Company Announces U.S. Solar Roof Manufacturing Facility In Georgetown, Texas
July 22, 2022
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
July 22, 2022
GAF Energy has signed a lease and begun construction on a 450,000 square-foot facility in Georgetown, Texas, a public power community. Construction is expected to be completed in June 2023.
Once improvements are complete, the new facility will serve as the company’s second U.S. manufacturing center for its solar roof, Timberline Solar, the only roof system to directly integrate solar technology into traditional roofing processes and materials.
GAF Energy plans to hire 265 employees in high tech jobs over the next 10 years at the Georgetown facility. The total capital investment for the project is estimated to be over $100 million in that time.
GAF Energy will receive a total combined incentive package worth more than $3.24 million from local jurisdictions, including:
- A City of Georgetown property tax abatement for 10 years of 75 percent for business personal property and 50 percent for real property, valued at $2.35 million;
- A five-year job creation grant with a total value of $395,000, paid by the Georgetown Economic Development Corporation;
- The retirement of renewable energy credits to offset the company’s electric usage for five years to certify the facility as using 100 percent renewable energy, valued at $500,000.
The net 10-year economic impact to Georgetown is estimated to be $3.75 million.
Owensboro Municipal Utilities Seeks Bids For Cost Of Service And Rate Design Study
July 22, 2022
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
July 22, 2022
Kentucky’s Owensboro Municipal Utilities (OMU) is soliciting proposals for the performance and development of a cost of service and rate design study through a request for proposals (RFP) issued on July 18.
OMU is contemplating a cost-of-service study with rate design for its electric utility and a cost-of-service study with rate design for its water utility with the option of performing a five-year financial plan for each study.
Both studies’ emphases will be to provide funding for operating costs, reasonable operating reserves after funding operations, debt service, and capital projects; determine actual cost of providing utility service to each customer class to identify separate fixed and variable costs that are specific to each customer class as well as a development of a five-year financial plan identifying projected future revenue requirement patterns.
Click here for the RFP.
OMU is a public power, water and telecommunications municipal utility serving the City of Owensboro, Ky., currently serving approximately 28,000 electric meters and 26,000 water meters in Daviess County, Ky.
New Participants In Western Markets Exploratory Group Include Public Power Utilities
July 22, 2022
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
July 22, 2022
Members of the Western Markets Exploratory Group (WMEG) announced on July 21 that they have expanded their membership by adding eleven new participants to the current roster of fourteen utilities totaling twenty-five member participants across the west. Several of the new participants are public power utilities.
WMEG, which was created in 2021, is exploring the potential for a staged approach to new market services including day-ahead energy sales, transmission system expansion, power supply and grid solutions, and existing and emerging public policies.
The eleven new members added to the group are: Arizona Electric Power Cooperative, Avista Corp., Balancing Authority of Northern California, Bonneville Power Administration, Chelan County PUD No. 1, El Paso Electric Company, PUD #2 of Grant County, NorthWestern Energy, Tacoma Power, Tri-State Generation & Transmission Association, and Western Area Power Administration.
Current WMEG membership includes 14 transmission owning utilities across the Desert Southwest, Pacific Northwest, and the Mountain West and includes Xcel Energy Colorado, Arizona Public Service (APS), Black Hills Energy, Idaho Power, Los Angeles Department of Water & Power, NV Energy, PacifiCorp, Platte River Power Authority, Portland General Electric, Puget Sound Energy, Salt River Project, Seattle City Light, Tucson Electric Power, and Public Service New Mexico.
Many of the utilities in the group are currently participating in energy imbalance markets and the ongoing development of day-ahead markets.
WMEG is developing pathways to a Western organized market that would allow participants to develop an initial market design proposal and roadmap up to and including operating as a Regional Transmission Organization, depending upon what each state and/or utility determines is in the best interest of their customers.
Utilicast, an energy consulting company, will assist WMEG in developing a roadmap that will identify market requirements, interdependencies, and timelines. WMEG expects these work products will be available towards the end of 2022.
Bureau of Land Management Approves Arizona-California Transmission Line Project
July 21, 2022
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
July 21, 2022
The Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has give the green light for construction of the Ten West Link Transmission Line project, which will facilitate increased renewable energy development and delivery in Arizona and California.
The BLM’s Notice to Proceed authorizes Delaney Colorado River Transmission LLC (DCR) to begin construction of the 125-mile, 500-kilovolt transmission line that will connect existing substations near Tonopah, Arizona and Blythe, California.
The Ten West Link route traverses a region with some of the highest potential for utility-scale solar photovoltaic energy development in the nation, BLM said on July 14.
The project “will provide critical transmission infrastructure to support the development of future utility-scale solar energy resources and will boost the reliability of the bulk power system for millions of customers in Central Arizona and Southern California,” it said.
The project is expected to be operational by the end of 2022.
DCR Transmission, LLC is a joint venture led by affiliates of Starwood Energy Group, a private investment firm based in Greenwich, Conn., which specializes in energy infrastructure investments.
New APPA Report Details Electrification Trends, Hurdles For Wider Adoption
July 21, 2022
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
July 21, 2022
A new report issued by the American Public Power Association (APPA) analyzes trends in electrification and identifies at least three major hurdles that need to be overcome to realize wider adoption of electrification.
The report, which was prepared by Paul Zummo, Director for Research and Development at APPA, said that the electrification of end-use technologies, such as electric space and water heating as well as electric vehicles (EVs), offers potential benefits to the environment and consumers. Electrification efforts that are both environmentally beneficial and comparatively economical have been termed beneficial or efficient electrification.
The report analyzes trends in electrification deployment through the current day and discusses potential developments.
Potential benefits of electrification include, but are not limited to, reduced CO2 emissions, more efficient use of energy, long-term fuel savings, and lower overall monthly energy costs, the report said.
“Yet there are several potential challenges, including the following: electrified space heating is still generally more efficient in warmer climates than colder climates, up-front prices for many EV models are higher than for traditional transportation, and the overall cost of converting to electrified end uses may be prohibitive for many customers.”
The first part of the report analyzes currently available data showing relative percentages of electrification in different parts of the United States. Because adoption of space heating is dependent on certain key variables, the first part of this report primarily focuses on this aspect of electrification, though it does relate some current EV market data and future projections.
The data reveal that in some regions — particularly the Southeast and Southwest — electrification of space heating is more prevalent than in other areas of the country. Furthermore, residential customers who have electric heating in their homes do not have higher energy bills than those who primarily rely on fossil fuels, and this is due to higher incidences of electrification in states with comparatively low electric rates and more temperate or warmer climates, the report said.
The second part of the report focuses on the future of electrification and identifies at least three major hurdles that need to be overcome to realize wider adoption of electrification.
These three factors are: the cost of transitioning energy resources to electric, potential (and existing) supply chain constraints associated with the materials needed for batteries, and limitations of the existing electric grid, both in terms of wires and generating capacity.
This part of the report includes a discussion of the changing resource mix and how this may impact some of the environmental aspects of electrification.
“While there are also associated concerns, these three stand out as the most pressing. There have been multiple studies on all these issues, and this report borrows and expands upon this research.”
The purpose of the report is to draw out and amplify these barriers to adoption and discuss potential approaches to ameliorating them.
State Transportation And Energy Office Groups Awarded Funds For EV Collaboration
July 21, 2022
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
July 21, 2022
The Joint Office of Energy and Transportation announced on July 20 a $1.5 million award to the National Association of State Energy Officials (NASEO) and the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) that will foster collaboration in the development and deployment of a national electric vehicle (EV) charging network.
“The partnership will convene stakeholders across local, state, and federal government to ensure that EV charging station infrastructure investments are made in a strategic, coordinated, efficient, and equitable manner with public and private-sector partners,” the Department of Energy said.
Key focus areas of the award include:
- Facilitating peer exchange and regional dialogues to build capacity, lift up best practices, and ensure coordination across a national EV charging network that also reflects local needs.
- Identifying and providing data, technical, and programmatic assistance needs to develop, implement, and refine state EV charging plans.
- Enhancing communication between state and federal agencies to enable effective, coordinated and timely EV charging planning and implementation.
The Joint Office of Energy and Transportation was created through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) to facilitate collaboration between the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Department of Transportation.
NASEO is comprised senior officials from the 56 State and Territory Energy Offices, as well as affiliates from the private and public sectors.
AASHTO represents the highway and transportation departments in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.
The joint office recently announced a partnership to support EV charging with APPA, Edison Electric Institute, and National Rural Electric Cooperative Association to inform electric system investments and support state planning.
New York Governor Recommends Justin Driscoll To Serve As President and CEO Of NYPA
July 21, 2022
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
July 21, 2022
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on July 20 recommended Justin Driscoll to serve as President and CEO of the New York Power Authority (NYPA).
Driscoll was appointed by NYPA’s Board of Trustees to serve as Interim President and CEO in October. The governor’s recommendation comes after a national search and recognizes the work Driscoll has accomplished in the previous year, NYPA said.
Driscoll previously served as chief legal officer of NYPA.
Before joining NYPA, he was engaged in the private practice of law and represented clients that included Fortune 500 companies, governmental entities and energy companies, in complex commercial litigation and regulatory matters.
Driscoll serves on several boards including The Alliance to Save Energy, New York City’s Urban Green Council, the Large Public Power Council, and the World Resources Institute’s Global Energy Advisory Board.
Capacity Constraints, Rolling Blackouts Not Seen As Near-Term Risk To Public Power: Fitch
July 20, 2022
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
July 20, 2022
Summer capacity constraints and rolling blackouts are not viewed as a near-term risk to public power and electric cooperative credit quality, Fitch Ratings said on July 15.
Fitch noted that its rated portfolio of public power issuers “typically own or contract for sufficient electric generation during the summer months to match or exceed their expected load demand, providing a financial hedge against market scarcity and volatile energy prices.”
However, general economic inflationary pressures “will necessitate rate increases in the sector, and customer tolerance for rate increases could be diminished by recurring rolling blackouts. To the extent utilities cannot pass through needed rate increases, utility financial profiles would likely weaken and could put pressure on credit quality over the longer term,” the rating agency said.
Supply shortages and the potential for rolling blackouts are likely to happen with more frequency across the U.S., Fitch said.
It said that public power and cooperative utilities tend to own or contract for generation supplies conservatively so that they have more than sufficient reserves to meet potential increases in demand “but there may be residual risk if temperatures cause demand to be substantially higher than anticipated.”
Costs of meeting demand in excess of power supply are typically modest in relation to utilities’ overall budgets, Fitch said, adding that most utilities have a power cost adjustment feature in their rate structure that recovers power costs above budget or reduces rates to customers if power costs are below budget throughout the year.
“As a result of the conservative planning in the sector, public power utilities are often net sellers during scarcity events, protecting the financial profile of utilities during shortage or volatile pricing periods,” Fitch said.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) earlier this month asked Texas residents and businesses to voluntarily conserve electricity as extreme hot weather created record power demand across Texas.
Fitch noted that the call for voluntary conservation was successful, reducing peak demand to approximately 78.3 gigawatts on two days, and no rolling blackouts occurred.
If rolling blackouts occur during a heat event in Texas this summer, they will likely last for a few hours, not days, as occurred in February 2021 during Winter Storm Uri, and would not impact long-term public power utility credit quality, the rating agency said.
In a recent episode of the American Public Power Association’s Public Power Now podcast, Woody Rickerson, Vice President of System Planning and Weatherization at ERCOT, detailed ongoing efforts by the grid operator to bolster reliability in the state.
Lawmakers Ask EPA To Detail Plans And Actions Tied To Reliability Risks
July 20, 2022
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
July 20, 2022
House Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans on July 11 sent a letter to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan asking for the agency to respond to a series of questions related to EPA plans and actions regarding risks to electric reliability. The letter was signed by all 26 committee Republicans.
Following similar letters on risks to electric reliability sent to both the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the Department of Energy (DOE), this letter questions many recent actions and proposals by EPA that may impact reliability.
“In recent months, you announced a suite of EPA actions to target fossil fueled electric generating units, an “EGU Strategy,” to drive the Biden Administrations climate agenda,” the House members wrote in their letter.
This strategy includes many major new regulations now under development or proposed: the Interstate Transport Rule, Regional Haze, Risk and Technology Review for the Mercury Air Toxics Rule, a new set of greenhouse gas performance standards, effluent limitations, and a legacy coal combustion residue rule, “all of which directly affect power plants that are essential for reliable electric operations,” the letter said.
“We are concerned that EPA actions threaten to accelerate fossil generation retirements, at the very same time electric system operators report growing shortfalls in such baseload capacity will accelerate blackout risks,” the lawmakers told Regan.
“At a time of widespread economic and inflationary burdens, the last thing this nation needs are agency actions that press headlong into creating a major electricity crisis. Therefore, it is important that Congress have information from EPA to assess how the Agency’s actions are affecting electric grid reliability,” the letter said.
Among other things, Regan was asked to describe what specific actions “you are taking or are prepared to take to address energy or electricity emergencies this summer in the bulk power system.”
In addition, the lawmakers want the EPA to list all waivers or other emergency actions being considered or that have been taken over the past two years in connection with electricity reliability.
They also asked for a list of all regulatory actions “you are considering or have taken over the past two years to alleviate electricity reliability risks.”
The letter also asks Regan to detail the agency’s interactions with the DOE, FERC, grid operators and states.
Regan was asked to reply to the questions by July 26, 2022.
Groups Raise Reliability, Cost And Other Concerns In Response To Idea Of Breaching Northwest Dams
July 20, 2022
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
July 20, 2022
The idea of breaching the Lower River Snake Dams (LSRDs) in Eastern Washington State fails to take into account a number of potential negative impacts that could result from such a move including an increase in electricity costs for consumers and removing a key pillar of reliable power supply for the region, the American Public Power Association (APPA) and regional public power groups said.
In June, U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee announced the release of an independent draft report intended to help inform the recommendations of their Joint Federal-State Process regarding the Lower Snake River Dams and salmon recovery in the Pacific Northwest.
The draft report notes that the potential for improvements to West Coast salmon populations is one of the main factors prompting interest in breaching the LSRDs. The deadline for comments on the draft report was July 11, 2022.
Among the groups that weighed in on the draft report was the Oregon Municipal Electric Utilities Association (OMEU).
The draft report assumes the LSRDs will be less important in the future, OMEU said. “However, with 100% clean energy mandates in Oregon and Washington this is clearly untrue. With baseload resources being replaced by massive amounts of intermittent generation, the LSRDs’ ability to provide power — on demand — will become increasingly important for reliable grid operations and public safety, especially during extreme weather conditions,” OMEU argued.
It pointed out that during the heat dome events of last summer, the LSRDs provided much-needed energy, balancing and contingency reserves. “Without those four dams, powering through the heat wave could have been much more expensive and operationally challenging,” OMEU said.
For consumer-owned utility ratepayers, losing the LSRDs could increase consumer electricity rates by 25% or more, OMEU said. “Replacing the generating capabilities of the LSRDs, alone, would cost $15 billion in a zero-carbon future. This type of financial hardship threatens to irreparably harm the communities we serve, particularly our low income and vulnerable customers.”
APPA, which supports the comments submitted by the Washington Public Utility Districts Association (WPUDA) and OMEU, noted that many of APPA’s members buy power produced by the LSRDs, which are part of the broader Columbia River Power System, or own and operate their own hydropower projects.
Making full use of the nation’s hydropower resource is key to ensuring that the nation’s — and the Pacific Northwest’s — grid remains reliable and resilient, and that utilities can meet emission reduction goals, APPA said.
“It is difficult to overstate how critical it is to maintain the LRSDs as the region — and the nation — seeks to lower emissions while maintaining electric reliability and affordability over the long-term,” APPA said in its comments. “Moreover, recent extreme weather events have demonstrated that the LSRDs are an irreplaceable resource not just in the future but right now — both in terms of energy, capacity, and other grid services key to maintaining reliable electricity.”
Public power utilities are committed to scientific, cost-effective mitigation for the impacts of the federal hydropower system, APPA noted. It said that costs related to fish and wildlife mitigation, including the cost of lost power generation, comprise a quarter or more of the Bonneville Power Administration’s power rates.
“The LSRDs feature state-of-the-art fish passage technology that greatly improves in-river fish survival, achieving spring juvenile survival at 96 percent and summer migrating fish survival at 93 percent. Removal of the LSRDs is not a clear path to recovery of endangered species or overall abundance of salmon. More attention is needed to the threats of ocean conditions, avian predation, and over-fishing,” APPA said.
Removal of the LSRDs “may prove to be a tipping point, nudging the Northwest system into acute scarcity of electric supply. The Federal hydropower system, and particularly the LSRDs, are in a critical position to maintain grid reliability and prevent blackouts in the West.”
Moreover, no existing alternative technologies can provide the same combination of low cost, reliable, and flexible attributes, and it is far from clear that dam removal will result in meaningful fish recovery commensurate with costs, APPA added.
WPUDA noted that the draft states that three studies found the energy generated by the LSRD could be replaced by a clean energy portfolio. “It is important that the report emphasize that these studies do not demonstrate that an alternative clean energy portfolio can achieve the other electric system services provided by the LSRDs: peaking capacity, clean energy, grid stability, ancillary and grid services, transmission voltage support and low regional energy rates,” WPUDA said.
The draft report indicates the cost of dam breaching to be $10-$27 billion, WPUDA noted. “Given the stated purpose is salmon recovery, WPUDA believes it is worth asking whether this is the best use of this enormous sum of dollars. And if so, could this money be spent in alternative ways that better support salmon abundance (e.g., stream bank restoration, culvert replacement, enhanced salmon migration support)?”
Northwest RiverPartners, which serves not-for-profit, community-owned electric utilities in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Nevada and Wyoming, said that “Our already fragile grid is facing unique challenges and threats. Removing the lower Snake River dams would not only create even greater challenges, but their loss would harm our efforts to keep the power on when we most need it.”
Additionally, losing the lower Snake River dams “makes it virtually certain that grid operators will be forced to continue using coal or natural gas generation for years longer than allowed under Washington’s clean energy laws to avoid blackouts,” Northwest RiverPartners said.
Following the public input period, tribal consultation, and other means of engagement, the report will be updated and released in final form. The senator and governor will then make their recommendations.