Tangibility of Floating Solar Project in Healdsburg, Calif., Spurs Strong Community Support
September 21, 2023
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
September 21, 2023
When Healdsburg, California, brought a floating solar array online a few years ago, the city’s utility knew there would be a wide array of benefits flowing from the project. But one of the benefits that Terry Crowley, Healdsburg’s Utility Director, said he underestimated is the high level of community support that has emerged for the project.
Crowley on Sept. 19 gave a tour of the floating solar project for attendees of the Northwest Public Power Association’s Northwest Innovations in Communications Conference, which was held in Santa Rosa, Calif.
In January 2021, the City of Healdsburg completed the 4.78-megawatt photovoltaic solar array for the recycled-water ponds at its Wastewater Treatment Facility. Healdsburg staff conceived the project with the support of the Northern California Power Agency.
Crowley knew that the tangibility of the project would resonate with the community, “but I really underestimated it,” he said during the tour.
The community has “really gotten behind it because it’s something that’s tangible from their electric utility. It’s something that’s local that they can see and really get behind and support,” Crowley said.
“That’s one of the things that’s kind of interesting about it is how do you put a price on that? How do you put a price on that customer satisfaction, the value of that?”
“If you’re considering local projects or a replication of something like this, it’s something to think about – how you have that local tangibility,” he said.
The contract for the project was awarded to Dissigno in June 2020 and construction began in October 2020. Through collaboration with Dissigno, White Pine, and Collins Electric, the city moved the project from contract award to interconnection in the same year. The project was contracted as a power purchase agreement. The solar developer paid for the entire project and owns the array.
Geese Flock to the Solar Panels
Meanwhile, one of the ongoing challenges that the utility has faced is the fact that geese have been drawn to the panels.
“This has been one of the learning processes that we have,” Crowley said during the tour.
He said that while the geese have done their nesting on berms surrounding the floating solar panels, “what we didn’t expect is they really love just hanging out on the panels. It creates this basically protected island for them.”
One of the things that the utility is trying to figure out is whether it is cost effective “to go through and clean the panels on a frequent basis or just take that loss in production,” Crowley said.
He noted that last year, the project developer sent a crew to clean the panels, which took about a week and a half to complete. Crowley pointed out that due to the power purchase agreement, “whatever they don’t deliver to us, we don’t pay for.”
The developer has considered ways in which to address the challenge including building an island near the panels that might be more attractive for the geese.
“We’re still in that kind of learning process to figure out…how do we manage the wildlife,” Crowley said.
The solar project includes about 11,600 solar panels that can generate 6.5 million kilowatt hours a year, enough to supply about 8 percent of Healdsburg’s annual energy needs.
The project also reduces harmful algae blooms and improves the quality of the water to recycled-water users, which include local vineyards and farms.
The project also helps Healdsburg’s publicly owned utility to meet the state of California’s environmental sustainability requirements and climate goals.
CPS Energy Issues RFP for up to 500 MW of Energy Storage Systems
September 19, 2023
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
September 19, 2023
Texas public power utility CPS Energy has launched a request for proposals for up to 500 megawatts of energy storage systems.
The RFP is part of the utility’s power generation plan approved by the utility’s Board of Trustees earlier this year.
Projects under this RFP may be diverse and responses are welcomed from both large-scale and smaller sized projects, the utility said.
“We worked closely with our Board of Trustees and community to approve a generation plan that will provide power for our fast-growing community,” said Rudy D. Garza, President and CEO of CPS Energy. “We are casting a large net through this RFP process and are excited to secure more resources to meet that growth.”
The addition of more storage resources strengthens the utility’s future power generation portfolio by adding flexible resources that can quickly respond to changes in customer demand or grid conditions, it noted.
This aligns with CPS Energy’s Vision 2027 “to evolve and serve the community now, and into the future. These smaller scale projects can be strategically placed at different locations within the CPS Energy service area, providing another tool to meet community growth and the ability to improve reliability in specific locations,” CPS Energy said.
The RFP will be the first time CPS Energy has issued a notice solely for standalone storage projects. Past RFPs have included storage as an overall component.
This is the third RFP that CPS Energy has launched this year as part of its approved power generation plan.
The first was for up to 700 MW of solar generation, and another for up to 50 MW of community solar.
All participants can view the RFP and must submit information here.
Proposals are due Oct. 18, 2023.
After the closing date, CPS Energy will begin evaluations with a goal of making selections by the end of the year.
Colorado Springs Utilities, City Receive DOE Funding for Energy Project
September 19, 2023
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
September 19, 2023
Public power utility Colorado Springs Utilities, the City of Colorado Springs and several other entities have received funding from the U.S. Department of Energy to validate concepts that aggregate power across complex energy systems, including virtual power plants.
This will support the deployment of large amounts of solar, grid-connected buildings, electric vehicles, and other distributed resources, DOE recently said.
Along with the City of Colorado Springs and Colorado Springs Utilities, other parties involved in the project are Energy Resource Center, the Housing & Building Association of Colorado Springs, and Careers in Construction Colorado.
Participation in the program has a cash value up to $500,000 (to be divided between two phases), and additional research and planning-focused technical support valued up to $3.5 million, said Natalie Eckhart, a spokesperson for Colorado Springs Utilities.
“We’re fortunate to participate in this program that provides us access to national laboratory experts and their cutting-edge research capabilities as we advance our Sustainable Energy Plan. That plan includes goals for increasing use of renewable energy, incorporating storage resources and integrating new technologies as we modernize our grid,” Eckhart told Public Power Current.
She said that Colorado Springs Utilities staff members and community partners will work alongside the National Renewable Energy Laboratory “to help us determine the best path forward for our community’s energy future,” including:
- Adding large-scale solar to our generating capacity
- Preparing for increased demands related to electric vehicle use
- Aggregating power from multiple resources, possibly to include virtual power plants; and
- Adding other distributed resources and grid-connected buildings
“A couple of important roles that we will play will be to provide data and systems knowledge as the research is conducted, as well as to ensure community stakeholders have visibility and input into the planning effort,” Eckhart noted.
NREL is a DOE laboratory based in Colorado.
Liz Anderson Named New Executive Director of Washington Public Utility Districts Association
September 19, 2023
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
September 19, 2023
Liz Anderson has been named as the new Executive Director of the Washington Public Utility Districts Association, effective January 1, 2024, following the retirement of George Caan at the end of the year. Caan is retiring after serving more than 13 years.
Anderson has more than 15 years of utility experience and steps into the Executive Director position after serving as the Association’s Deputy Executive Director for the past three years.
Anderson previously served as the Association’s Government Relations and Communications Director, joining the Association in 2013.
Prior to joining WPUDA, Anderson served as Government Relations and Community Relations Director for Grays Harbor PUD, where she held leadership roles in WPUDA, including Chair of the WPUDA Communications Committee and Vice Chair of the Government Relations Committee.
In addition to her utility experience, she also has an extensive background in the field of Communications and Marketing.
Platte River Power Authority Seeks Wind Power Supply Proposals
September 19, 2023
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
September 19, 2023
Platte River Power Authority recently issued a request for proposals seeking proposals for the supply of wind power.
Platte River Power Authority is a not-for-profit, community-owned public power utility that generates and delivers energy and services to Estes Park, Fort Collins, Longmont and Loveland, Colorado, for delivery to their utility customers.
Platte River’s goal is to purchase 150 MW to 250 MW of wind generation resources from new renewable wind facilities or facilities suitable for expansion that interconnect to Platte River’s transmission system, it said in the RFP, which was issued on Sept. 12.
Proposals are due Nov. 14, 2023.
Lawmakers Voice Concerns About DOE Transformer Proposal
September 18, 2023
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
September 18, 2023
Lawmakers voiced concerns on Sept. 13 about a Department of Energy proposal that would require a stricter standard that changes the material used in distribution transformers from grain-oriented electrical steel to amorphous steel.
The lawmakers highlighted their concerns about the proposal at a hearing held by the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy, Climate, and Grid Security titled, “Keeping the Light On: Enhancing Reliability and Efficiency to Power American Homes.”
The hearing focused on three bills including a bill sponsored by Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC) that would prohibit DOE from increasing distribution transformer conservation standards for five years (H.R. 4167, the Protecting America’s Distribution Transformer Supply Chain Act).
The American Public Power Association on Sept.13 voiced support for Hudson’s bill in a Statement for the Record submitted for the hearing.
In December 2022, APPA and other impacted organizations were dismayed when DOE announced a notice of proposed rulemaking (NOPR) seeking to increase conservation standards for distribution transformers.
The NOPR would require a stricter standard that changes the material used in distribution transformers from grain-oriented electrical steel to amorphous steel.
Amorphous steel is currently used in less than five percent of distribution transformers. “Requiring the expansion of amorphous steel in distribution transformers would halt current investment in production and materials, resulting in a complete retooling of manufacturing production lines, thereby exacerbating the severe shortage,” Desmarie Waterhouse, Senior Vice President, Advocacy and Communications & General Counsel at APPA, wrote in the Statement for the Record.
At the hearing, Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio) said that as he has traveled across his district and spoken with utilities and cooperatives, “a prime issue that has been raised in the supply chain crunch” for distribution transformers.”
He noted that since the Covid-19 pandemic, “the lead times for procuring new transformers have only gotten worse. This means that in the event of an emergency, utilities will have a harder time maintaining or restoring continuous power to their customers if they don’t have an adequate supply of replacement transformers.”
Latta said it was “baffling” to him as to why the DOE has proposed new standards that “would make the supply chain crisis worse.” He said that such a move would result in a distribution transformer market that relies on “one producer that doesn’t have enough capacity to meet the current demand.” Latta is a co-sponsor of H.R. 4167.
Subcommittee Chairman Jeff Duncan (R-SC) said, “DOE already mandates distribution transformers be manufactured at an incredibly high efficiency standard. They’re already at 99.53 percent efficient.”
The DOE rulemaking “will increase the efficiency by only a fraction of a percentage point, but significantly disrupt production of transformers, which utilities already have difficulty producing,” he said.
B. Robert Paulling, President and CEO of South Carolina’s Mid Carolina Electric Cooperative, said in his prepared testimony that lead times for large power transformers have grown to more than three years.
He stated that Mid-Carolina supports a delay in implementing new distribution transformer efficiency standards because “The utility industry needs manufacturers to be 100% focused on increasing output, not adapting to new, government-mandated efficiency requirements that are not technologically feasible nor economically justified.”
Most of the subcommittee members acknowledged having heard from a utility or knowing about the distribution transformer supply chain crisis. However, Republicans and Democrats split on how the efficiency NOPR would impact the supply chain crisis.
Republicans overwhelmingly said that the NOPR is negatively impacting production, while Most Democratic members did not see the NOPR as impacting the current supply chain crisis and instead claimed that Republicans just wanted to gut efficiency standards.
EPA Issues Final Water Quality Certification Rule
September 18, 2023
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
September 18, 2023
The Environmental Protection Agency on September 14 issued a final rule that modifies and replaces the 2020 regulatory requirements for water quality certification under Clean Water Act section 401.
The final 2023 Clean Water Act Section 401 Water Quality Certification Improvement Rule (2023 Rule) does not apply retroactively to actions already taken under a 2020 rule.
Historically, CWA section 401 has served as a tool for states and authorized Tribes to protect the quality of their waters from any adverse effects associated with federally permitted projects.
A number of key changes have been made as a result of Executive Order 13990. According to the Administration, the purpose of the changes is to ensure a clear and predictable certification process while enabling states and Tribes to protect vital water resources.
Included among the significant modifications under EPA’s 2023 Rule is that certifying authorities may utilize pre-filing meeting requests to enable early and flexible coordination with stakeholders before the certification process even begins.
The pre-filing meeting must occur at least 30 days prior to submitting a certification request unless this requirement is shortened.
Also, the materials required for beginning the certification process are defined in order to minimize project delays.
All requests for certification must include a copy of the federal license or permit application or a copy of the draft license or permit and water quality-related materials that informed the development of the application or the draft permits.
The final rule includes a default list of seven elements that must be included in the certification request. Additionally, certifying authorities are given the authority to determine what water quality-related information should be required from those seeking certification.
In addition, actions should occur within the one-year statutory timeframe. More specifically, a reasonable period of time for the review process must be agreed upon between certifying authorities and federal agencies (i.e., promoting collaboration); otherwise, a six-month default timeline will be applied to the project.
A reasonable time for review may be extended if the certifying authority needs to meet public notice procedures and Force Majeure events or may be extended upon agreement as long as the review occurs within the one year timeframe.
The final rule clarified the scope of review, limiting the evaluation to water quality-related impacts from the activities subject to the federal license or permit, including the activity’s construction and operation.
In addition, certifying authorities may not unilaterally modify certifications but must instead collaborate with federal agencies to do so. This stipulation aims to benefit certifying authorities alongside federal agencies and project personnel by protecting water quality over the full lifespan of a project while also considering the potential reliance interests of federal agencies and project personnel.
Moreover, federal agency reviews are limited to whether the appropriate certifying authority issued the certification decisions, complied with public notice procedures for establishing CWA section 401 and if the certifying authority acted on the request within a reasonable time period.
The final rule also includes more detail and explanation in the regulatory text on the neighboring jurisdiction process under section 401(a)(2), including explaining the roles of the actors involved, defining when the neighboring jurisdiction process begins, and identifying the minimal contents of notification to EPA.
The final rule finalizes the agency’s decision not to take a position on the legality of withdrawing and resubmitting a request for certification.
EPA states that historically, certifying authorities have sometimes asked project proponents to withdraw and resubmit their request for certification to restart the certification cloak and allow more time to complete it.
The agency points out that neither the text of 401 nor Hoopa Valley Tribe v. FERC (No. 14-1271) (D.C. Cir 2019) case precludes the withdrawal and resubmission of a certification request.
EPA notes it is up to project proponents, certifying authorities, and/or possibly Federal agencies to determine on a case-by-case basis whether and when withdrawal and resubmittal of a request for certification is appropriate.
EPA does note certain limitations to their economic analysis. Chiefly, the agency did not possess robust data related to section 401 regulations that would have been necessary to perform a fully quantitative economic analysis.
Therefore, the economic analysis for the final rule is qualitative, which may not be optimal for analysis.
The final rule will become effective 60 days after publication in the Federal Register.
Owensboro Municipal Utilities Seeks Power Supply Proposals
September 18, 2023
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
September 18, 2023
Kentucky public power utility Owensboro Municipal Utilities has issued a request for proposals for various power supply alternatives to serve its future retail load.
OMU is seeking proposals for the following types of products: Unit-contingent gas fired capacity and associated energy, requirements capacity and associated energy and Midcontinent ISO Zonal Resource Credits.
OMU may accept a combination of alternatives from one or more suppliers.
The RFP term sheet and attachments will be posted at https://soar.gdsassociates.com/RFPs.
All questions or other communication regarding this RFP should be submitted in writing to OMU’s engineering consultants at GDS Associates, Inc. (OMU_RFP2023@GDSAssociates.com) on or before October 20, 2023.
Proposal submissions are due no later than November 8, 2023.
California CCAs Announce Commissioning of New Large-Scale Solar and Energy Storage Project
September 17, 2023
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
September 17, 2023
Executives from Central Coast Community Energy and Silicon Valley Clean Energy recently announced the commissioning for Yellow Pine Solar I, a large-scale solar and battery energy storage project.
Yellow Pine Solar I, a subsidiary of NextEra Energy Resources, LLC, located in Clark County, Nev., will generate up to 125 megawatts of electricity and has a four-hour, 65 MW capacity of battery energy storage.
Including the recently commissioned Yellow Pine project, the two community choice aggregators have signed 11 joint power purchase agreements, totaling 1,313 MW of clean energy and 316 MW of storage to date.
California Lawmakers Pass Legislation Creating Central Buyer for Clean Power
September 17, 2023
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
September 17, 2023
California lawmakers recently passed legislation that will, among other things, allow the state to create a central buyer to procure clean electricity for the grid.
Under a legislative agreement unveiled by California Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California Legislature in late August, the central buyer would focus on sources like offshore wind and long-duration storage to diversify the state’s energy portfolio.
The agreement also aligns the state’s primary clean energy planning and procurement programs – its renewable portfolio standard, resource adequacy and integrated resource planning – with California’s 100% clean electricity by 2045 goal.
The California Senate approved the measure on Sept. 14 by a vote of 29-10. The California Assembly on the same day voted 62-16 concurring with amendments made to the measure. The bill now goes to Newsom’s desk. The governor is expected to sign it by October 14.
Offshore wind groups applauded the action by California state lawmakers.
“Floating offshore wind is the future of the offshore wind industry and the actions taken by California’s legislature positions the West Coast at the center of this exciting and rapidly expanding sector,” said Liz Burdock, founder and CEO of the Business Network for Offshore Wind. “This new procurement authority is essential to unlocking the billions in new investments needed for port redevelopments, vessels, supply chain expansions, and manufacturing facilities.”
The legislation, AB 1373, “is an important milestone that will establish a robust mechanism to facilitate procurement and provide a clear path to market for large-scale clean energies like offshore wind. It will help California deliver on its commitment to be a global leader on climate, achieve 100% clean electricity, and generate 25 GW from floating offshore wind by 2045,” said Offshore Wind California, a trade group of offshore wind developers and technology companies.