APPA Seeks Nominations For 2022-2023 Board of Directors
January 13, 2022
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
January 13, 2022
The American Public Power Association (APPA) is seeking nominations for APPA’s 2022-2023 Board of Directors.
The nomination form can be found here to nominate individuals and nominations are due no later than February 12, 2022.The call for nominations covers Regions 5, 7, 9, and 10.
The APPA Nominating Committee will meet virtually on Tuesday, February 22, 2022, to consider nominations for new Board members. The Committee’s recommendations for new Board members will be presented to APPA’s membership at the annual business meeting held in June during APPA’s National Conference.
Directors are normally elected for three-year terms and are eligible to serve two consecutive terms. Any director who has served five or more years consecutively is not eligible for re-election until a period of one year has elapsed.
Contact Cartina Parks-Williams at CParks-Williams@publicpower.org for assistance or additional information.
Kansas Power Pool’s Mark Chesney To Retire This Month
January 13, 2022
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
January 13, 2022
Kansas Power Pool (KPP) CEO and General Manager Mark Chesney, who began his work at KPP more than nine years ago, is set to retire at the end of January. He will be succeeded by Colin Hansen, current Executive Director of Kansas Municipal Utilities and American Public Power Association (APPA) Board Chairman.
He started his career in public power with the Grand River Dam Authority in his native Oklahoma. Working 10 years at GRDA, his first duties were economic development where he was a member of, and led, three commissions devoted to development in northeast Oklahoma.
Later, he led GRDA staff in industrial key account management, purchase power contract negotiation/administration as well as media services management. Eventually, as Assistant General Manager of Energy Marketing and Development, he managed market and transmission operations personnel at GRDA’s energy control center.
In the year 2000 Mark joined the staff at the Utah Municipal Power Agency as their Operations Manager. His tenure there included supervising personnel in the scheduling, trading and dispatching of energy. Among his other duties were new power supply screening, the management of the agency’s transmission-dependent relationship with PacifiCorp and the hydro allocation entitlements from the Colorado River Storage Projects of the Western Area Power Administration (WAPA).
Returning to Oklahoma in 2010, Chesney served just over two years as the General Manager of the Tahlequah Public Works Authority.
Since late 2012, he has served in his current position with KPP, a joint action agency comprised of 24 electric utilities in Kansas. His tenure has been marked by increases in the KPP resource portfolio, improved cash reserves and liquidity and an upgrade in the KPP bond rating. Achieving member city contract uniformity was also a notable KPP milestone.
As the end of his professional career began to approach, Mark was elected in 2018 to the Board of Directors of APPA. Last summer, at APPA’s national conference, he received the James D. Donovan Individual Achievement Award.
Biden Administration To Hold Its First Offshore Wind Lease Sale Next Month
January 12, 2022
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
January 12, 2022
Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland on Jan. 12 announced that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) will hold a wind energy auction in February for more than 480,000 acres offshore New York and New Jersey, in the area known as the New York Bight.
This will be the first offshore wind lease sale under the Biden-Harris administration.
The Feb. 23 auction will allow offshore wind developers to bid on six lease areas — the most areas ever offered in a single auction — as described in BOEM’s Final Sale Notice. Leases offered in this sale could result in 5.6 to 7 gigawatts of offshore wind energy.
The White House’s goal to install 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030 is complemented by state offshore wind policies and actions throughout the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, Interior noted in a news release.
Collectively, New York and New Jersey have set the nation’s largest regional offshore wind target of installing over 16 GW of offshore wind by 2035.
According to Interior, the New York Bight offshore wind auction will include several innovative lease stipulations designed to promote the development of a robust domestic U.S. supply chain for offshore wind and enhance engagement with Tribes, the commercial fishing industry, other ocean users, and underserved communities. The stipulations will also advance flexibility in transmission planning.
The Sale Notice also requires lessees to identify Tribes, underserved communities and other ocean users who could be affected by offshore wind development.
More information about the auction, lease stipulations, list of qualified bidders for the auction and Interior’s collaboration with New York and New Jersey can be found on BOEM’s website.
NREL Report Assesses Value In Managed EV Charging Strategies
January 12, 2022
by Peter Maloney
APPA News
January 12, 2022
Managed electric vehicle charging offers “significant potential benefits for the grid,” such as demand side flexibility, according to a new report from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
The NREL researchers conducted a literature review of research papers on the potential value of electric vehicle charging to better understand how electric vehicles and the electric grid can work together as the electric and transportation sectors become more intertwined.
The simplest form of electric vehicle managed charging—sometimes called smart charging – is time-of-use pricing that offers lower electricity rates to charge an electric vehicle during off-peak periods. More sophisticated managed charging plans control charging based on a user’s travel needs and grid conditions. In the most sophisticated managed charging systems, electric vehicles can act as temporary electricity suppliers by sharing power back to the grid.
The report, published in Energy & Environmental Science, summarizes findings from hundreds of studies considering multiple value streams for the power system, enablement costs, and perspectives of different stakeholders, including utilities, electric vehicle owners, charging station operators, and rate payers.
“Managed charging can be a tremendous resource for the grid but there are trade-offs to solutions at different levels of commercial readiness,” Matteo Muratori, NREL analyst and principal investigator of the study, said in a statement. “Some solutions offer a wider range of grid services and value streams but require increasingly complex communication and control technology and demands on users, which come with a cost.”
Among the benefits, the NREL researchers identified decreased emissions, improved reliability, support for large-scale deployment of variable generation, and lower power system costs. “Some studies show that EV managed charging could provide thousands of dollars of value per EV every year,” the researchers said.
Although the power system will likely require upgrades to handle higher levels of electric vehicle charging, managed charging has the potential to improve system efficiency and lower average retail electricity rates for all consumers, not just electric vehicle owners, the researchers found. Managed charging is particularly valuable in systems with high levels of variable renewables to provide flexibility to match supply and demand, they said. In contrast, power system cost savings from managed charging is lower in systems with other sources of flexibility, they added.
The strategy used to deploy electric vehicle charging stations can change the benefits available to the grid. If electric vehicle managed charging is based solely on minimizing owner costs with no consideration of the grid, “it could negatively impact system cost and operation,” the NREL researchers said.
In addition, the benefits of managed charging for distribution systems are more difficult to nail down, the researchers found. “Distribution system issues are location and system-specific, so it’s very hard to generalize insights,” Muratori said.
Overall, managed charging can noticeably reduce distribution system peak loads and congestion across the board, but more modeling and analysis is needed in collaboration with utilities, the researchers said. They also warned that the enablement and implementation costs in the report are “highly uncertain due to limited market implementations and a lack of scale.”
Many questions about the potential value of electric vehicle managed charging remain to be answered, the NREL researchers said. Among other things, they recommended a complete benefit-cost assessment that considers the entire extent of value streams for the power system, enablement costs, and the perspectives of all stakeholders.
Connecticut Municipal Electric Energy Cooperative Transfers Plant Ownership
January 12, 2022
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
January 12, 2022
The Connecticut Municipal Electric Energy Cooperative (CMEEC) recently transferred ownership of its Alfred L. Pierce 84-megawatt electric generating facility located in Wallingford, Conn., to MPH AL Pierce LLC.
MPH AL Pierce LLC is a Delaware limited liability company that is indirectly owned by affiliates of Hull Street Energy (HSE), a private equity firm.
CMEEC CEO Dave Meisinger noted that since its repowering in 2007, the Pierce plant has been a valuable project for CMEEC and its members, but added that the continued operation of the plant was no longer projected to provide the same wholesale rate stability and overall benefits that CMEEC’s members have come to expect.
“The sale of the Pierce plant is an important step in the alignment of CMEEC’s mission to add economic value to the communities we serve while thoughtfully addressing the impacts of climate change,” he said.
“We are confident that HSE will operate the plant in a manner that will contribute to the reliability of the New England electric grid as our wholesale market structure continues to evolve in response to regional decarbonization goals.”
The parties had previously announced the signing of the asset purchase agreement on October 8, 2021.
CMEEC is a political subdivision of the State of Connecticut created in 1976.
It is a non-profit municipal joint action electric supply agency that provides the power supply requirements, at wholesale, of six municipal electric utilities with retail electric service territories in Connecticut as well as for other customers who purchase power at wholesale.
Its municipal electric utility members are Bozrah Light & Power, Jewett City Department of Public Utilities, Groton Utilities, Norwich Public Utilities, South Norwalk Electric and Water, and The Third Taxing District of Norwalk Electric Division.
Daniel Beans Appointed As New Director Of Roseville Electric Utility
January 12, 2022
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
January 12, 2022
Daniel Beans has been appointed director of California’s Roseville Electric Utility. He will start Feb. 7, 2022.
Beans is currently the Director of Redding Electric Utility, where he has worked since 2005. In 2017, Beans was appointed to his current position.
He began his career with Redding Electric Utility in 2005 as an electrical engineer and has worked in all aspects of the utility in the years since. Prior to that he worked for more than a decade in engineering firms in the private sector.
Beans is currently the vice president of the California Municipal Utilities Association, board member of the American Public Power Association, and commissioner for the Balancing Area of Northern California.
In October 2021, Roseville Electric reported that Electric Utility Director Michelle Bertolino was retiring after nearly 30 years in the electric utility industry.
LADWP Line Crews Complete Navajo Nation Mutual Aid Training Exercise
January 12, 2022
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
January 12, 2022
Electric line crews from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) recently completed work on the Navajo Nation for a mutual aid training exercise that included extending electricity to Navajo homes.
More than 40 LADWP crew members volunteered to travel to the Navajo Nation to train in challenging conditions, such as adverse weather and isolated locations where dirt roads are the only access. The training exercise ended after 41 days and resulted in 80 homes being connected to the electric grid before the Christmas holiday.
“LADWP teamed up with the NTUA for this Mutual Aid Training exercise and the benefits far exceeded our expectations,” said Brian Wilbur, Senior Assistant General Manager of Power System Construction, Maintenance, & Operations, at LADWP. “In this simulation we were able to deploy vehicles, personnel, and equipment to a remote location to preform restoration and infrastructure work over rugged terrain in harsh conditions. The challenges, pitfalls, and victories of this complete deployment is something we have not been able to examine when we do our typical tabletop training simulations,” he said in a statement.
“Everyone from our executive leadership to our transmission and distribution crews were involved including our Office of Emergency Management, Fleet personnel, Procurement, and Communication groups.”
The combined crews worked and trained 10-hours a day to finish projects in 28 communities located across the Navajo Nation. The most extensive project, which extended over nine miles, was the Chilchinbeto community powerline project. Once the crews completed their work, 20 Navajo homes were powered up. It had been a project that was more than 10 years in the making, following years of acquiring rights of way and securing the land use permits.
Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez stopped by Chilchinbeto to personally thank LADWP crew members for volunteering to be part of the training project.
As the Chilchinbeto project was underway, the community watched daily as the power line was being built. Some residents drove by the powerline route daily to measure its progress. The project was completed in 15 days after which the community leaders and residents cooked and hosted a “thank-you” meal for the LADWP crew members.
“With heartfelt tears, family members told LADWP crews this was the best Christmas present they could ever receive,” said Navajo Tribal Utility Authority (NTUA) General Manager Walter Haase. “We are very happy this mutual aid training exercise was a success. LADWP completed its training and families are now enjoying the benefits of electricity. We are thankful that LADWP chose the Navajo Nation as the location for its rural mutual-aid field training exercise. We hope this is the first of future partnership projects.”
Planning Is Underway For Project That Will Bring Power To Navajo Nation Residents
Meanwhile, planning for Light Up Navajo III, which will connect Navajo Nation families to the power grid, is underway. Public power utilities are encouraged to consider participating in Light Up Navajo III, which will start in the spring of this year.
The American Public Power Association (APPA) is working with NTUA, based in Fort Defiance, Ariz., to help volunteers continue to bring electricity to families in need.
Light Up Navajo III is scheduled to take place from April through June of 2022.
Interested public power utilities should contact lightup-navajoproject@ntua.com for more information on this important event.
Wholesale Electric Prices Rose From 2020 To 2021, EIA Reports
January 12, 2022
by Peter Maloney
APPA News
January 12, 2022
Average wholesale electricity prices rose in 2021 compared with 2020 levels pushed, in part, by higher natural gas costs, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).
Constraints on electricity supply as a result of cold weather in the central United States created price spikes in February 2021, EIA said, but the overall rise in electricity prices was particularly steep in the second half of 2021, the EIA noted.
Electricity prices were particularly volatile in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) market where record low temperatures in February resulted in emergency conditions and rotating outages. The cold weather also restricted the flow of natural gas for power generation, and many wind turbines froze. Those factors combined to push hourly wholesale prices at the ERCOT North trading hub above $6,000 per megawatt hour (MWh) for 70 percent of the time. For the month of February, Texas’s wholesale electricity price averaged $1,485/MWh.
The cold weather also caused near record high spikes in the price of natural gas throughout the country, leading to high electricity prices in other wholesale markets. In the PJM Interconnection, February wholesale electricity prices averaged $42/MWh. In ISO-New England prices averaged $73/MWh.
After the February spike, natural gas prices continued to rise through October as economic recovery contributed to overall growth in natural gas demand, which outpaced the ability of gas supply growth to replace inventories drained during the winter storm.
The price of natural gas, which is used to fuel many peaking power plants, is often the main driver of wholesale power prices. And while natural gas prices have been low in recent years – the cost of natural gas delivered to electric generators averaged $2.40 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) in 2020 – prices are rising.
Last year the delivered cost of natural gas to generators rose from $3.19/MMBtu in January 2021 to an estimated $5.04/MMBtu in the fourth quarter of 2021, EIA said.
EIA is estimating that 2021 will prove to be a record year for U.S. natural gas production.
In 2020 wholesale electricity prices were generally lower than they were in 2019. Wholesale power prices were 5 percent lower in the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) market and 45 percent lower in ERCOT, EIA reported..
Wholesale electricity prices in ERCOT were less volatile and averaged $22/MWh in 2020 compared with $38/MWh in 2019, EIA said.
In CAISO, wholesale electricity prices were 34 percent lower in the first half of 2020 than they were in the first half of 2019, mostly as a result of near record-low natural gas costs and reduced electricity demand resulting from pandemic-related stay-at-home orders, EIA said. However, higher than expected electricity demand in the second half of the year caused rolling outages and resulted in an average wholesale price of $77/MWh in August.
APPA DEED Members Encouraged To Apply For Energy Innovator Award
January 11, 2022
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
January 11, 2022
Members of the American Public Power Association’s (APPA) Demonstration of Energy & Efficiency Development’s (DEED) program are encouraged to apply for its Energy Innovator Award. The deadline for submissions is Jan. 31, 2022.
The APPA program’s Energy Innovator Award honors utilities that have developed or applied creative techniques and technologies to improve the efficient delivery of energy services in their communities through the implementation of new projects and programs. Awards recognize creativity, resource efficiency, benefits to consumers, transferability, and project scope in relation to utility size.
A list of APPA DEED members is available here.
Energy Innovator Award winners are chosen by an outside panel of judges carefully selected from leaders in the energy industry, public office, the media, and private business.
The most recent Energy Innovator Award recipients are Florida public power utility Orlando Utilities Commission (OUC) and Southern Minnesota Municipal Power Agency (SMMPA).
OUC developed a nanogrid with the aim of achieving transformative strategic objectives that addressed decarbonization of the grid, electrification, and decentralization. OUC’s nanogrid will provide real-world testing of new technologies at a scale that allows OUC to gain valuable operational data, with lower investment risk.
The nanogrid aims to solve the key challenges of vehicle electrification, demand charge mitigation and resiliency through direct-coupled solar PV and battery storage with electric vehicle chargers.
Additionally, the nanogrid will be integrated with a hydrogen system for backup power, consisting of an electrolyzer, hydrogen storage tanks, and two fuel cells, which are part of a Department of Energy-supported green hydrogen feasibility demonstration.
SMMPA’s Member EV Charging Network was a collaboration between the agency, 17 of its member utilities, and ZEF Energy to facilitate the acceptance of electric vehicles and help with the transformation of both the electric utility and transportation industries.
SMMPA made the investment in the chargers and maintenance programs, while member utilities located suitable sites and handled the installation. This project will bring fast charging stations to the region and reduce range anxiety by providing EV owners with a quick charge when they are traveling longer distances.
For additional details on the SMMPA project and the process for applying for an Energy Innovator Award, click here for the latest episode of APPA’s Public Power Now podcast, which features Chris Schoenherr, Director, Agency and Government Relations and Chief External Affairs Officer, at SMMPA.
Among the 2020 Energy Innovator Award winners was South Dakota’s Heartland Power Consumers District.
During the summer of 2019, Heartland employed a college intern to develop calculator tools to help determine the annual benefit and cost of installing a renewable energy system, particularly a solar array. One calculator is for retail customers who want to install solar panels on their property, while the other is for the utility to determine the cost to the utility itself. The solar calculators are complete and functional within the Microsoft Excel program.
The calculator makes some assumptions but does so based on answers to certain questions including geographic location, making it a useful tool for any utility.
“We developed the renewable cost calculator to help customers make an informed decision when considering the costs and benefits of installing a renewable energy system,” said Ann Hyland, Chief Communications Officer at Heartland Power Consumers District.
“It also helps utilities determine the effect it will have on their system. Heartland has made a commitment to innovation and developing the necessary resources to most effectively serve our customers. As technology continues to evolve, it is vital to stay ahead of the curve, and this award helps recognize those efforts,” she said.
Additional details about the award are available here.
EPB Smart Grid Earns National Recognition For Resilience, Sustainability
January 11, 2022
by Vanessa Nikolic
APPA News
January 11, 2022
Chattanooga, Tenn., public power utility EPB has been recognized by Green Business Certification Inc. (GBCI) for achieving Performance Excellence in Electricity Renewal (PEER) Gold recertification. The recognition builds on EPB’s designation in 2015 as the first public power utility to achieve PEER certification.
Established in 2008, GBCI is a leading certification and credentialing body for several rating systems relating to the built environment, including the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green building rating systems, the PEER standard for power systems, and others.
The PEER Rating System evaluates and verifies a power system’s performance and electricity infrastructure across four categories: reliability and resiliency; energy efficiency and environment; operations, management and safety; and grid services.
The new designation recognizes EPB’s integration of a high degree of environmental stewardship into its advanced electricity distribution system. Companies in EPB’s service area can earn extra points toward the LEED certification of their green development projects.
The PEER designation also certifies that EPB’s infrastructure is ready for renewables, battery storage and electric vehicles while also achieving a high standard for environmentally sustainable power system operations.
Volkswagen Group of America, a subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group of automobile companies of Germany, is set to integrate EPB’s Smart Grid designation into its plan to build its new Chattanooga-based Battery Engineering Lab to LEED’s green building standard.
The Battery Engineering Lab will house battery testing and high-voltage component engineering, and will add the localized production of electric vehicles, shaping Volkswagen’s electric future in America.
EPB president and CEO David Wade said supporting Volkswagen in the LEED development of its Battery Engineering Lab is a great starting point for working with other companies to support job creation and environmental stewardship.
“We appreciate Volkswagen for being the first to join EPB in this effort,” Wade said. “We stand ready to work with other local companies and potential business investors to help facilitate their green building efforts.”
EPB is an independent board of the City of Chattanooga which began serving customers in 1939. For more information, visit epb.com.