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APPA says FERC cybersecurity incentive proposals are not needed to promote investments

April 13, 2021

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
April 13, 2021

Cybersecurity incentive proposals included in a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR) issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) are neither necessary nor appropriate to promote effective cybersecurity investment, the American Public Power Association (APPA) said in April 6 comments submitted to FERC.

Moreover, the proposals outlined by FERC do not satisfy the requirements for incentive rate mechanisms under the Federal Power Act (FPA), APPA said in urging the Commission not to adopt the NOPR’s incentive rate proposals. 

The NOPR follows a FERC staff white paper issued in June 2020 that outlined an incentive framework for cybersecurity investments similar to the proposals included in the NOPR. 

APPA filed comments and reply comments in response to the white paper opposing the proposed incentives, while also making a number of recommendations regarding the structure and implementation of any cybersecurity incentive program the Commission chose to adopt.

The NOPR proposes an incentive rate framework intended to encourage voluntary cybersecurity investments that “go above and beyond” the current requirements of the Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) reliability standards established by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), APPA noted.

The NOPR suggests that such investments could “materially enhance the cybersecurity posture of the Bulk-Power System by enhancing the applicants’ cybersecurity posture substantially above levels required by CIP reliability standards, to the benefit of ratepayers.”

The incentives would be available to public utilities, as well as “to non-public utilities to the extent that they have Commission-jurisdictional rates.”

In the context of FERC regulations, public utilities are defined as those that are Commission-jurisdictional (e.g., investor-owned utilities).

NOPR proposes two approaches

The NOPR proposes two cybersecurity investment approaches that may be eligible for incentives: the NERC CIP incentives approach and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) framework approach.

The NERC CIP incentives approach would award incentives for investments associated with voluntarily applying the CIP reliability standards to facilities that are not currently subject to the CIP requirements.

The NIST framework approach would award incentives for implementing certain security controls in the cybersecurity framework developed by NIST relating to automated and continuous monitoring.

Qualifying investments would be eligible for either a 200-basis point return on equity (ROE Adder) or a “Regulatory Asset Incentive” that would permit deferred cost recovery — with a return — for several categories of costs that have traditionally been treated as expenses.

Public utilities would not be eligible to receive the ROE Adder and the Regulatory Asset Incentive for the same expenditures.

APPA said that it recognizes that today’s electric grid faces increasing cybersecurity risks, and it appreciates the Commission’s efforts to assess how its policies might be best shaped to allow the industry to respond to these threats. 

“APPA respectfully submits, however, that the incentive program outlined in the NOPR is neither necessary nor appropriate to promote prudent public utility investment in cybersecurity measures. On the contrary if adopted, the White Paper framework could result in investment that raises transmission costs for customers without providing meaningful cybersecurity benefits in return,” the trade group said in the comments.

As an initial matter, the NOPR does not establish that the Commission has the authority to grant incentives to promote cybersecurity under its general ratemaking authority, APPA argued.

“Even if the Commission possesses such authority under the FPA, the incentive framework proposed in the NOPR fails to meet the longstanding requirements for just and reasonable incentive rates, including quantified benefits to consumers,” it said.

Neither generic application of CIP reliability standard requirements to lower impact Bulk Electric System (BES) cyber systems that are not currently subject to those requirements, nor broad adoption of NIST Framework security controls would necessarily result in a meaningful increase in cybersecurity, as the NOPR appears to assume, APPA said.

“This is not to say that use of these approaches in certain circumstances would not have cybersecurity benefits, but APPA disputes the assumption that widespread adoption of these approaches as contemplated in the NOPR would be a cost-effective way of achieving meaningful cybersecurity outcomes.”

APPA went on to say that even in circumstances where more robust cybersecurity investment might be beneficial, new incentives would not be just and reasonable because they are not needed to promote such investment. 

It said that the record from a March 28, 2019 technical conference convened by the Commission and the Department of Energy strongly supports this conclusion, and existing cost recovery mechanisms are sufficient to accommodate prudent cybersecurity investment. 

If the Commission proceeds with the NOPR, APPA said that it should preserve the features of the proposed rule that will help protect customers and ensure transparency, including:

Moreover, APPA said that FERC should adopt a number of clarifications or modifications to the proposed rule, including the following:

APPA earns extension of accreditation for education programs

April 13, 2021

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
April 13, 2021

The American Public Power Association (APPA) has received the International Association for Continuing Education and Training’s (IACET) Accredited Provider reaccreditation for an additional five years.

IACET accredited providers are the only organizations approved to offer IACET continuing education units, IACET noted in a news release. The accreditation period includes all programs offered or created during the additional five years.

APPA’s Academy encompasses all APPA education programs under one umbrella. The Academy offers the public power community a complete resource for professional education and certification, conducting over 150 yearly events (in-person, online, and in-house), which attract over 10,000 attendees.

Training formats include in-person education courses and conferences, in-house training, webinars and online training, and co-sponsored educational opportunities.

“We aim to provide educational resources for a variety of skill levels within key operational areas within the electric utility industry so that our members can maintain relevancy in today’s world,” said Joy Ditto, President and CEO of APPA.

Ditto added, “Our reaccreditation with IACET is a demonstration of our commitment to quality adult education and high standards for all of our programs. We are very pleased to be recognized by such a prestigious organization and be a part of an elite group of organizations that offer excellent continuing education and training programs.”

IACET said that in order to achieve the reaccreditation, APPA completed a rigorous application process and successfully demonstrated adherence to the ANSI/IACET 2018-1 Standard for Continuing Education and Training by addressing the design, development, administration, and evaluation of its programs.

APPA has pledged its continued compliance with the standard and is authorized to use the IACET name and Accredited Provider logo on promotional course material.

In addition, APPA is linked to the IACET web site and is recognized as offering the highest quality continuing education and training programs.

Public power utilities begin participating in CAISO’s Western Energy Imbalance Market

April 13, 2021

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
April 13, 2021

A number of public power utilities recently began participating in the California Independent System Operator’s (CAISO) Western Energy Imbalance Market (EIM).

The Turlock Irrigation District (TID) and the Balancing Area of Northern California (BANC) Phase 2, comprised of the Modesto Irrigation District (MID), the City of Redding, the City of Roseville, and the Western Area Power Administration (WAPA) Sierra Nevada Region, began participating in the West’s first real-time energy market on March 25.

“Joining the EIM provides MID continued access to the market’s diverse, readily-available power resource mix. Access to this low-cost, growing pool of resources will also further ensure and enhance service reliability to our customers,” Melissa Williams, Public Affairs Manager at MID, told Public Power Current.

“In addition, the EIM offers participants an increased ability to integrate renewable energy needed to meet California’s aggressive environmental goals, provides additional sources of real-time supply to augment reliability resources and, because it’s a voluntary market, allows participants to demonstrate support for regional markets while retaining local control,” she said.

“As participants in the EIM, we have the opportunity to further capitalize on the generation infrastructure TID has developed over the years,” said TID General Manager Michelle Reimers.

TID said its participation in the Western EIM will enable it to economically balance supply and demand within the market area in real-time by scheduling power deliveries every five minutes.

“The Western EIM will provide TID with access to a wider market and allow us to optimize our resources on a more granular scale,” said Dan Severson, TID Assistant General Manager, Power Supply.

“We’re excited that our leadership in the Western EIM successfully demonstrated enough success for our partners to join and expand participation,” said BANC General Manager Jim Shetler in a statement.  “This means greater reliability, lower costs and improved renewable generation for our customers.”

This move affects only WAPA’s Sierra Nevada Region in northern California and Nevada, which operates a sub-balancing authority within BANC.

WAPA is a power marketing administration within the Department of Energy responsible for selling and delivering federal hydropower across high-voltage transmission lines to customers in 15 Midwest and Western states. It is organized in five regions and a management center. 

The Western EIM will help the Sierra Nevada Region “better manage real-time supply and demand on a more frequent basis, harness market efficiencies, improve cost-effectiveness and mitigate the loss of bilateral trading partners in real-time energy transactions,” said Senior Vice President and Sierra Nevada Regional Manager Sonja Anderson.

Having a sub-balancing authority puts “us in a unique position to join the Western EIM; our status required innovative coordination and solutions for market economics, generator dispatch and grid reliability.”

BANC is a Joint Powers Authority consisting of the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD), MID, Roseville Electric, Redding Electric Utility, Trinity Public Utility District and the City of Shasta Lake as its founding members. SMUD became the first BANC member to join the Western EIM on April 3, 2019.

LADWP

Meanwhile, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) and the Public Service Company of New Mexico, an investor-owned utility, began participating in the EIM on April 1.

Participating in the Western EIM will be “a win-win proposition for the City of Los Angeles and the Western grid in terms of fostering the integration of renewable energy while maintaining power reliability, as the City of Los Angeles moves ahead with our goal of 100% renewables as well as assisting all California utilities in meeting the state target of 60% renewables by 2030,” said Reiko Kerr, LADWP Senior Assistant General Manager-Power System Engineering, Planning, and Technical Services, in a statement.

Among other benefits, LADWP said that participating in the Western EIM will help both LADWP and the state address the challenge of maintaining power reliability and reducing greenhouse gas emissions while optimizing the use of renewable energy, such as solar and wind power.

LADWP received approval in 2016 from Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, the City Council and the Board of Water and Power Commissioners to begin work to join the Western EIM.

LADWP said that the process has involved modifying LADWP’s transmission and generation systems with new grid-level information technology, new systems for billing and tracking energy transactions, improving bulk power metering, and other work to integrate the LADWP system with the ISO’s other Western EIM participants.

Arizona public power utility Salt River Project and Seattle City Light are also active participants of the Western EIM.

By 2023, 22 active Western EIM participants will represent over 83 percent of the load within the Western Electricity Coordinating Council.

Heartland develops web-based renewable energy calculator with DEED internships

April 12, 2021

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
April 12, 2021

Heartland Consumers Power District in South Dakota has developed a web-based renewable energy calculator using Demonstration of Energy & Efficiency Developments (DEED) internships from the American Public Power Association.

Heartland customers can use the calculator to determine the costs and benefits of installing a renewable energy facility, particularly a solar power array.

In 2019, Heartland initially developed this solar power calculator using a prior DEED internship for funding. Then, in 2020, the utility applied for and won another DEED internship that was used to make a more user friendly version of the original calculator.

Though it was functional and ran well, the original calculator ran on an Excel spreadsheet and used custom macros. Instead, Heartland wanted a version of the calculator that could run with a modern programming language like C# and could be used on any device with a browser such as a tablet or smart phone.

Heartland used its DEED internship to help fund a summer intern, John Kirkvold, a computer science major at South Dakota State University, who wrote the code for the new calculator.

The updated calculator uses data on solar power production from behind-the-meter installations while taking into account weather conditions as well as changing market prices. The calculator also takes into account state regulations that allow customers to sell solar output back to a utility, i.e., net metering. In states without net metering, the calculator uses avoided cost values to determine sale-back values.

After factoring in those variables, the calculator shows the user annual savings in payback time in years it would take a customer to recoup the cost of installing a solar array on their property.

The calculator has assumptions built into it based on the user’s location, which need to be updated periodically. Using a web interface ensures that the latest data is always available to the user.

The aim in designing the calculator was to allow customers to calculate the savings on their annual electric bill, as well as the annual cost to the utility and to the wholesale power entity.

The project also included making data displayed in Heartland’s lobby web functional and able to update automatically, particularly information on Heartland’s resources and generation.

NYPA signs agreement for planned deployment of zinc-air storage system

April 11, 2021

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
April 11, 2021

The New York Power Authority (NYPA) has signed an agreement with Zinc8 Energy Solutions Inc. and the University at Buffalo for the planned deployment of the company’s zinc-air energy storage system, marking a first demonstration of a long-duration use in New York State and a development that could support further integration of renewable power sources into the electric grid.

“NYPA continues to place a priority on fighting climate change and promoting a clean energy economy, and this first-of-its-kind long-duration solution has the potential to be deployed into a range of scalable applications,” said Gil Quiniones, NYPA president and CEO, in a statement. “The collaboration with Zinc8 and the University at Buffalo bodes well for a successful demonstration project that addresses the need for reliability of renewable energy resources and will help New York State help achieve its targets for energy storage.”

Selection of the site will allow for the demonstration of a 100 kilowatt/1 megawatt-hour zinc-air battery energy storage system in Buffalo to facilitate the wider use of renewable resources.

Zinc8 won a contract to accelerate the new technology in the Innovation Challenge, a partnership between NYPA and the Urban Future Lab at New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering.

The deployment will provide peak shaving capability by leveling out peaks in electricity consumption, increase campus resiliency and assist in educating campus utility staff with new energy storage technology, NYPA said.

The project will also validate the performance reliability of the system and help determine the O&M and estimated life cycle costs.

Zinc8’s zinc-air energy storage system will be located less than a few hundred feet from the award-winning UB Solar Strand, a project that NYPA and University at Buffalo completed nearly a decade ago, and the newly relocated GRoW Clean Energy Center.

Under the agreement with Zinc8, NYPA will contribute to the installation costs of the energy storage system at University at Buffalo and share in the data generated during the demonstration period.

DEED grant enables Burlington Electric to expand C&I energy efficiency program

April 10, 2021

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
April 10, 2021

The Burlington Electric Department (BED) in Vermont has used a Demonstration of Energy & Efficiency Developments (DEED) grant from the American Public Power Association to upgrade and expand its engagement with local businesses in reducing their energy consumption.

Burlington Electric, working with Burlington 2030 District, is seeking to reduce building energy consumption in Burlington’s commercial sector through the development and implementation of Property Energy Plans (PEP).

The DEED grant funding supported Burlington Electric’s efforts to increase its outreach to commercial property owners in Burlington regarding the benefits of Property Energy Plans and to follow up with potential participants, as well as develop best practices for commercial property owners to maximize the benefits of receiving a customized PEP. The project allowed Burlington Electric to recruit new commercial property owners to participate in the PEP process and to carry out energy benchmarking trainings, as well as a local business breakfast educational event.

The DEED grant project ran from Jan. 1, 2019 and was completed Jan. 15, 2021. The original DEED grant proposal was budgeted at $64,250. Final funding for the project was $49,400.

In 2014, Burlington Electric played a key role in making the city of Burlington the first city in the country to source 100 percent of its energy from renewable generation. Since then, the utility has committed to making Burlington a net zero energy city by reducing and eventually eliminating fossil fuel usage across the electric, thermal and ground transportation sectors by electrifying, managing demand, realizing efficiency gains, and expanding local renewable generation.

Commercial and industrial customers are key to Burlington Electric’s emissions reduction strategy. Although C&I customers only account for 18 percent of the utility’s total customers, they are responsible for 75 percent of annual kilowatt hour sales. Burlington Electric provides electric service to 16,876 residential customers and 3,885 C&I customers.

Burlington Electric says engaging commercial property owners with complimentary Property Energy Plans and recruiting them to participate in and commit to the Burlington 2030 District goal of reducing building energy consumption 50 percent by 2030 is a key part of reaching its sustainability goals. Burlington Electric said the DEED grant enabled it to partner with the Burlington 2030 District initiative to help achieve those goals.

The “2030 District” designation is overseen by Architecture 2030. They are private-public partnerships in designated urban areas across North America committed to reducing energy use, water use, and transport emissions. The Burlington 2030 District is one of 23 such designations across the United States and Canada.

Burlington Electric says the Burlington 2030 District provides a platform to connect with the commercial sector. So far, over 9.5 million square feet of building space is participating in the Burlington 2030 District, representing about 20 percent of the city’s total gross square footage.

The DEED grant allowed Burlington Electric and the Burlington 2030 District team to develop, complete and distribute Property Energy Plans, including energy benchmarking reports, for 29 buildings, exceeding the utility’s original goal of developing 25 PEPs and exceeding the utility’s original goal of increasing the number of buildings receiving complimentary energy benchmarking by 300%.

Burlington Electric also reported it was able to hone and develop its PEP tool and template, resulting in a more robust and detailed roadmap for its customers and for Burlington 2030 District members. The utility said it learned via the updated energy benchmark that one of its commercial customers was able to reduce their energy consumption by 16 percent since first joining the 2030 District in 2017.

Burlington Electric has made its updated PEP template available for use by other utilities.

In addition, since the original DEED grant proposal was submitted, Burlington Electric said 21 new commercial property owners have committed to the Burlington 2030 District performance goals, increasing committed property owner membership to 35 from 14, a 150 percent gain.

The DEED grant also enabled Burlington Electric to hold two benchmark training sessions, attended by about 85 people, as well as an education event on the benefits of membership in the Burlington 2030 District program.

While Burlington Electric reported that the DEED grant project was “very successful” and “met or exceeded” its objectives, the utility said the COVID-19 pandemic has made it more challenging to recruit new commercial property owners to join the Burlington 2030 District. The pandemic has also made it more difficult to encourage commercial property owners to take action on energy reduction recommendations in their PEPs when they are facing financial hardship due to COVID-19, the utility said.

Overall, the DEED grant enabled the Burlington Electric, in partnership with the Burlington 2030 District initiative, to increase its impact across the city and work towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the utility said in its final DEED report.

Looking forward, Burlington Electric said it plans to continue to encourage its C&I customers to engage in PEP follow-up meetings and to find ways to engage larger tenants and multi-unit rental buildings to embrace energy efficiency measures. The utility also said it aims to carry out energy benchmarking across the entire Burlington 2030 District property owner/manager building portfolio.

More than 374,000 MW of new generation capacity under development in U.S., APPA reports

April 7, 2021

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
April 7, 2021

More than 374,000 megawatts of new generation capacity is under development in the U.S., with 100,047 MW that is under construction or permitted and 274,309 MW that is proposed or pending application, according to a new report from the American Public Power Association (APPA).

The report, “America’s Electricity Generation Capacity: 2021 Update,” notes that the overall capacity mix continues to shift toward natural gas, solar, and wind.

Over the past five years, these three resources have been the dominant sources of new generating capacity in the U.S. Wind and solar especially are the primary sources for new capacity brought online over the past year and slated for development over the next several years.  

Solar accounts for 36% of the new generating capacity under construction or permitted, and wind and natural gas account for most of the remaining capacity in these categories, the report said.

Natural gas, solar, and wind projects account for nearly 97% of all capacity under construction.

Of the capacity slated to begin operating in 2021, 97% will be fueled by these three resources, with wind and solar accounting for more than 79% of new capacity.

“Not only are the shares of wind and solar generating capacity increasing, but the total aggregate capacity is steadily increasing,” the report said.

New wind capacity topped 10,000 MW in 2020 for the first time and when combined with solar capacity, these sources are expected to exceed 30,000 MW in additions in 2021.

“While some of this spate of activity can be attributed to expiring tax credits, it also reflects a general shift towards emissions-free generation,” the report said.

The report also offers information on retirements and planned retirements, cancellations, and capacity added over the past several years.

As has been the trend in the past few years, coal-fired resources account for more than half of planned retirements announced in the next few years.

“It is difficult to predict with precision the total amount of capacity that will be brought online further in the future, but the sheer amount of capacity at earlier stages of development suggest that wind and solar capacity will continue to significantly increase, buttressed by a steady amount of new natural gas capacity,” the report said.

To download the report, click here.

AccuWeather experts predict 2021 Atlantic hurricane season will result in 16-20 named storms

April 7, 2021

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
April 7, 2021

AccuWeather’s team of tropical weather experts is predicting that the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season will result in 16-20 named storms, including seven to 10 hurricanes.

Of the storms projected to reach hurricane strength, three to five are predicted to become major hurricanes (Category 3 or higher storms that have maximum sustained winds of 111 mph or greater), according to a report written by Kevin Byrne, AccuWeather staff writer.

“AccuWeather’s forecast, when compared to that 30-year average, indicates that 2021 is expected to be an above-normal season for tropical activity in the Atlantic. A normal season is considered to have 14 storms, seven hurricanes and three major hurricanes,” wrote Byrne.

In 2020, 13 hurricanes formed, and six of those reached the major hurricane threshold, he noted.

After six years of Atlantic Tropical Cyclones forming prior to the official start of the season, the National Hurricane Center will now issue routine Tropical Weather Outlooks starting May 15, the center said in an early March tweet, adding there would be no changes to the official start of the Atlantic hurricane season in 2021.

“Public power utilities last year proved their mettle in successfully responding to an above-average hurricane season, all while adhering to safety protocols in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Sam Rozenberg, Senior Director of Security and Resilience at the American Public Power Association.

“It’s never too early to start planning for tropical storms and hurricanes,” Rozenberg said, noting that APPA offers a wide range of resources to its members.

Those resources include an all-hazards guidebook and a Restoration Best Practices Guidebook.

APPA members can access disaster planning and response resources — including the public power Mutual Aid Network.

CDE Lightband digs into pros and cons of solar penetration with DEED grant

April 7, 2021

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
April 7, 2021

CDE LIghtband has used a Demonstration of Energy & Efficiency Developments (DEED) grant from the American Public Power Association to conduct and refine an analysis of the effects of solar power penetration on the Tennessee public power utility’s operations.

The DEED project had three goals: develop simple models for forecasting solar adoptions at the local level, compare the modeled solar output with actual solar power output, and evaluate the forecasts of those models on utility revenues and load curves.

The first step in the process was to simulate solar generation. The majority of that work was done by using the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s System Advisor Model (SAM), modeling software that NREL makes available for free as an aid to decision-makers in the renewable energy industry.

NREL’s software enables planners to model how much power a particular solar array can produce while factoring in variables, such as latitude, seasonal weather, cloud cover, and even the effects of shade from trees at different times of day.

The second step asked the “big question, ‘how accurate is the model for Clarksville?’” Jared Combs, business intelligence analyst at CDE Lightband and author of the DEED report, said.

To do that the CDE Lightband team modeled the output of a 6-kilowatt (kW) photovoltaic solar array in Clarksville using the NREL software. The 6-kW size was chosen because it is the average size of a residential solar array, according to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

CDE Lightband also built an actual 6-kW solar array and collected the data on its output and compared those results of the simulated and actual data. “The biggest finding,” Combs said, was that using average weather data as opposed to actual weather data yielded “potentially wildly inaccurate” results. “The simulated results do not align with the actual results unless you use specific year weather data,” he said.

The comparisons show “the importance of using hourly data, modeled on a specific year weather file when conducting a utility solar economic analysis,” Combs wrote in the DEED report. “This means that to analyze demand charge and time-of-use effects specific weather files must be used in the SAM model.”

One of the driving factors behind the analysis made possible by the DEED grant was to come up with a more accurate assessment of the effect of solar penetration and solar output on utility revenues.

Even if a customer is getting most of their power from solar panels on their roof, the utility is still bearing a fixed cost in personnel and equipment such as transformers. “To be fair to customers, we need to find out how much our customers with solar arrays affect our revenues,” Combs said.

Combs ran the modeled solar output data against CDE’s 2018 rates and demand intervals to determine revenue effects. A positive revenue effect is the result of solar output reducing utility wholesale demand charges by more than the amount lost on utility energy revenues less power costs.

Taking reductions in demand charges paid to wholesale power suppliers into account, total utility revenue effects from solar generation were 42 percent lower than when demand charges were not factored in, the analysis showed.

“One of the key findings,” Combs said, was that the revenue affect of a solar array is affected by its orientation. A Southwest facing array, because it catches solar energy in the evening as utility demand is rising, can pay for itself because it can reduce demand charges at a time when the utility is often selling power to customers at a loss, Combs said.

“Understanding of hourly economic interactions between utility wholesale costs and solar array generation might inform strategic planning and various models for distributed energy resource (DER) market participation,” Combs wrote in the DEED report, adding that utilities developing community solar programs “might consider the effect of solar arrays on their wholesale demand charges when calculating investment metrics and pricing models.”

Combs also recommended that “rate adjustments intended to ensure that solar array owners cover their portion of the fixed costs of electric distribution might more accurately consider the value of customer generated solar power.”

Combs cautioned, however, that conditions such as solar irradiance and the relationships between retail and wholesale rate structures often vary hourly and are different from one utility to the next.

One of the benefits of understanding the revenue effects of a single solar array is that that data can be applied as a multiplier against anticipated solar arrays to estimate future net revenue effects of solar adoption on a utility system, Combs said.

As part of the DEED grant, CDE Lightband also analyzed census data to gauge where rooftop solar arrays would be installed. CDE looked at several census traits, such as house size, education levels, and house ages. CDE was aided in its analysis by analytics firm DNV GL. The analysis found that in Tennessee the most predictive characteristic was income. Higher income correlated with higher solar penetration.

Combs cautioned, however, that those results might not hold true for utilities in other areas. It also said it is “advisable that utilities consult expert analysts before taking business action on the results of any PV adoption models or the models intended for economic analysis.”

The cost of building the solar array was about $25,000. CDE Lightband submitted and received a DEED grant for about $10,000. Expenses for data collection, analysis and reporting were assumed by CDE Lightband and Tennessee Valley Authority, which provided the Clarksville utility with assistance, and were not included in the budget.

The DEED grant gave CDE the freedom to collect and thoroughly analyze the solar data in a way that would have been hard to justify otherwise, Combs said. “It was good, not just because it was good for us, but because of the exponential benefit of being able to share the results with other utilities,” he said.

A webinar related to the project was held on April 6. A replay of the webinar is available for purchase at APPA’s product store and will also be shared in the DEED project library.

Colorado Springs Utilities enters pilot program to source responsibly sourced natural gas

April 6, 2021

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
April 6, 2021

Colorado Springs Utilities has entered into a pilot project to provide responsibly sourced gas (RSG) to its customers.

Responsibly sourced gas is natural gas produced from sites that have undergone third-party certification to verify that the operator has used the highest standards and practices in all phases of operations, according to Project Canary, a subsidiary of International Environmental Standards Co.

RSG certification is similar to a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating for buildings and is designed to certify that harmful environmental effects of natural gas, such as methane leaks in production and transportation, are mitigated.

International Environmental Standards says its Project Canary’s TrustWell certification process reviews, verifies and scores over 300 engineering and operational aspects of natural gas production and delivery categories including air, water, land and community, in awarding its RSG certification.

In the pilot program, Colorado Springs Utilities will purchase certified RSG produced by Bayswater Exploration & Production, a Colorado oil and natural gas development company. The certified RSG will be gathered and processed by Rimrock Energy Partners and then delivered to Colorado Interstate Gas Co., a Kinder Morgan subsidiary, which will transport the RSG to Colorado Springs Utilities.

“This partnership will allow us to further diversify our energy portfolio and expand our commitment to environmental stewardship,” Aram Benyamin, CEO of Colorado Springs Utilities, said in a statement.

The pilot program calls for continuous emissions monitoring across the energy value chain, from wellhead to burner-tip, which includes the production, transportation and marketing of the gas.

“This is the first of its kind pilot project in the nation and I’m proud to say we are at the forefront of exploring this newly-evolving Responsibly Sourced Gas market,” Benyamin said.

UP Energy recently said it would use Project Canary to certify that gas from some of its natural gas wells in Wyoming would be RSG certified. UP Energy said it is seeking to produce RSG on 68% of its production in its initial efforts and eventually certify 100 percent of its production by year-end 2022.

In January, natural gas producer EQT Corp., which has operations in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio, committed to a pilot project to demonstrate the production of RSG for use in domestic and international energy markets.

Under the pilot project calls for EQT to produce RSG through certification by Project Canary of two of its well pads, accompanied by continuous methane emissions monitoring of the pads.