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APPA Board of Directors Approves Business Plan

October 20, 2021

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
October 20, 2021

The American Public Power Association’s (APPA) Board of Directors last week approved a business plan for APPA.

The business plan is the result of a partnership between APPA and McKinley Advisors to create a comprehensive and forward-focused plan that aligns with and maximizes the association’s strategic and financial plans. The timeline for the plan is 2022 to 2026.

“This plan establishes a clear pathway driven by a set of guiding principles, specific priorities and a robust business framework that will take APPA from the successful association it is today toward the thriving association articulated in the organization’s vision statement: To shape the future of public power to drive a new era of community-owned electric service,” the plan’s executive summary notes.

McKinley Advisors worked with APPA staff and volunteer leaders throughout a nine-month process that included, among other things, creation of a business planning committee comprised of members that met several times and provided valuable feedback, qualitative interviews with additional members as well as APPA staff, Board of Directors working sessions, staff working sessions and analysis of recent membership surveys and third-party analyses of membership engagement performed previously.

The recommendations detailed in the plan reflect these various inputs as well as a broad understanding of past and emerging association best practices.

To inform the business planning project, McKinley engaged in a data-driven approach that included multiple research phases to inform the direction of the business plan.

The executive summary notes that APPA is operating from a position of strength with healthy reserves, strong member retention and a unique value proposition.

However, three primary drivers have accelerated the association’s need to establish sustainable revenue sources and reinforce the value of membership: the COVID-19 pandemic, aging and retiring membership and industry disruptors.

Recommendations

The business plan’s recommendations are categorized into three areas of focus designed to provide APPA a forward-focused road map to provide strong member and constituent value that aligns with the strategic plan and ensures a secure financial position for the organization.

In some cases, the recommendations are a continuation and expansion of existing work. In other cases, the recommendations move APPA in a new direction. All recommendations were based on data collected throughout the project and take into consideration association best practices.

Further details on the plan will be rolled out to members in the coming months and members can view the executive summary here.

Report Shows How Best To Use Solar, Batteries To Offset EV Impact On Transformers

October 19, 2021

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
October 19, 2021

A new study funded by a Demonstration of Energy & Efficiency Developments (DEED) scholarship from the American Public Power Association analyzes optimal strategies that can mitigate transformer loss of life resulting from a high penetration of electric vehicles (EVs).

The premise of the study, PV Generation, EV & Stationary Battery Optimal Control & Management in Distribution Grids, was that the accelerating adoption of electric vehicles could cause the overloading of some transformers, leading to premature ageing and potentially failure and added expense for utilities and their customers.

The study found the optimized use of a residential battery energy storage system (BESS) with or without photovoltaic (PV) solar panels in areas with a high penetration of electric vehicles can mitigate transformer loss of life. In the scenario that included PV solar, however, the high price of a solar installation made the economic impact of a solar installation uneconomic without subsidies.

The study was accepted for presentation at the 53rd North American Power Symposium next month.

The study, by Milad Soleimani, a research assistant and Ph.D. candidate with the department of electrical and computer engineering at Texas A&M University in College Station, looked at seven use-case scenarios.

To evaluate each scenario, a one-year study was conducted using the data available for 2018 in Bryan/College Station, Texas. Bryan Texas Utilities was the sponsor of the DEED grant.

The study looked at 12 electric vehicles and 10 charging slots. The nominal power of the transformer connected to the buildings was 63 kilovolts (kVA) and the total PV generation capacity of each building was 10 kilowatts (kW). The rated power of the BESS inverter was 5 kW. It was assumed that the electric vehicles charger was unidirectional, and the electric vehicle could only be charged. Nissan Leafs and Chevy Bolts were used in the study.

In the analysis, the results show that the impact of PV solar installations on mitigating transformer loss of life are negligible (scenario three or c). The fourth and sixth (d and f) scenarios show that operating a BESS on price only not only does not mitigate transformer loss of life it can, in some cases, have a negative impact on transformer life.

The result showed, however, that the risk of transformer loss of life can be significantly reduced by using BESS optimized for price and transformer loss of life mitigation, as in scenarios five (e) and seven (g). The study noted, however, that because of the high cost of PV solar, combining solar power with BESS, even when optimized, may not be economic without subsidies.

In the cases where the technologies provide a good return, utilities benefit, therefore, utilities “should be investors,” Soleimani wrote. That can be done, he said, by “developing and providing rebates and other incentive programs to motivate consumers to deploy these resources.”

The study concludes that optimizing BESS for both price and transformer loss of life mitigation is “essential for making the investment in BESS profitable.”

Other key findings of the study were that the proper sizing of a BESS is essential to making the system more profitable and the impact of PV solar generation without BESS support is relatively low.

NPPD Time-Of-Use Program Is Now Available To Retail Customers

October 19, 2021

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
October 19, 2021

A time-of-use (TOU) program is now available to retail customers of the Nebraska Public Power District (NPPD).

The TOU program, known as RateWise Time-Of-Use, offers another option for customers who consume most of their energy during NPPD’s off-peak and super off-peak periods or who have the flexibility to shift some of their energy usage to different time periods.

Depending on when a customer consumes energy, they can now choose from the following options:

To help customers determine if the TOU program would work for them, NPPD has introduced a new cost comparison tool within its customer portal. This tool will allow customers to compare their current RateWise Anytime rate to the RateWise Time-of-Use rate and determine potential savings.

Customers can only access the tool by registering or signing into the customer portal on nppd.com or the NPPD On-The-Go! mobile app.

NPPD noted that making the capability of TOU pricing available was the completion of automated metering infrastructure installation in NPPD’s retail communities over the past three years.

Customers who choose this new rate have several options to realize potential savings such as installing a programmable thermostat and making sure the thermostat is programmed to use energy during off-peak periods versus peak periods, setting dishwashers, washers, and dryers to run during off-peak times, as well as programming lights and other appliances to shut down when not in use.

California’s Redwood Coast Energy Authority Enters Solar-Plus-Storage Deal

October 19, 2021

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
October 19, 2021

Swell Energy recently announced a contract with California community choice aggregator Redwood Coast Energy Authority (RCEA) to develop a program designed to provide additional capacity and resource adequacy to Humboldt County, Calif.

Swell Energy’s distributed power plant effort with RCEA will establish up to 45 megawatt hours of behind-the-meter solar-powered energy storage.

Swell Energy said that it is expanding its partnership with GRID Alternatives and leveraging all government, utility, and financial programs available to bring down customer costs and enroll both new and existing systems into the community grid program.

Residential, commercial, and industrial solar plus storage sites located at a customer’s site will be eligible to participate in RCEA’s community grid program.

Swell Energy said that its participation in California’s Self Generation Incentive Program (SGIP) allows it to offer additional monetary incentives to SGIP customers in the RCEA territory.

Since 2019, Swell Energy and GRID Alternatives have teamed up on residential and commercial energy storage projects throughout California.

RCEA is a local government joint powers agency whose members include the County of Humboldt, all local cities, and the Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District.

The American Public Power Association has initiated a new category of membership for community choice aggregation programs.

Lincoln Electric System Issues Energy Storage Request For Proposals

October 19, 2021

by APPA News
October 19, 2021

Nebraska public power utility Lincoln Electric System (LES) has issued a request for proposals (RFP) for an energy storage project to be located within the LES service territory.

The RFP seeks proposals for a 10-year power purchase agreement for both lithium-ion projects with a nominal rating up to three megawatts over four hours, and energy storage projects that utilize technologies other than lithium-ion batteries, with a preference for a nominal rating of at least 250 kilowatts and duration of two hours or more. 

The energy storage project is expected to provide several benefits to LES and the surrounding system and will be dispatched accordingly.

The energy storage project is intended to help support:

“The energy storage system will only be required to operate in a grid-tied configuration; even during microgrid operations, an existing utility-scale generator will provide for system load balancing and voltage and frequency regulation,” the RFP noted.

LES’ preference is for proposals to have a commercial operation date of not later than December 31, 2022, although later dates may be considered.

Responses to the RFP are due by Nov. 2, 2021, and additional information is available here .

Fitch Affirms Grand River Dam Authority’s A+ Rating, Stable Outlook

October 19, 2021

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
October 19, 2021

Oklahoma-based Grand River Dam Authority’s (GRDA) continued strong financial performance and very low operating costs were among the key reasons that led Fitch Ratings to affirm GRDA’s A+ stable rating on Oct. 6.

Fitch noted that GRDA’s “very low rate anchors its competitive position and provides customers with an economic incentive to continue purchasing from the authority.”

Fitch also said that GRDA’s operating flexibility has benefited from a well-diversified resource mix. That mix includes GRDA’s gas, coal, water, and wind generation assets that combine to help keep operating costs low and reliability high.

Fitch assessed GRDA’s operating costs burden as “very low based on an operating cost that has remained consistently below 5 cents [per kilowatt-hour] during the past five years.”

GRDA noted that it currently maintains the highest credit ratings in its history from the three major credit rating agencies: Fitch, Moody’s Investor Service and Standard & Poor’s.

GRDA is a joint action agency that generates, transmits and sells electricity to Oklahoma municipalities, electric cooperatives and industrial customers, as well as off-system customers across a four-state region. At the same time, GRDA manages over 70,000 surface acres of lake waters in Oklahoma, as well as the waters of the scenic Illinois River.

Report Details Challenges, Recommendations As Renewables Proliferate

October 19, 2021

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
October 19, 2021

A white paper by the Eastern Interconnection Planning Collaborative (EIPC) calls for operators and planners to be more engaged in the discussions about how the electric grid will evolve to meet the challenges of rising levels of renewable energy penetration.

The paper, Planning the Grid for a Renewable Future, says to ensure continued delivery of reliable, efficient, and affordable electric power, policymakers should be aware of the opportunities and challenges of integrating greater amounts of renewables onto the grid.

The white paper draws on lessons learned through historical experience and on studies of future conditions as they relate to the planning and operations of systems with a high penetration of renewables.

EPIC is composed of 19 planning coordinators from the Eastern and Central United States, including the PJM Interconnection, the Midcontinent Independent System Operators, the New York Independent System Operator, ISO New England, Southern Company, Tennessee Valley Authority, and MEAG Power.

The white paper identified several key challenges presented to grid operators by rising renewables penetration. For instance, traditional transmission planning focuses on systems built to move power from central generating stations to distant load centers. That pattern is changing, the paper noted, as renewable resources are being sited to make the best use of wind or solar availability, but those resources are not necessarily near existing transmission lines.

In addition, studies have shown that the proliferation of intermittent resources has resulted in a decline in grid performance, EPIC said. Changes are also occurring in load composition as a result of the proliferation of home backup generators, home electric vehicle chargers, and the increased penetration of rooftop solar arrays, and whole-building battery backup systems.

Grid planners also face challenges as the number of potential renewable projects seeking to connect to the power system has increased exponentially over the last 10 years. “Currently, the lack of standardized performance requirements for renewable resources with inverter-based control systems has been the cause of significant delays in the interconnection study queues of system planners across the Eastern Interconnection due to the large variety and rapid change in designs,” the EPIC report noted.

Operating the power grid has also become more challenging, EPIC said, because of limited transmission availability, the need to maintain the proper mix of generation resources to accommodate intermittent renewable resources, and load and resource uncertainty because of varying weather conditions.

Monitoring and correcting grid stability in real time is becoming more complex and is going to require the development of market products, such as ancillary services for voltage support, reactive power, and frequency response, EPIC said.

The report also noted the personnel challenges grid operators face. Most transmission planners today are familiar with control systems based on legacy synchronous generation. Going forward, transmission planners will need to develop a better understand of the quickly evolving technology of inverter-based resources, and it will take time and resources to train workers who can adapt to and take over those control and planning functions, EPIC said.

In terms of recommendations, EPIC stressed the need for coordination as it has become more problematic for policies in one jurisdiction or region to be walled off from policies in another.

EPIC recommended the enhancement of policy coordination across the “three-legged stool” of planning, cost allocation and siting. One key area where coordination will be critical is in transmission where policymakers will have to deal with the challenges of who is going to pay for new transmission assets needed to accommodate higher levels of renewable resources and the issues of siting those new lines.

EPIC also said regulators, industry and stakeholders should develop the capability “to monitor and correct course in a timely fashion if a particular path is leading to unnecessarily higher costs, limited choice for customers or negative reliability impacts.” Regulators could consider a “Reliability Safety Valve” mechanism in any future legislation, EPIC said.

And, finally, “as the pace of change continues to accelerate, it is more important than ever to work more proactively together,” EPIC said, recommending that policymakers “considering renewable portfolio standards, carbon dioxide standards, or other similar energy-related goals take the affirmative step of inviting system planners and operators to provide input.”

The challenges facing the industry and the grid are not “insurmountable, nor do they argue against moving forward with policies supporting renewables,” however, “when policymakers craft timelines, goals and deadlines, it is essential for policymakers to consider and balance the need to ensure that the power grid can remain reliable,” EPIC said.

New England Offshore Wind Project Would Supply Energy to Mass. Public Power Utilities

October 19, 2021

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
October 19, 2021

Vineyard Wind, a joint venture between Avangrid Renewables and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, on Oct. 13 announced that Vineyard Wind’s recent Commonwealth Wind proposal includes a first of its kind partnership with Energy New England (ENE) that will allow municipal light plants (MLPs) in Massachusetts to purchase offshore wind power.

Under the agreement, MLPs would be able to purchase up to 146,000 megawatt hours per year in addition to renewable energy credits (RECs), reducing carbon pollution by 300,000-400,000 tons over the lifetime of the contract, ENE said.

Commonwealth Wind will be able to deliver up to 1,200 megawatts of energy to Massachusetts.

The agreement will enable the MLPs, which currently provide 15% of the state’s energy baseload, to make meaningful progress toward meeting renewable energy targets, as required under Massachusetts’ new climate law, ENE noted.

The 20 Massachusetts MLPs able to participate in the Commonwealth Wind project, if successful, include:

“As public power utilities continue to add non-emitting resources to their portfolios, it’s critical that they are able to join in on joint ventures such as the Vineyard Wind project,” said American Public Power Association President and CEO Joy Ditto. “This innovative partnership will enable the region’s not-for-profit, community-owned public power utilities to achieve local climate change goals as well as more diverse power generation portfolios.”

“This is a significant partnership between Vineyard Wind and ENE with its MLP clients, one that signifies the commitment that all the relevant parties have to the Commonwealth’s clean energy goals,” said John Tzimorangas, President and CEO of Energy New England, in a statement.

“The willingness of the MLPs to participate in this proposal and to continue their commitment to reducing emissions, as they have been doing, adds to their non-emitting portfolios. Working with the Vineyard Wind team, we’ve created a proposal that truly benefits the entire Commonwealth, bringing together private and public entities in an effort to provide the best proposal to Massachusetts in their latest solicitation for off-shore wind power,” he said.

Implementation of the plan is contingent on Commonwealth Wind being selected by the state in the most recent round of solicitation for offshore wind energy. 

Commonwealth Wind is a newly proposed offshore wind project submitted to Massachusetts’ third competitive offshore wind solicitation. 

If awarded, Commonwealth Wind will be developed in an area 22 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard that was designated by the federal government in 2015 following a multi-year stakeholder process.

ENE is a wholesale risk management and energy trading organization that serves the needs of public power utilities in the Northeast.

DOE Targets Five Million Households Powered by Community Solar By 2025

October 18, 2021

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
October 18, 2021

The Department of Energy (DOE) recently set a new target for its National Community Solar Partnership (NCSP) program.

The program’s new goal is to have community solar systems that can power the equivalent of five million households by 2025 and create $1 billion in energy bill savings on the way to reaching the White House’s goals of achieving 100 percent clean electricity by 2035 and ensuring that all Americans can benefit from renewable energy.

The new target represents more than a 700 percent increase in community solar installations, DOE said.

Achieving the $1 billion cost savings target would mean that, on average, community solar projects would provide a 20 percent savings on electric bills.

The DOE noted that the Sharing the Sun report, released by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in collaboration with NCSP, showed that community solar can lead to savings of electric bills ranging from 5 percent to 25 percent.

Even though there are enough solar panels installed to power 19 million households, the DOE noted that many Americans still lack access to affordable solar electricity, including renters, homeowners who lack affordable financing options, and those without suitable roof conditions.

According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, nearly 50 percent of households and businesses are not able to host rooftop solar systems.

Community solar projects are supported by membership subscriptions. Subscribers receive a portion of the revenue from the energy produced, typically as savings on their monthly electric bill.

The NCSP program is led by the DOE’s Solar Energy Technologies Office in collaboration with the NREL and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The partnership includes a coalition of community solar stakeholders, such as state, local and tribal governments, solar developers, and community-based organizations. As of September 2021, NCSP had over 650 members from over 440 partner organizations.

When the American Public Power Association joined the National Community Solar Partnership last fall, the program’s goal was to expand access to affordable community solar to every American household by 2025.

To achieve its new targets, the DOE is offering free, on-demand technical assistance to NCSP partnership members. NCSP has distributed $1 million for technical assistance and said it aims to provide $2 million in the next year.

NYPA, New York Transco Submit Transmission Proposals For Delivery Of Renewable Energy

October 18, 2021

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
October 18, 2021

The New York Power Authority (NYPA) and New York Transco recently submitted proposals for new transmission solutions to the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) that will inject renewable energy into the statewide energy grid.

The Propel NY Energy proposals for new transmission solutions were submitted in response to the NYISO’s Long Island Offshore Wind Export Public Policy Transmission Need Project Solicitation.

Propel NY Energy includes proposed transmission infrastructure upgrades to accommodate anticipated additional offshore wind generation as well as bulk transmission connections.

Propel NY Energy represents the first collaborative transmission solution proposals between (NYPA) and New York Transco. New York Transco is a New York-based owner, operator and developer of bulk electric transmission facilities and it is owned by subsidiaries of Con Edison, National Grid, Avangrid, and CH Energy Group.

Issued on August 12, 2021, the NYISO’s solicitation called for transmission proposals that will upgrade existing transmission facilities on Long Island and accommodate 3,000 megawatts of anticipated offshore wind while also installing at least one new connection between Long Island and the remainder of New York State.

NYISO issued the solicitation in response to a New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) order issued on March 19, 2021.

The order recognized the need for transmission solutions to help deliver generation from offshore wind to Long Island, New York City, and Westchester County to help meet the clean energy goals outlined in New York State’s Climate Act, including a call for the state’s energy supply to be 70% carbon-free by 2030.