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FMEA Executive Director Amy Zubaly Details Key Role of Mutual Aid in Response to Hurricane Ian

October 8, 2022

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
October 8, 2022

In a recent Q&A with Public Power Current, Amy Zubaly, Executive Director of the Florida Municipal Electric Association (FMEA), details how mutual aid planning laid a solid foundation for the speedy restoration of power in the state in the wake of Hurricane Ian, which hit Florida in late September.

As of 9 p.m. Tuesday, October 4, nearly 100 percent of the more than 1.5 million Florida public power customers across the state are receiving electricity. A small number of customers are unable to accept electricity due to excessive damage, damages to their homes, or significant flooding. Utilities will continue to work diligently to restore power to these remaining customers, FMEA said.

“Mutual aid planning for Hurricane Ian began on Friday, September 23, when there was a high probability of the storm hitting Florida as a strong hurricane later the following week,” Zubaly noted.

“At that point the storm track was shifting between a landfall in the Tampa area or in North Florida along the Big Bend region. Already knowing that requests for mutual aid from Florida public power utilities would soon start coming in, FMEA reached out to other state and regional public power mutual aid coordinators asking them to begin gathering over the weekend the numbers of crews they could provide for mutual aid assistance,” she said in response to questions from Public Power Current.

In addition, FMEA asked the American Public Power Association (APPA) to hold a mutual aid call on the following Monday, September 26 with the other state and regional public power mutual aid coordinators, Zubaly said.

By Monday morning, September 26, FMEA had already begun assigning available mutual aid resources to those Florida public power utilities that requested crews for prestaging or for post-storm arrival.

“Florida was still anticipating landfall somewhere along the Tampa Bay area or north. By the end of the day Monday, already hundreds of public power mutual aid resources were being requested and assigned to requesting utilities – some for prestaging and some for arrival post-storm, which at that point was most likely for a Friday or Saturday arrival,” Zubaly said.

However, by Tuesday afternoon, the track of Ian had shifted a little further east. This resulted in an anticipated landfall somewhere further south along the southwest coast of Florida, with landfall much earlier than originally anticipated, and changing projected impacts to Florida public power.

Many crews that were scheduled to depart and/or arrive later in the week were asked to change to an earlier arrival date, and to prestage outside of Florida to wait until the storm passed through and conditions were safe to travel, Zubaly said.

Hurricane Ian ultimately made landfall on the afternoon of Wednesday, September 28 in southwest Florida as a strong a powerful Category 4 hurricane. “The changing track also resulted in changing mutual aid needs. Once the storm passed through Florida and FMEA members were able to make damage assessments, mutual aid crews were immediately shifted around based on needs in areas of impact,” Zubaly noted.

Ian left more than 2.6 million customers in Florida in the dark, with more than 212,000 of them from 23 of Florida’s 33 public power utilities. Ultimately more than 750 lineworkers from 150 public power utilities in 22 states were committed to Florida public power utilities.

“Within 24 hours post landfall, while Ian was still unleashing its wrath in some areas of the state, public power had restored more than 57% of those customers initially experiencing outages; in 48 hours post landfall, nearly 80% of our customers were restored; and in 72 hours post landfall, more than 90% of those customers that had experienced outages were restored,” she said.

Supply Chain

Zubaly also addressed the question of whether supply chain challenges have been a factor in terms of completing power restoration in the state.

“Supply chain needs continue to be a challenge, but we had what we needed after Hurricane Ian to turn the lights back on for our customers,” she said.

Florida utilities “prepare year-round for hurricanes – the season begins June 1 and lasts until November 30. Part of that preparation involves maintaining a storm stock of electric grid supplies and materials that are typically used during hurricane restoration. Utilities still maintain their normal operating stock, but in addition, also increase supplies for their separate storm reserve.”

While electric grid supply chain constraints “have made it challenging to increase our storm reserve supplies to typical levels and maintaining our normal operating supplies, we were prepared as a whole to be able to restore power if hit with one large-scale hurricane. However, supply chain challenges still exist. If Florida, or even another area in the southeast, gets hit with another major hurricane this season, obtaining needed supplies will be even more challenging.”

In addition, destruction in certain areas of the state “was so expansive — and the need to restore expeditiously so acute — that the most impacted utilities were supplied stock from other in-state utilities, further depleting in-state stocks among all Florida electric utilities,” Zubaly noted.

“And while we were able to restore power to our customers with supplies we had on hand, supplies for our normal operations, including new development, are dwindling rapidly. Suppliers and manufacturers prioritized transformers and other supplies needed for immediate hurricane restoration, but that has put additional delays on manufacturing of normal operating supplies,” she said.

Salt River Project Extends Contract for Biomass Power

October 7, 2022

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
October 7, 2022

Arizona public power utility Salt River Project (SRP) has approved a contract to continue purchasing renewable energy from a biomass plant in the state that will provide baseload power while helping to cut the risk of devastating forest wildfires in northern Arizona.

 The 10.5-year purchase power agreement with Novo BioPower will use wood chips from strategic forest thinning efforts in the SRP watersheds focusing on the East Clear Creek watershed projects and including the White Mountain Apache Tribal lands.

The SRP capacity output of the plant will support approximately 80,000 acres of strategic forest thinning over the next 10 years while providing renewable power for customers.

In a news release, the utility said that the forested lands of northern Arizona have been hit by devastating wildfires and are primed for more infernos like those that have impacted Arizona, California, and Colorado. Many forested lands in northern Arizona have thousands of trees per acre and suffered from extreme drought, which can fuel large wildfires with catastrophic impacts.

“To decrease the risks of forest wildfires, partnerships like this enable thinning projects to be conducted across the SRP watersheds, restoring forests and watersheds to more natural conditions and avoiding wildfires devastating impacts on the natural ecosystem, rural communities and the Valley’s water supply. These partnerships are critical for the success of forest thinning projects throughout the state.” said Elvy Barton, SRP Forest Health Management Principal.

SRP is working with the U.S. Forest Service and other entities on a number of strategic forest thinning projects that will help mitigate the forest wildfire threat and provide fuel for the renewable power plant.

So far, more than 5,700 acres of trees are being thinned and about 16,000 acres are planned in the next four years.

“Finding economically positive uses for the huge volume of biomass on the National Forests is a major barrier to overcome in order to ensure the long-term protection of critical watersheds in northern Arizona. The Novo BioPower provides the only existing market for low-grade biomass material,” SRP said.

Among SRP’s sustainability goals are a pledge to help thin 500,000 acres on the SRP watersheds by 2035 and an expanded pledge to add 2,025 MW of new utility-scale solar energy to SRP’s renewable portfolio by 2025.

Hannibal Board of Public Works Seeks Solar Plus Battery Storage Proposals

October 7, 2022

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
October 7, 2022

Missouri public power utility Hannibal Board of Public Works (HBPW) is seeking proposals for a 7 megawatt (MW) solar project paired with a 3 MW, 12 MWh battery energy storage system located behind their wholesale meter with the primary use case of meeting Midcontinent Independent System Operator capacity requirements. 

HBPW will accept proposals from any electric utility, independent power producer, solar/storage developer, or electric power marketer that can deliver the project described in the request for proposals, which was issued on Oct. 4.

HBPW seeks proposals from respondents to enter into a mutually agreeable 20-to-25-year third party power purchase agreements.

HBPW will allow flexibility in the term length on the storage part of the project, requesting a term length of at least 15 years. HBPW is not seeking turnkey EPC ownership and is only requesting PPA options.

Bids are due December 15, 2022, and the contacts for the RFP at GDS Associations are: Kyle Haemig, kyle.haemig@gdsassociates.com and Justin Hey, justin.hey@gdsassociates.com.

Florida’s Cane Island Power Park Named Top Power Plant

October 7, 2022

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
October 7, 2022

Florida’s Cane Island Power Park has received a Top Plant Award from POWER magazine for its continued success in providing affordable, reliable and clean power.

The power generating facility is one of five natural gas-fired power plants in the world to be recognized and the only one located in Florida.

Cane Island Power Park, located in Intercession City, Fla., is jointly owned by Florida Municipal Power Agency (FMPA) and Kissimmee Utility Authority (KUA). Units 1, 2 and 3 are a 50/50 split between the two utilities, and Unit 4 is wholly owned by FMPA. KUA manages the day-to-day operations of the plant.

The award recognizes top performing power plants that have distinguished themselves as industry leaders through equipment enhancements, innovative design and successful operations.

The plant received the award for its excellent operating record in 2021, which plays an essential role in providing customers with affordable, reliable power. This was especially true when Hurricane Ian hit Central Florida as a Category 4 storm on Sept. 28.

Cane Island operated throughout the storm and supplied electricity to customers who were able to take power.

“We rely on Cane Island to generate nearly half of our energy,” said Jacob Williams, FMPA General Manager and CEO. “The facility’s operating performance during Hurricane Ian shows just how reliable the units are.”

Cane Island Power Park includes two baseload units, one intermediate load unit and a peaking unit. The two baseload units were available approximately 95% of the time in 2021 to provide electricity for 24 Florida cities served by FMPA. The industry average for similar units is 85%.

In Spring 2022, Cane Island Unit 3 completed a major maintenance and upgrade, its first performance upgrade since it came online in 2001. Maintenance work was conducted to replace and repair major components to ensure continued reliable service over the next decade. The upgrades also increased the unit’s output by 12 megawatts.

“We are extremely honored to receive this award in recognition of the reliability, maintenance and operation of our Cane Island Power Plant,” said KUA President and General Manager Brian Horton. “This award is a true testament to our 42 staff members who do an excellent job operating the facility.”

San Diego City Council Approves Contract to Study Public Power

October 7, 2022

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
October 7, 2022

The San Diego City Council on October 3 approved a contract for a consulting firm to examine the feasibility of the California city transitioning to a public power utility.

The contract approved by the San Diego City Council is with NewGen Strategies & Solutions LLC.

According to a City Council Staff Report related to the contract, NewGen will provide feasibility study reports to the Mayor’s Office and City Council on the process, costs, risks, and opportunities that would be associated with transitioning from the current electric and/or gas franchise agreements with investor-owned San Diego Gas & Electric to a public power entity.

The report notes that In conjunction with the award of the gas and electric franchises to San Diego Gas & Electric in July 2021, a corollary action was identified to investigate the feasibility for an alternative to the provision of electric and gas services from an investor-owned utility through some form of municipalization and establishment of a public power entity.

The Energy Division of the San Diego Sustainability and Mobility Department was identified by San Diego’s Chief Operating Officer as the most appropriate staff to develop such a study with the support of consultants with significant technical expertise in all areas and aspects of such a process.

A request for proposals for a Public Power Feasibility Study was issued on Feb. 9, 2022 and closed on April 1, 2022.

The American Public Power Association offers a number of resources related to municipalization on its website.

Frank McRae Named as General Manager of the Southwest Public Power Agency

October 6, 2022

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
October 6, 2022

Frank McRae was recently named as general manager of Arizona’s Southwest Public Power Agency (SPPA). His official start date was September 19, 2022. 

SPPA is a joint action agency established under Arizona state law, comprising publicly owned, not-for-profit irrigation and electrical districts, municipal electric utilities, and tribal utilities.

McRae will be working together with K.R. Saline principal Dennis Delany on SPPA matters to establish and execute SPPA goals and objectives.

McRae will assist with managing, analyzing, and evaluating the effectiveness of all operations for SPPA. In addition, he will be responsible for projects, interpretations, and implementations of the Board of Directors’ policies.

He will also develop and maintain effective organizational structure and personnel by providing leadership, direction, and guidance of SPPA.

He will also represent SPPA to the membership, regulatory agencies, government, and other electric industry organizations, plus financial, trade and community organizations. 

McRae has forty years of professional experience in the energy utilities industry. Most recently, he was the Director for the City of Mesa’s Energy Resources Department.

Outages Post-Hurricane Ian Down to Less Than 500,000 in Florida

October 5, 2022

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
October 5, 2022

 

There were approximately 394,000 customer outages in Florida as a result of Hurricane Ian as of the afternoon of October 4, down from a peak of 2.7 million customers without power, the Department of Energy reported.

Ian made its initial landfall near Port Charlotte, Fla., as a category 4 hurricane on September 28.

Outages in Florida were down 85% from the peak on September 29, DOE said.

Restoration efforts continue across Florida. Electric industry representatives report that at the peak, more than 44,000 workers from 33 states and the District of Columbia were supporting power restorations.

Overall, Florida utilities report that Ian mainly impacted the distribution system, with no significant damage reported to transmission assets.

DOE said portions of the electric distribution system will need to be rebuilt in some of the hardest hit areas of Florida.

Meanwhile, in South Carolina, Santee Cooper on Oct. 3 reported that it restored 70,000 customers within 54 hours after Hurricane Ian directly hit its service territory, making landfall at Winyah Bay in Georgetown County Friday. All customers who lost power because of Hurricane Ian were restored by 8:02 p.m. Sunday. 

Santee Cooper is the state-owned public power utility in South Carolina.

Crews worked around the clock to restore all residential and commercial customers, with the help of 34 contract line crews and 12 tree crews from across the southeast. Amongst the restoration, these crews replaced 20 power poles and 32 transformers. 

Hurricane Ian also knocked 12 transmission lines out of service, affecting power delivery to six electric cooperatives and other Santee Cooper retail customers.

The cooperatives impacted were Berkeley Electric Cooperative, Santee Electric Cooperative, Marlboro Electric Cooperative, and Lynches River Electric Cooperative, Horry Electric Cooperative and Mid-Carolina Electric Cooperative.

Santee Cooper had 10 external transmission line and tree crews, plus four helicopters and crews, helping its internal team.

All transmission delivery points were reenergized by Friday night, just hours after Ian left the Santee Cooper footprint.

Biden Administration has Now Approved EV Deployment Plans for All 50 States

October 4, 2022

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
October 4, 2022

The Biden Administration has now approved electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure deployment plans for all 50 States, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico ahead of schedule under the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program, established and funded by Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

With this approval, all states now have access to all Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 and FY23 NEVI formula funding, totaling more than $1.5 billion to help build EV chargers covering approximately 75,000 miles of highway across the country.

The NEVI formula funding under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law makes $5 billion available over five years.

Thanks to flexibility provided by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, State Departments of Transportation (DOTs) were able to leverage technical assistance available through the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation and begin staffing and activities directly related to the development of their plans prior to approval, the Department of Energy noted.

Now that EV charging plans from all 50 States, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have been approved, each state, territory, or district can be reimbursed for those costs and now have a wide range of options to use their NEVI formula funding for projects directly related to the charging of a vehicle, including:

All approved plans are available on the FHWA web site and funding tables for the full five years of the NEVI formula program can be viewed here. 

 Additional funding sources include: 

FHWA is also working on related efforts to establish ground rules for how formula NEVI funds can be spent.

FHWA published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on proposed minimum standards and requirements for projects funded under the NEVI Formula Program and plans to finalize that rulemaking expeditiously now that the comment period has closed. 

FHWA also proposed a Buy America waiver that will allow a short ramp up period for the domestic manufacturing of EV charging; the comment period for the waiver proposal is open through September 30, 2022. Additionally, FHWA has posted updated Frequently Asked Questions on its website. 

The Federal Highway Administration and the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation will continue to provide direct technical assistance and support to states as they begin plan implementation, as well as throughout the lifetime of the NEVI formula program.

Report Finds Solar with Storage Can Provide Reliable Residential Backup Power

October 4, 2022

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
October 4, 2022

Behind-the-meter solar-plus-energy storage systems (PVESS) can generally provide at least minimum levels of backup power during power interruptions, according to a new report by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL).

The report, Evaluating the Capabilities of Behind-the-Meter Solar-plus-Storage for Providing Backup Power during Long-Duration Power Interruptions, found that backup performance of PVESS can vary depending on a variety of circumstances.

The best performance observed in the report, which included both simulations and historical analysis of how PVESS would have performed during a sample of actual historical events, was for residential buildings. If heating and cooling loads are excluded from those residences, a small PVESS with 10 kilowatt hours (kWh) of storage, the lower end of sizes currently in the market, can fully meet basic backup power needs over a three-day outage in virtually all U.S. counties and in any month of the year, the report found.

If critical loads include heating and cooling, a 10-kWh PVESS would meet 86 percent of critical load on average across all counties and months, while a 30-kWh PVESS, the upper end of sizes currently in the market, would meet 96 percent of critical load.

The report’s authors noted, however, that the results showed considerable performance within individual regions, based on variations in building stock. Performance declines for higher-usage homes but, more significantly, performance is affected by heating technology, building infiltration or “leakiness,” air-conditioner efficiency, and temperature set-points.

The single biggest impediment to backup performance is the presence of electric space heating, which is currently mostly electric resistance, and is most prevalent in the Southeast and the Pacific Northwest, the report said.

The authors also noted that backup performance for homes with electric heat or high cooling loads is quite sensitive to weather variability. For example, in counties with high penetration of electric heat, between 53 percent and 96 percent of critical load is served during winter months, depending on which specific day the outage begins. A similar but less dramatic was observed for homes with high cooling loads, the authors added.

In terms of duration, the report found that backup performance is fairly insensitive to outages lasting longer than one day. In general, backup performance declines as outage duration increases, though the effect is relatively modest, given the ability of solar panels to recharge batteries each day, the authors said.

For a PVESS with 30-kWh of storage and critical loads that include heating and cooling, backup performance drops from a population-weighted average of 100 percent of critical load served for a one-day outage to 92 percent for a 10-day outage, the report found.

In seven of the 10 historical outage events analyzed, the majority of homes would have been able to maintain critical loads with heating and cooling, using a PVESS with 30 kWh of storage, the report said. However, the authors noted that there was considerable variability among the five hurricane events analyzed, which was driven by differences in solar insolation levels.

The lowest performing event was Hurricane Florence, where almost no solar generation occurred over the first three days of the roughly eight-day outage due to cloud cover. For the two winter storms analyzed, all critical load was served in the median case, but a sizeable fraction of customers—those with electric heating—saw much lower performance, the report said.

The major constraint to backup performance for commercial buildings were roof area constraints on solar system sizing, the report said. “Providing full-building backup for a multi-day outage would require significantly larger systems than what is typically observed in the market today, for systems installed primarily for other purposes,” the authors said.

LBNL said the report is the first in a series it plans to do in collaboration with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory on the use of PVESS for backup power. The report’s authors plan to host a webinar summarizing key findings of the new report on Oct. 6.

DOE Begins Accepting Applications for $7 Billion in Funding for Hydrogen Hubs

October 4, 2022

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
October 4, 2022

The Department of Energy (DOE) recently opened the application process for a $7 billion program to create regional clean hydrogen hubs (H2Hubs) across the country.

As part of a larger $8 billion hydrogen hub program funded through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the DOE said the H2Hubs will be a driver in helping communities across the country benefit from clean energy investments, good-paying jobs, and improved energy security while supporting the Biden administration’s goal of achieving a net-zero carbon economy by 2050.

For the initial funding opportunity launch, the DOE aims to select six to 10 hubs for a combined total of up to $7 billion in federal funding.

Hydrogen is a versatile fuel that can be produced from clean, diverse, and domestic energy resources, including wind, solar, and nuclear energy, or by using methane while capturing resulting carbon to reduce emissions, the DOE said. Hydrogen’s characteristics also make an option to decarbonize energy-intensive heavy industry and support heavy-duty transportation, the agency added.

Concept papers for H2Hubs proposals are due by Nov. 7 with full applications due by April 7. Additional funding opportunities may follow to accelerate and expand the network of clean hydrogen projects, the DOE said.

The DOE has also released a draft of the National Clean Hydrogen Strategy and Roadmap for public feedback. A final version of the strategy and roadmap is scheduled to be released in the coming months with an updated version at least every three years.

In February, the DOE released requests for information to inform the implementation and design of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s hydrogen programs, which includes $8 billion for Regional Clean Hydrogen Hubs, $1 billion for a Clean Hydrogen Electrolysis Program, and $500 million for Clean Hydrogen Manufacturing and Recycling Initiatives to support equipment manufacturing and strong domestic supply chains.