The Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada has awarded the Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting to Texas public power utility Greenville Electric Utility System for its annual comprehensive financial report for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2021.

The report has been judged by an impartial panel to meet the high standards of the program, which includes demonstrating a constructive “spirit of full disclosure” to clearly communicate its financial story and motivate potential users and user groups to read the report.

The Certificate of Achievement is the highest form of recognition in the area of governmental accounting and financial reporting, and its attainment represents a significant accomplishment by a government and its management, GEUS said.

Kevin Maynard, Director of Electric Utilities for the public power community of Marshall, Mich., recently detailed how Marshall will benefit from Ford’s plans to invest $3.5 billion to build the country’s first automaker-backed lithium iron phosphate battery plant in the city.

Ford announced the news about the battery plant on Feb. 23. Ford noted that the plant will initially employ 2,500 people when production of LFP batteries begins in 2026. Ford will have the option to further grow its battery capacity at the plant, which will be part of a wholly owned Ford subsidiary.

While investor-owned Michigan utility Consumers Energy will be supplying power to the plant, Maynard noted that Marshall’s utility will have plenty of work on its plate in terms of economic development tied to the plant and serving new load.

In general, if a customer is outside of a city’s limits in Michigan “and it’s a new customer it can be served by either the municipal electric system or the investor-owned utility,” he said in an interview with Public Power Current. The Ford site is outside of Marshall’s city limits. Marshall’s utility and Consumers Energy both made pitches to serve the new plant.

Maynard noted that any of the support industries or ancillary industries “that come along with” the plant will be served by the city’s utility.

“It looks like there’s going to be water and wastewater treatment facilities that are going to be built out there to serve the site. We plan to serve those,” he said. “And then, of course, there’s all the local economic activity – residential, commercial, industrial…that we anticipate will add to our load here.”

Maynard noted that the utility is “working on a number of potential residential developments. Some of those are single family dwellings. Some of them are apartments and multi-family apartment structures. We were working on all of those before Ford’s announcement. So our anticipation is that with 2,500 new jobs coming to the Marshall area, there will be a renewed interest in residential building here in our community.”

Supply Chain

Maynard also addressed the question of whether the utility is facing any supply chain challenges.

“We have taken a look at what our inventory levels should be and tried to plan accordingly,” he said. “If we, for example, said how many electric meters do we typically use in a year’s time – well, maybe that should be our minimum reorder quantity now.”

In the short term, the utility has purchased re-manufactured electric meter units. The city is considering an advanced metering infrastructure system “and we didn’t want to just halt all meter changeouts while we got that fully vetted.” So the utility is buying re-manufactured meters for electric $25, “which is dirt cheap, so we don’t feel bad if we have to throw them away in four or five years.”

Transformers have also been an issue, he noted, while “poles have not been much of an issue.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit recently affirmed a July 2021 decision by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims blocking public power utilities from recovering direct payment bond refunds cut by sequestration.

“Having considered all of Appellants’ arguments, we find no basis to overturn the decision,” the Appeals Court found in its decision. The American Public Power Association expressed disappointment with the decision.

Based on Office of Management and Budget reports, APPA estimates that sequestration has cut $2.4 billion in direct payment bond refunds, with $221 million to public power issuers alone.

APPA said that Congress fully intended refunds to issuers of direct payment bonds to be exempt from budget sequestration and that OMB appears to have the authority to exempt these refunds from sequestration.

APPA said it will continue to work to advance legislation that would end sequestration.

Under a 15-year power purchase agreement Terra-Gen will provide 77.7 megawatts of electricity generated between three sites in Kern County, Calif. Electricity received through this PPA accounts for nearly 5 percent of SVCE’s annual retail load.

This is the second long-term wind project to come online for SVCE and is complementary to other resources in the agency’s power mix, including solar with battery storage and long-duration storage.

The three Terra-Gen wind sites generating the electricity were built in 1986 and partially repowered in 1999. The projects still operate at high availability rates. The SVCE portion of the project is made up of 430 turbines.

The PPA is a result of a request for offers issued in 2020. To date, SVCE has signed 16 contracts for clean energy projects totaling more than 670 MW of capacity and over 803 MWh of battery storage.

Silicon Valley Clean Energy provides electricity from renewable and carbon-free sources to more than 270,000 residential and commercial customers in 13 Santa Clara County jurisdictions.

The Environmental Protection Agency on Feb. 17 issued a final rule that reaffirmed the scientific, economic, and legal underpinnings of the 2012 Mercury and Air Toxics Standards for power plants, which required significant reductions of mercury, acid gases, and other harmful pollutants.

The final rule, which responds to President Biden’s January 20, 2021, Executive Order 13990, “Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis,” reverses a rule issued by the previous administration in May 2020.

The final rule leaves the current emissions standards unchanged. “When weighing the substantial burden that hazardous air pollutants, including mercury, impose on public health against the reasonable costs of controlling these emissions, EPA finds that it is appropriate and necessary to regulate emissions of air toxics from power plants under the Clean Air Act,” EPA said in a news release.

The agency said it is also continuing to consider the MATS Residual Risk and Technology Review, as directed by Executive Order 13990, to determine whether more stringent protections for hazardous air emissions from power plants are feasible and warranted and expects to address that review in a separate action.

The initial appropriate and necessary finding was made in 2000 and affirmed in 2012 and 2016. In May 2020, the Trump Administration reversed EPA’s 2016 finding, the costs of regulating hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) from coal and oil fired electric generating units grossly outweigh the quantified HAP benefits. However, is 2021, Executive Order 13990 directed EPA to review that finding and consider an action to rescind it.

In its Feb. 17 action, EPA determined that the 2020 action was “based on a fundamentally flawed interpretation of the Clean Air Act that improperly ignored or undervalued vital health benefits from reducing hazardous air pollution from power plants,” it said.

EPA reaffirmed that “it is appropriate and necessary to regulate emissions of hazardous air pollutants from coal- and oil-fired power plants.” In 2022 APPA submitted comments supporting the restoration of the appropriate and necessary finding to help secure critical regulatory and business certainty for power sector which had spent $18 billion to comply with the MATS rule since it became effective.

 In 2021, APPA, National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, and the Edison Electric Institute commissioned a study to evaluate particulate matter, hydrogen chloride, and mercury emissions measurements from a representative subset of coal-fired electric generating units.

The evaluation was conducted to understand the impact of potentially lower particulate matter, hydrogen chloride, and mercury emission rates, if EPA were to propose to revise the Mercury and Air Toxic Standards residual risk and technology review rule for coal and oil-fired plants.

In a proposed decision, a California Public Utilities Commission administrative law judge recommended granting a challenge that would deny Sunnova Energy’s plans to build community microgrids in California.

In September Sunnova Community Microgrid California, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sunnova Energy, applied to the CPUC for a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity for authorization to build and operate public utility microgrids and to set electric service rates for the microgrid customers.

In the application (22-09-002), SCMC laid out plans for the microgrids that would be built as part of new master planned residential communities of between 500 to 2,000 homes, as well as and select non-residential facilities that would be co-located in or an essential part of each community.

SCMC also requested the CPUC’s approval to provide bundled retail service under Section 2780 of the Public Utilities Code and requested authority to establish market-based rates for service and requested exemption from several CPUC general orders and rules, including its general order regarding advice letters and customer notice requirements and affiliate transaction rules.

In October, the Public Advocates Office (Cal Advocates), an independent unit of the CPUC, filed a motion to dismiss SCMC’s application. In the petition, Cal Advocates argued that SCMC’s requests are based on “unsubstantiated claims and lack the basic information” required for a CPCN. Cal Advocates also said SCMC did not demonstrate that its proposals would ensure rates are just, reasonable, and necessary.

Cal Advocates also contended that the CPUC should not consider SCMC’s application before a regulatory framework for multi-customer microgrids is developed in the commission’s ongoing Rulemaking 19-09-0091 and noted that the commission “rejected the same proposal to rely on the microutility statute that SCMC proposes.”

The Utility Reform Network, Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas and Electric, and San Diego Gas and Electric also filed protests with the CPUC seeking dismissal of SCMC’s application.

In the proposed decision, Administrative Law Judge Colin Rizzo granted Cal Advocates’ motion to dismiss because the motion is not improper, the exemptions SCMC seeks are unauthorized, and SCMC fails to provide the information required for a CPCN.

The proposed decision has no legal effect until and unless the CPUC hears the item (Agenda ID #21361) and votes to approve it. At the earliest, the item may be heard at the CPUC’s April 6 business meeting.

California does, under Section 2780, provide for an “electric microutility” to be the sole-source of generation, distribution, and exclusive electricity sales to a customer base of fewer than 2,000 customers, but in the proposed decision Rizzo noted that SCMC was seeking “numerous exemptions from statutory requirements for electrical corporations based on its proposed characterization as an ‘electric microutility’ under Section 2780.”

However, the statute defines an “electric microutility” as an electrical corporation that is regulated by the commission, thus, “by the express terms of the statute, an ‘electrical microutility’ must also meet the definition of an ‘electrical corporation,’” a conclusion already affirmed in the commission’s microgrid rulemaking, which rejected “the assertion that under Section 2780, we can exempt ‘microutilities’ from the requirements applicable to electrical corporations,” Rizzo wrote in the proposed decision.

And while SCMC argued that granting Cal Advocates’ motion to dismiss would be a “drastic” remedy that “may be true in the abstract,” the argument “would be more persuasive were there not already an ongoing rulemaking,” Rizzo said. Further, rather than seeking modification of a prior commission decision, SCMC instead was seeking “a divergent, contrary ruling in a totally new proceeding.”

“SCMC is seeking to be exempt from the Commission’s statutorily required function of conducting oversight of electricity rates to ensure that they are just and reasonable,” Rizzo wrote. To grant “SCMC this authority, the Commission would have to abdicate its responsibility to ensure just and reasonable rates,” Rizzo said.

“It is curious and concerning that the PAO, a presumably independent division of the CPUC who is charged with representing the public interest, is seeking to dismiss our microgrid application before it gets any opportunity to be heard through a public hearing,” said Meghan Nutting, Executive Vice President for Government and Regulatory Affairs, at Sunnova.

“Our application clearly outlines the reliability, rate, environmental, and other public interest benefits that community microgrids can provide. This proposed decision is troubling and disappointing for a state that has set such bold climate targets yet is struggling with making steady progress on them,” she said.

The benefits of participating in this year’s American Public Power Association’s Lineworkers Rodeo include communication, collaboration and networking opportunities, said Mike Fergus, Director of Electric Distribution and Services at the Kansas City Board of Public Utilities, which is hosting the 2023 Lineworkers Rodeo in Kansas City, Kansas.

“This rodeo provides you a chance to connect with the vendors on a personal level, and learn new initiatives from other utilities from throughout the country,” said Fergus in a Q&A with Public Power Current.

The rodeo will take place from March 31 to April 1. The deadline to register crews to participate in the rodeo is March 3.

 “In my experience, I always leave with something new to bring back to the company, or with a better understanding of our industry. The emphasis on safety is second to none, and even though it is a competition for first place, you are required perform each task with safety first,” Fergus said.

“In our trade, lineman’s families are just as committed as they are. They worry when they leave for restoration efforts and wait for the minute they come home. The rodeo encourages families to come enjoy the day and provides kid zones and other activities. It allows each lineman to showcase their skills with family and friends,” Fergus said.

David Mehlhaff, Chief Communications Officer at BPU, noted that the public power utility was scheduled to host the event in 2020, but had to cancel the rodeo about two weeks before the event because of the COVID-19 pandemic and travel restrictions.

“That was disappointing after our team had put so much planning towards the event. On the plus side, we had a real good idea what was required as we worked on plans for the 2023 event,” he noted.

“Also, since we have staff members that are involved with the International Linemen’s Rodeo which is held annually at the same location, we have a deep knowledge of the grounds and what it takes to put on a successful event.”

When asked to detail BPU’s coordination with APPA on rodeo planning, Mehlhaff said that the APPA rodeo committee and the key staff that work on this annual event “have been doing this for a number of years and they have a system down as well as key learnings from previous rodeo host utilities. Our team, the rodeo committee and association staff have regular communications via e-mail, calls and virtual meetings.”

In a recent episode of APPA’s Public Power Now podcast, Aaron Haderle, Manager of Transmission and Distribution Operations at Kissimmee Utility Authority, and Danette Scudder, Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer at the Tennessee Valley Public Power Association, detailed the benefits of public power utilities participating in the rodeo.

Click here for additional details about the rodeo.

The Western Area Power Administration has issued requests for information for the procurement of electric generation. One of the RFIs is for short- to mid-term procurement, while the second RFI is for long-term procurement. Responses are due by February 24.

WAPA issued the RFIs through the Colorado River Storage Project Management Center and in collaboration with several of its preference power customers.

The short- to mid-term (1-5 years) RFI notes that CRSP and the participating customers would like to identify up to 400 megawatts of existing or potentially new electricity generation, including a broad range of traditional sources and carbon emissions free sources to meet the firm and non-firm energy requirements associated with federal power marketing contractual arrangements with municipalities,
federal agencies, state agencies, Native American Tribal Organizations, and Joint Action Agencies.

Under the long-term (5-25 years) RFI, CRSP and the participating customers would like to identify up to 400 MW of existing or potentially new electricity generation.

Under both RFIs, the intention is for CRSP to enter into a purchase power agreement or agreements for
replacement power and/or facilitate PPA(s) through participating customers.

The RFIs are available for download here.

The New York Power Authority and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority recently announced that a first-of-its-kind battery energy storage system using patented, high-safety, lithium-ion superCell technology is delivering energy peak shaving capabilities to NYPA’s White Plains, N.Y., offices, as part of a demonstration project.

The BESS developed by Cadenza Innovation allows NYPA to demonstrate a peak energy demand shaving function that reduces the peak electricity load typical of a commercial building, NYPA said.

The BESS can supply building power at desired demand times and includes the ability to function in a peak shaving mode.

NYPA noted that this can achieve cost reductions for building/site owners, primarily by arbitrage, storing lower cost energy absorbed at time periods of lower power demand and delivering that energy at time periods of higher cost due to higher power demand, and by peak shaving, reducing a building/site maximum power demand and therefore reducing the associated utility peak demand charge.

 “This initial testing phase shows the potential for this type of battery energy storage system to serve as a model for managing energy demands and lowering costs for owners of commercial and industrial buildings,” said NYPA Acting President and CEO Justin Driscoll. “The unit is reducing peak loads at the Power Authority’s main offices, smoothing electricity network operations and showing a safety advantage by demonstrating a reduction in the potential of thermal runaway,” he said.

“Our goal is to demonstrate whether this unit will provide energy storage and power quality services on a scale that can meet commercial, industrial and network demands at buildings that are similar to ours.”

Deployed immediately adjacent to NYPA’s White Plains offices and funded in part with a $1 million award through NYSERDA’s Innovation program, the BESS was developed by Cadenza Innovation in collaboration with Hitachi Energy “to showcase the key role that energy storage can play in enhancing demand management and grid flexibility,” NYPA said.

The project at NYPA is using the energy storage system to demonstrate a peak shaving function that reduces the peak load typical of a commercial building.

The aim is for the BESS to serve as a model for integrating low-cost, safe, high-performance renewable energy resources into the grid – especially in urban areas – that can be replicated at other businesses throughout New York State and beyond.

By packaging components to lower costs and increase safety, the superCell is designed to reduce the need for additional, high-cost fire safety protection and mitigation systems — resulting in improved energy density and supporting the advancement of the Li-ion battery industry.

NYPA and Cadenza Innovation will continue to monitor and evaluate the system’s performance over the next 12 months.

Independent power producer Calpine earlier this month said it was starting development efforts for a new approximately 425-megawatt peaking plant next to its Freestone Energy Center in Freestone County, Texas.

“These development efforts are warranted in light of the Public Utility Commission’s recent adoption of a framework for implementing a Performance Credit Mechanism designed to incent new generation,” Calpine said in a news release.

In January, the Texas PUC voted unanimously to adopt a PCM electric market design option and a set of guiding principles for implementation to strengthen reliability, accountability, and affordability of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas electric grid.

The Commission said it would defer implementation of all elements of the PCM until the 88th Texas Legislature has an opportunity to review the PCM and its guiding principles and provide guidance or direction based upon the market design option’s merits.

Calpine said that because the final design and implementation of the PCM will likely take a couple years, “we also are encouraged that the PUC and ERCOT will be developing ‘bridge’ solutions to create near-term incentives for building new dispatchable generation. Regulatory certainty on PCM will be critical as Calpine continues to move this project forward.”