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Traverse City Light & Power Lineworkers Help to Rescue Bear from Tree

May 17, 2023

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
May 17, 2023

Lineworkers from Michigan public power utility Traverse City Light & Power recently helped to rescue a bear from a tree by successfully working with a city biologist to tranquilize the bear and bring it safely down from the tree.

Daren Dixon, Operations Manager for Traverse City Light & Power, told Public Power Current that reports came in of a black bear roaming streets of Traverse City’s Central Neighborhood on the morning of May 14. City police responded to the reports and the bear wound up climbing a tree.

Along with the police, officials from the city’s Department of Natural Resources Department and firefighters were onsite.

Dixon received a call that morning indicating that the Traverse City streets department needed help from the utility and asking for the utility to bring a bucket truck to get a DNR biologist closer to the bear to tranquilize it.

bear
photo courtesy of Traverse City Power & Light

Traverse City Light & Power Lead Lineman Josh Patzer and Apprentice Lineman James Johnson responded with a bucket truck. 

“We used the bucket to bring the biologist up closer to the bear. The biologist had to use four darts to tranquilize the bear, who was fighting the sleep due to noise from the crowd and surrounding areas,” Dixon said.

Mattresses were borrowed from a neighbor, a county commissioner, to put under where the bear was falling asleep, he noted.

Johnson and a biologist then tried get the bear down from the tree. “The apprentice wanted to put a running bow on the bear, but the biologist indicated that he was concerned about going around the bear’s chest for breathing purposes,” Dixon noted.

With the line around the animal’s abdomen, the biologist and Johnson dislodged the animal’s paw from the tree and the bear fell from about 30 feet but landed on the mattresses.

The DNR loaded the bear into a specialized cylindrical holding crate and relocated the bear about 60 miles away from the city.

Clarksville, Arkansas, Signs Agreement with Company to Design, Construct Hydrogen Power Plant

May 17, 2023

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
May 17, 2023

The City of Clarksville, Arkansas, has signed an agreement with Syntex Industries to design and construct a hydrogen power plant.

The facility will generate over 500 MW and support Clarksville’s economic development by providing low-cost and renewable electricity to energy-intensive businesses, the city said.

The power plant, which will be the first “hydrogen hub” in Arkansas, will create over 100 full-time positions and is expected to break ground by the end of 2023, with limited power production ramping up in 2025. The new facility will employ over 100 full-time positions when completed in 2026.

“Syntex has been working with Clarksville to develop methods to store excess renewable energy and regenerate it on demand. Recent technical developments and federal tax incentives have opened the door at last,” said Clarksville Mayor David Rieder. “This project offers the infrastructure to support our growing economy and bring new high paying ‘ecodustrial’ jobs to the area.” 

To help public power utilities understand the potential — and the limitations — of hydrogen, and why they should get involved, the American Public Power Association developed Understanding Hydrogen: Trends and Use Cases.

California May Need to Invest Up to $50 Bil to Meet Climate, Electrification Goals: Study

May 16, 2023

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
May 16, 2023

California may need to invest up to $50 billion in grid improvements over the next 12 years to meet its electrification and decarbonization targets, according to a report commissioned by the California Public Utilities Commission.

The study, Electrification Impacts Study Part 1: Bottom-Up Load Forecasting and System-Level Electrification Impacts Cost Estimates, is the first part of a multi-year project with the Public Utilities Commission to help California integrate its increasing array of distributed energy resources, such as rooftop solar, energy storage, electric vehicles, and other energy efficiency technologies.

The authors noted that the results of the study are preliminary and assume that no measures are taken to reduce costs and manage load.

The study did not take into account alternative strategies or future mitigation approaches to minimize costs, such as alternative time-variant or dynamic rates and flexible load management strategies.

The study was conducted by data and analytics company Kevala and covers the Pacific Gas and Electric, Southern California Edison, and San Diego Gas & Electric service territories.

To conduct this study, Kevala analyzed over 100 terabytes of data from over 12 million premises in California, including three years of automated metering infrastructure data, geographic information system data, and customer rate information. Kevala identified the specific locations and timing for necessary electric distribution grid upgrades to support significant increases in electric vehicle charging.

“California is at a turning point in its efforts to decarbonize at scale,” Aram Shumavon, founder and chief executive officer of Kevala, said in a statement. “After decades of minimal load growth on the electric grid, we are shifting into an era of capacity expansion to enable decarbonization. This report shows us that electrification is likely to require significant investments to meet climate goals while delivering carbon-free energy in an affordable, reliable, and equitable manner.”

Kevala said it anticipates that the estimates presented in the study will undergo further refinement in subsequent phases, including the incorporation of building electrification and medium- and heavy-duty electric vehicle adoption scenarios.

The company has also proposed conducting case studies specific to communities to evaluate potential distributed energy resource alternatives that can fulfill location-specific requirements, reduce costs for customers, and establish metrics for quantifying environmental impacts on disadvantaged communities.

U.S. Coal-Fired Generating Capacity to Drop Below Half of 2022 Levels by 2050: EIA

May 16, 2023

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
May 16, 2023

U.S. coal-fired generating capacity will drop below half of 2022 levels by 2050, the Energy Information Administration said.

In a scenario assuming higher zero-carbon technology costs than in its base case, called the Reference case, EIA projects coal-fired capacity drops 52% to 97 gigawatts by 2050.

In the Reference case, coal-fired capacity falls 64% to 73 GW by 2050. “In another scenario where we assume lower zero-carbon technology costs than in the Reference case, we project coal-fired capacity falls 88% to 23 GW by midcentury.”

In its Annual Energy Outlook 2023, EIA explores long-term energy trends in the United States and offers an outlook for energy markets through 2050. It uses different scenarios, called cases, to understand how varying assumptions affect energy trends.

In a High Zero-Carbon Technology Cost case, EIA assumes technology costs for zero-carbon resources such as renewables, nuclear, and battery storage will stay flat at their 2022 levels through 2050. This assumption results in less retirement of coal-fired generating capacity. In a Low Zero-Carbon Technology Cost case, EIA assumes the cost of zero-carbon technologies declines by about 40% by 2050 compared with the Reference case.

All AEO2023 cases, including the Reference, Low ZTC, and High ZTC cases, reflect laws and regulations adopted through mid-November, including the Inflation Reduction Act, which provides tax credits for zero-emission technologies that further reduce the cost of resources such as solar and wind.

The 52% to 88% drop in total coal-fired capacity includes about 99 GW to 159 GW of retiring coal-fired capacity and a small amount of coal-fired capacity projected to be converted to natural gas-fired capacity. Of the retirements, 61 GW come from coal-fired plants that owners and operators have already announced plans to retire.

Various factors such as an aging coal fleet, environmental regulations, and competition from natural gas-fired, solar, and wind plants have contributed to the declining economics of coal-fired capacity, EIA said.

In the High ZTC case, coal produces 8% of U.S. electricity generation in 2050 compared with a combined 40% from solar and wind, 31% from natural gas, and 13% from nuclear.

In the Reference case, the combined share from solar and wind grows to 55% of total generation by 2050 with smaller shares of 5% from coal, 22% from natural gas, and 11% from nuclear.

In the Low ZTC case, solar and wind generate 69% of electricity in 2050 compared with only 1% from coal, 11% from natural gas, and 12% from nuclear.

“The coal-fired generation in all three cases comes from the newer, more efficient coal-fired power plants that will remain online because they can provide lower-cost, dispatchable power to the grid,” EIA said.

President Biden Vetoes Proposal that Called for Repeal of Solar Tariffs Moratorium

May 16, 2023

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
May 16, 2023

President Biden on May 16 vetoed a Resolution, passed by Congress, that called for ending a moratorium on new tariffs imposed on solar equipment imports from Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia.

The U.S. Senate in early May voted 56 – 41 to pass H.J. Res. 39, a Joint Resolution Disapproving the Rule Submitted by the Department of Commerce Relating to “Procedures Covering Suspension of Liquidation, Duties and Estimated Duties in Accord With Presidential Proclamation 10414.” The House passed the Resolution in April by a vote of 221 – 202.

The Congressional Review Act resolution called for ending the two-year suspension, until June 2024, of new tariffs imposed on solar equipment imports from Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia, that were enacted based on preliminary findings from the Department of Commerce that Chinese solar companies are circumventing tariffs by routing their products through these countries.

“America is now on track to increase domestic solar panel manufacturing capacity eight-fold by the end of my first term,” Biden said in vetoing the measure. “But that production will not come online overnight.”

He said that the Department of Commerce’s rule “supports American businesses and workers in the solar industry and helps provide sufficient, clean, and reliable electricity to American families, while continuing to hold our trading partners accountable.”

He noted that 51 new and expanded solar equipment manufacturing plants have been announced since he took office.  

“The rule implements a temporary, 24-month bridge to make sure that when these new factories are operational, we have a thriving solar installation industry ready to deploy American-made solar products to homes, businesses, and communities across the Nation. Given the progress we are making on American solar, I do not intend to extend the tariff suspension at the conclusion of the 2-year period in June 2024,” Biden said.

USDA Releases Guidance for Applying for Forgivable Rural Renewable Energy Loans

May 16, 2023

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
May 16, 2023

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utility Service on May 16 issued a notice of funding opportunity for the Powering Affordable Clean Energy forgivable loan program.

To be invited to submit a PACE loan application, applicants must first submit a Letter of Interest. LOIs can be submitted beginning at 11:59 a.m. on June 30, 2023, and must be submitted by 11:59 a.m. on September 29, 2023. If invited to submit an application, an applicant is expected to submit the PACE loan application within 60 days of being invited.

The minimum award is $1 million and the maximum is $100 million. USDA’s Rural Utility Service estimates that roughly $2.7 billion in project financing can be accommodated by the $1 billion authorized for the program by the Inflation Reduction Act.

PACE is an expansion of the current RUS Electric Loans for Renewable Energy.

Generally, electric loans for renewable energy:

Generally, a rural area is defined as an area with a population of 20,000 or less.  Approximately 1,600 public power utilities qualify as a rural utility.

Additionally, projects for the wholesale sale of power to utilities serving rural customers can also qualify for an Electric Loan for Renewable Energy.

PACE expands on the Electric Loan for Renewable Energy program by adding storage as an eligible project category and providing loan forgiveness.

The guidance provides for three tiers of loan forgiveness: (1) 20 percent for any qualifying loan; (2) 40 percent for qualifying loans for projects where 50 percent or more of the population served is located within an energy community or a “Distressed or Disadvantaged Community” and (3) 60 percent for qualifying loans for projects.

PACE is also “stackable” with energy tax credits, meaning a project could be financed with PACE and also receive refundable direct payment of the energy investment tax credit or production tax credits for a project that would otherwise qualify for such credits.

APPA is hosting a webinar on Tuesday, May 30, from 3-4 p.m. Eastern, with RUS Assistant Administrator Christopher McLean, who will provide background information about the PACE program, provide a timeline and instructions about the application process, and offer an opportunity to ask questions.

Silicon Valley Bank Closes First Syndicate Loan for Solar Deal Since Being Acquired

May 15, 2023

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
May 15, 2023

Solar energy company Pivot Energy recently announced the closing of a $203 million financing facility to support a multi-state portfolio of distributed generation solar projects. California’s Silicon Valley Bank will lead the debt facilities, while Foss & Company will make the initial tax equity investment.

The 100-megawatt portfolio comprises 35 community solar and C&I projects planned to reach commercial operation between the second quarter of 2023 and the second quarter of 2024.

This transaction is the first syndicated loan closing that SVB has led since the recent acquisition by First Citizens Bank.  “SVB pioneered community solar financing solutions and has remained a preeminent leader in the market,” a news release from Pivot Energy said. “This transaction shows First Citizens Bank’s commitment to continue lending to this vital space.”

The community solar subscribers in the portfolio include commercial clients including municipalities, healthcare facilities, food service, and retail, residential customers and approximately 8,000 low-to-moderate income households. 

According to Pivot, the portfolio comprises the most extensive low-to-moderate income community solar portfolio developed to date. “It exhibits strategic diversity across project types, client offtake arrangements, and geographic reach with projects in Colorado, Minnesota, Illinois, New York, Hawaii, Maryland, and California.”

SunCentral, Pivot’s proprietary community solar subscriber management and acquisition platform, will manage the portfolio through operations.

Bill Would Reinstate Ability of Local, State Governments to Issue Tax-Exempt Advance Refunding Bonds

May 15, 2023

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
May 15, 2023

Sens. Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) last week introduced the Local Infrastructure Act (S. 1453), legislation that would amend the federal tax code to restore state and local governments’ ability to issue tax-exempt advance refunding bonds.

The bill is intended to be identical to S. 479 introduced by the two senators in the 117th Congress.

Advance refunding has saved state and local governments billions of dollars over decades but has been unavailable to state and local governments since 2017.

Additionally, the Wicker-Stabenow bill differs in construction from, but is identical in intent to, H.R. 1837, the Investing in Our Communities Act, introduced in March by Reps. David Kustoff (R-TN) and Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD).  

Advance refunding is an accounting practice that allows state and local governments to refinance outstanding municipal bonds to more favorable borrowing rates or conditions before the end of the initial bond term.

Study Highlights Hacker Vulnerabilities Created by Smart Meters

May 15, 2023

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
May 15, 2023

Smart meters can provide an entry point for hackers to destabilize the electric grid, according to a study by researchers at Oregon State University.

Utilities are increasingly adopting smart meters to gain greater transparency and control over electricity usage for both customers and the utility. Those technologies, including communication systems, distribution automation, local control and protection systems, and advanced metering infrastructure, can “make our aging electricity infrastructure more efficient and more reliable,” Eduardo Cotilla-Sanchez, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science who led the study, said in a statement.

“The bad news is, the upgrades also introduce new dimensions for attacking the power grid.”

The study, Load Oscillating Attacks of Smart Grids: Vulnerability Analysis by Oregon State University’s College of Engineering, used a grid protection simulator to demonstrate how causing load to vary back and forth in a regular pattern, known as a load oscillation attack, can compromise transmission.

Like household circuit breakers, power grid components can trip and shut off when demand is too high or problematic and, as a result, that load is passed on to other parts of the grid, which may also shut down, creating a possible domino effect that can lead to a blackout, the researchers said.

One type of attack made possible by the new technologies involves hacking into the advanced metering infrastructure and controlling the smart meter switches to cause load oscillations. That type of incident would start with someone probing the grid to discover vulnerabilities and using the information to estimate the grid’s destabilizing oscillation frequency to determine which customer meters to turn on and off at that frequency.

The attacker would then remotely coordinate a large number of smart meters to switch customers on and off at a particular frequency. During the attack, the oscillation attack frequency could be adjusted in real time in order to create more severe consequences than benchmark oscillation attacks, the researchers found. “The proposed attack strategy succeeded in causing a full blackout by oscillating only 8% of the load,” they wrote in the study.

“We juxtaposed our work with related recent grid studies and found that a well-crafted attack can cause grid instability while involving less than 2% of the system’s load,” Cotilla-Sanchez said. The findings, while unsettling, provide a jump-off point for grid operators to develop countermeasures, he added.

In terms of counter measures, Cotilla-Sanchez said grid operators could take lines out of service to island the affected area and avoid the spread of instability to a broader area. A grid operator might also want to change the generation portfolio – for example, curtail wind generation while ramping up hydro generation – to change the system’s dynamic response from what the attacker had planned for and thus lessen the impact of the attack, he said.

Either technique, Cotilla-Sanchez said, would require additional research and development to serve as an effective mechanism of protection, “but understanding the nature of possible attacks I would say is a good start.”

Permitting Reforms Urgently Needed to Meet Growing Demand for Electricity, Ensure Reliability: APPA

May 15, 2023

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
May 15, 2023

The American Public Power Association supports efforts in Congress to streamline the federal permitting and siting process, eliminate excessive regulatory barriers, and ensure more predictable and timely decisions from relevant federal agencies, it said in a Statement for the Record submitted to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

“These reforms are urgently needed to meet the growing demand for electricity, and to ensure reliability as more intermittent resources are added to the grid,” APPA said.

The Statement for the Record was submitted for a May 11 hearing held by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to examine opportunities for Congress to reform the permitting process for energy and mineral projects.

APPA noted that it has long sought clarity and certainty from environmental review and permitting regulations and laws. “Despite an abundance of resources and potential projects to meet the rapidly growing demand for electricity, permitting red tape, needlessly burdensome regulations, and conflicts between state and federal priorities have slowed energy infrastructure development to a crawl.”

APPA believes common-sense reforms to the federal permitting process are not an “either or” proposition, “but instead that they can be done in a way that protects the environment while ensuring energy infrastructure can be built in a timely manner, allowing public power utilities to continue providing affordable, reliable power to their customers.”

Broadly, Congress should provide sustained funding and support training to ensure agencies have sufficient resources to accelerate coordinated reviews and permits, APPA said.

“Congress should also create a secure interagency information sharing portal to allow for ease of file sharing, coordination, and notification to all agencies simultaneously when new documents are uploaded.”

Electric Transmission

APPA said it supports prudent investment in the nation’s electric transmission infrastructure. However, it is concerned by proposals that would significantly expand Department of Energy or Federal Energy Regulatory Commission authority over the siting or permitting of individual transmission facilities, which are primarily within the jurisdiction of state and local governments.

“APPA prefers that permitting reform not include cost allocation principles or measures, particularly any that could lead to unreasonable increases in transmission costs for public power utilities and their customers, many of which have already seen significant increases in transmission costs in recent years.”

Instead, APPA believes that Congress should recognize that current proposals on permitting reform, “including necessary changes to the National Environmental Policy Act, reasonable deadlines for federal agencies, and proposals that will provide industry with more clarity and certainty will also make it easier to permit electric transmission projects.”

Further, Congress must allow appropriate time for expanded authorities, including backstop siting authority under section 216 of the Federal Power Act, and transmission-specific funding, totaling over $5 billion from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, to be fully implemented before considering fundamental changes to transmission cost allocation and siting, the trade group said.

Congress should also recognize that FERC has active notices of proposed rulemaking on transmission planning and cost allocation and backstop siting authority, APPA said.

“Congress should consider requiring DOE to prioritize transmission projects that include joint ownership opportunities for public power and other load-serving entities when selecting new transmission projects for federal funding and support. Doing so can promote more collaborative and effective planning processes, reduce project costs and simplify cost allocation, and help bolster local support for transmission projects.”

National Environmental Policy Act

Congress should also support environmental reviews that harmonize processes across the federal government and promote one lead federal agency, concurrent reviews, tiering, and other mechanisms that would streamline the review process, APPA went on to say.

Congress should codify definitive timelines for environmental impact statements and environmental assessments, with a transparent process for extension, it argued.

“Importantly, the ‘clock’ for a timeline should start after a permit application is submitted or upon the execution of a project memorandum of understanding.”

Additionally, Congress should maximize the use of categorical exclusions for all energy infrastructure projects that meet certain standards to maximize efficiency. “Expanding the use of CEs will conserve agency resources for actions that are otherwise more complex and require further environmental review.”

APPA also argued that Congress should support programmatic reviews where an agency is approving several similar actions or projects in a region or nationwide, a large-scale utility corridor project, for example, or a suite of ongoing, proposed, or reasonably foreseeable actions that share a common geography or timing, such as multiple activities within a defined boundary, like federal land or a specific facility.

“This will reduce delays caused by insufficient federal staffing and reduce the need to prepare and review redundant documents.”

Congress should also direct agencies to use existing studies and analyses of projects impacts by other federal agencies, states, or local governments rather than recreate them for use in environmental reviews, the trade group said.

During the scoping process, agencies should be required to review and determine if prior analyses address the issue under review and how such information should be utilized and incorporated, APPA said.

Details on Hearing

At the hearing, there was strong agreement on the need for congressional action on permitting reform. Committee Chairman Joe Manchin (D-WV) voiced optimism that the committee will get a bill to the Senate floor before August recess.

Specifically, there was agreement amongst senators and witnesses on imposing deadlines on federal agency activities, putting in place time limits by which litigation must be filed, and strengthening the authority of lead federal agencies in the permitting process.

Manchin said that he believes that only entities that benefit from transmission lines should pay for them and that he thinks his recently released bill, which proposes to provide strengthened backstop authority to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and lets FERC allocate costs, accomplishes that.

Senators Steve Daines (R-MT) and Maria Cantwell (D-WA) both discussed their recently introduced hydropower relicensing bill, S. 1521, the Community & Hydropower Improvement Act, which they hope to include in any permitting reform package.