections of importance to public power:
* $70 billion for clean energy infrastructure, including energy efficiency, grid modernization, and the development of an electric vehicle (EV) charging network;
* Reinstatement of the ability to issue direct payment bonds;
* Reinstatement of the ability to issue tax-exempt advance refunding bonds; and
* An increase in the small issuer exemption from $10 million to $30 million.
Pelosi said the House will take up the Moving America Forward Act before July 4.
CPUC Grants Conditional PSPS Approvals, Accelerates Microgrid Deployments
June 18, 2020
by Peter Maloney
APPA News
Posted June 18, 2020
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) last week granted conditional approval of wildfire mitigation plans submitted by utilities in the state.
In a separate action on the same day, June 11, the CPUC issued a decision requiring the state’s large investor-owned utilities to accelerate deployment of microgrids and resiliency projects to minimize the impacts of wildfire-caused power outages and Public Safety Power Shut-off (PSPS) events.
Wildfire mitigation plans
In approving the wildfire mitigation plans for Horizon West and Trans Bay Cable, Liberty Utilities, PacifiCorp, Southern California Edison, San Diego Gas & Electric, and Pacific Gas and Electric (Docket #: R.18-10-007), the CPUC is requiring the utilities to provide “clear analysis and data” to support their wildfire safety proposals.
To that end, the CPUC developed risk measurement tools, including a “Maturity Model,” that evaluates the utilities’ wildfire risk mitigation efforts across 10 categories and 52 specific capabilities.
The CPUC held the wildfire mitigation plan of Bear Valley Electric Service until the commission’s June 25 meeting.
While the CPUC said the utilities are “generally demonstrating progress” in reducing wildfire risk, most utilities “demonstrate a need for improvement.”
For instance, in a separate June 10 document, the CPUC said it is “imperative” that Pacific Gas and Electric makes “a meaningful reduction” in the scale and scope of PSPS [Public Safety Power Shutoffs] for the 2020 fire season and beyond.”
But despite the utility’s programs and improved re-energization protocols, “PG&E does not articulate quantitatively how it expects hardening to increase PSPS thresholds for individual circuits,” impeding the commission’s ability “to determine how the $5.3 billion in hardening work will affect the probability of a PSPS in communities in California.”
In a similar vein, the CPUC said that Southern California Edison (SCE) “has not described their deployment strategy and timelines in sufficient detail to convince the [commission] that the highest risk circuits are being targeted in a nuanced way and that this work will be completed on time” and must meet the conditions issued by the CPUC to address those gaps.
Microgrid decision
In the June 11 microgrid decision ( Docket #: R.19-09-009), the CPUC called for the state’s utilities to streamline and expedite interconnection processes for microgrids, resiliency, and other projects, and to collaborate with local and tribal governments to rapidly develop and deploy projects that could keep electricity on for critical facilities and other customers during power outages.
The CPUC put the microgrid rulemaking on a fast track after “the mismanagement by utilities of the October 2019 PSPS events” and said the new rule is intended to increase the deployment of new projects during this wildfire season.”
Last November, the CPUC began an investigation to assess whether the state’s investor-owned utilities properly balanced the need to provide safe and reliable service when planning and executing their recent PSPS events.
“The use of microgrids, coupled with the CPUC’s work to hold utilities accountable for creating and implementing wildfire mitigation plans, will help make communities more resilient in advance of the 2020 Wildfire season,” CPUC President Marybel Batjer said in a statement.
In addition to microgrids, the June 11 order requires the state’s IOUs to modify their net energy metering tariffs to allow storage devices to charge from the grid in advance of a PSPS event. The order also requires the IOUs to modify their net energy metering tariffs to remove the storage sizing limit.
Columbus EV Program Exceeds Its Electric Vehicle Sales Target
June 18, 2020
by Peter Maloney
APPA News
Posted June 18, 2020
There were 3,323 electric vehicles sold in the seven-county Columbus, Ohio, metropolitan region from April 2017 to February 2020, breaking the target of 3,200 vehicles sold that was set by the Smart Columbus Electrification Program.
Going into the Smart Columbus program, only 0.4% of vehicles sold in the Columbus region were battery electric vehicles or plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. Columbus set an electric vehicle adoption target of 1.8%, or 3,200 vehicles, by March 2020. During the grant period, which ended March 31, electric vehicle sales reached a high of 2.34% in fourth-quarter 2018 and of 1.6% in fourth-quarter 2019.
The Smart Columbus Electrification Program won a $40 million grant in June 2016 from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Smart City Challenge.
Top officials with the Columbus, Ohio, Division of Power in 2016 detailed how the division is working to implement projects tied to the smart city initiative.
The Department of Transportation says that through the program it has leveraged nearly $350 million in public and private funds for smart city and advanced transportation technologies.
In addition to the DOT grant, public power city Columbus was awarded a $10 million grant from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation to speed the transition to an electrified, low-emissions transportation system.
Smart Columbus was also the beneficiary of aligned investments totaling more than $720 million from private, public and academic institutions in the region to support technology and infrastructure investments to upgrade Columbus’ transportation network and aid in making Columbus a model connected city of the future.
Smart Columbus is a regional smart city initiative co-led by the City of Columbus and Columbus Partnership, which includes partnerships with The Ohio State University, Battelle, and American Electric Power.
Seventy Columbus employers partnered with Smart Columbus to develop education and incentive programs that encouraged residents drive electric and drive less.
“This success could not have been achieved without the vision and engagement of leaders from across Columbus’ public and private sectors,” Alex Fischer, president and CEO of the Columbus Partnership, said in a statement.
The educational and marketing aspects of the Smart Columbus program included the Smart Columbus Ride & Drive Roadshow, which facilitated 11,956 test drives; the Smart Columbus Experience Center, which conducted an additional 400 electric vehicle test drives; the “EVolve Your Thinking” digital education campaign; and the Smart Columbus Electrified Dealer program, which has trained more than 70 sales associates from 35 dealerships. The program also drove efforts to incorporate electric vehicles into public and private vehicle fleets, which resulted in the deployment of more than 300 electric vehicles.
“Our work with Smart Columbus has taught us many lessons about making EV charging more accessible and we’ll use this experience as we expand to other areas of the state.” Raja Sundararajan, president and chief operating officer of AEP Ohio, said in a statement.
Check out APPA’s Electric Vehicle Tracker for additional details on what public power utilities are doing with respect to EVs.