Snohomish County PUD makes significant progress in power restoration efforts
January 14, 2021
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
January 14, 2021
Washington State’s Snohomish County PUD reported making significant progress in restoring power to customers in the wake of storms that hit the PUD’s service territory this week.
Snohomish on Jan. 14 noted that crews have been working all through the night and had restored almost 80,000 customers in the last 24 hours.
“We’re down to 15,530 customers out from a high of 95k. We will keep working until power is restored to everyone,” the PUD said in a Facebook post.
In an earlier Facebook post, the PUD noted that it had “reached out to our fellow public power utilities in the region and help is on the way! Five mutual aid crews are currently working in the field, including line crews from Benton PUD, Grant PUD, Grays Harbor PUD and Okanogan PUD.”
Mutual aid contracts allow the PUD to reach out during major storms to ask for help and get the lights on faster and safer, Snohomish said.
FERC asks CDC to prioritize vaccination for energy workforce
January 14, 2021
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
January 14, 2021
Commissioners with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on Jan. 13 sent a letter to the leaders of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) asking the CDC to prioritize a subset of the energy workforce for the COVID-19 vaccine.
The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recently updated its vaccine allocation guidance to place the energy workforce in Phase 1c of distribution priority.
In their letter, the FERC Commissioners asked the CDC to consider prioritizing a subset of the energy workforce to a higher level (Phase 1b).
“We recognize that developing vaccine guidance is a complex, iterative task that requires the balancing of numerous equities,” the Commissioners wrote in their letter.
“We write with a narrow request: as the Advisory Committee continues to review and update its recommendations, we urge you to consider that a subset of the energy workforce be included in Phase 1b — specifically, highly trained electrical field workers, power plant operators, transmission and distribution grid operators, and personnel who procure the energy needed to balance the grid on a moment-to-moment basis,” the letter said.
“Those workers’ duties can only be performed on-site, usually in close quarters, where full adherence to social distancing guidelines is impossible. And while these utility employees can be counted as among the most critical among the American workforce, they represent a relatively small population,” the FERC commissioners wrote.
“We understand that the number is likely to be on the order of thousands of workers in each state. As such, we urge you to consider prioritizing these workers as the CDC continues revising its vaccine guidance.”
The letter was signed by FERC Chairman James Danly and Commissioners Neil Chatterjee, Richard Glick, Allison Clements and Mark Christie.
APPA supports prioritization of COVID-19 vaccine for mission essential workers
Organizations representing state and local governments should ask their members to designate energy industry mission-essential workers as high priority for voluntary access to initial inoculation against COVID-19, a group of energy industry trade associations including the American Public Power Association and unions said in a Dec. 3 letter.
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency
Distribution and prioritization of access to vaccinations is a state and locally-lead process.
The American Public Power Association is urging its members to contact their respective local and state health departments to articulate the need for access to vaccinations.
Meanwhile, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in December 2020 highlighted the Essential Critical Infrastructure Workforce Guidance Version 4.0. “Although this version of the guidance is unchanged from the August 2020 release, we want to reiterate our belief that it remains an important tool for COVID-19 planning, even in this new environment,” CISA said.
CISA issued the Essential Critical Infrastructure Workforce Guidance for COVID-19 response in collaboration with other federal agencies, State and local governments, and the private sector.
The guidance is intended to help state, local, tribal, and territorial officials and organizations protect their workers and communities and ensure the continued safe and secure operation of critical infrastructure, by identifying the universe of essential workers that may require specialized risk management strategies so that they can work safely.
It can also be used to begin planning and preparing for the allocation of scarce resources used to protect essential workers against COVID-19.
Solar and wind dominate new capacity additions this year: EIA
January 13, 2021
by Peter Maloney
APPA News
January 13, 2021
Solar and wind power installations will dominate new capacity additions in 2021, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA)
Developers and power plant owners plan to build 39.7 gigawatts (GW) of generating capacity in 2021 with solar and wind power accounting for 39 percent and 31 percent of that total, respectively, according to the EIA’s latest inventory of electricity generators. That translates to 15.4 GW of utility scale solar installations, a new record, and 12.2 GW of new wind power capacity.
EIA is tracking a total of 6.6 GW of natural gas-fired plants that are expected to come online this year. Most of those plants, 3.9 GW will be combined-cycle generators and most of the additions are planned for Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
The planned solar capacity well surpasses the 12 GW installed last year. More than half of the new solar capacity is planned for Texas, Nevada, California, and North Carolina.
EIA expects another 4.1 GW of small-scale solar photovoltaic capacity to enter service in 2021.
The 12.2 GW of expected wind capacity additions, however, represents a sharp decline from the 21 GW of wind power that came online last year. This year’s expected increase in wind capacity is bolstered by two large projects, the 12-megawatt (MW) Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind pilot project sited 27 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach, and the 999-MW Traverse wind farm in Oklahoma.
New battery energy storage capacity, however, is expected to see the largest jump in 2021, more than quadrupling to 4.3 GW, according to EIA data. The agency, part of the Department of Energy, cited the rapid growth of renewable generation as a major driver in the increase of storage capacity because the technology is increasingly bundled with renewable capacity. EIA noted that a 409-MW storage facility is under construction at the Manatee Solar Energy Center in Florida and slated to be the world’s largest solar-powered battery when it comes online later this year.
The new year is also expected to see the commissioning of the first new nuclear power station in 30 years, the 2,200-MW Vogtle plant in Georgia, which will account for 3 percent of the total capacity expected online in 2021.
California ISO, CPUC and CEC issue final report on causes of rotating outages
January 13, 2021
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
January 13, 2021
The California Independent System Operator (CAISO), California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and California Energy Commission (CEC) on Jan. 13 issued a final root cause analysis of the August 2020 heat wave and rotating outages in the state.
On August 14 and 15, 2020, the CAISO was forced to institute rotating electricity outages in California in the midst of a West-wide extreme heat wave. Following these emergency events, California Gov. Gavin Newsom asked the CAISO, CPUC, and CEC to report on the root causes of the events leading to the August outages.
The CAISO, CPUC and CEC produced a preliminary report on October 6, 2020, and have since continued their analysis to confirm and supplement their preliminary findings.
The report released on Jan. 13 serves as the final root cause analysis and incorporates additional data analysis not available when the preliminary report was published.
The final root cause analysis confirms the preliminary report’s findings that the three major factors leading to the August outages were related to extreme weather conditions, resource adequacy and planning processes, and market practices.
“This final root cause analysis provides important insights and lessons learned about the factors that contributed to the rotating power outages of last summer,” said CAISO President and CEO Elliot Mainzer in a statement. “As we prepare for summer 2021 and beyond, I look forward to working closely with the CPUC, CEC, policymakers and regional stakeholders to bring our planning, procurement and operational practices together into a modernized and well-integrated resource adequacy framework for California.”
In a jointly issued news release, the CAISO, CPUC and CEC said that since August, they have taken various actions “and continue focused efforts to prepare California for extreme heat waves next summer without having to resort to rotating outages.”
The CAISO, CPUC and CEC provided a number of examples related to those actions and efforts.
Among other things, the CPUC opened an emergency reliability rulemaking to procure additional resources to meet California’s electricity demand in summer 2021.
Through this proceeding, the CPUC has already directed the state’s three large investor-owned utilities to seek contracts for additional supply-side capacity and has requested proposals for additional demand-side resources that can be available during the net demand peak period (i.e., the hours past the gross peak when solar production is very low or zero) for summer 2021 and summer 2022.
The CPUC and parties to the proceeding, including the CAISO, will continue to evaluate proposals and procurement targets for both supply-side and demand-side resources.
The CPUC is also tracking progress on generation and battery storage projects that are currently under construction in California to ensure there are no CPUC-related regulatory barriers that would prevent them from being completed by their targeted online dates. The CAISO will continue to work with developers to address interconnection issues as they arise.
Meanwhile, the CAISO is continuing to perform analysis supporting an increase to the CPUC’s resource adequacy program procurement targets. Based on the analysis to date, the CAISO recommends that the targets apply to both the gross peak and the critical hour of the net demand peak period during the months of June through October 2021.
For its part, the CEC is conducting probabilistic studies that evaluate the loss of load expectation on the California system to determine the amount of capacity that needs to be installed to meet the desired service reliability targets.
In addition, the CAISO, CPUC, and CEC are planning to enhance the efficacy of Flex Alerts in the state to maximize consumer conservation and other demand side efforts during extreme heat events.
Also, preparations by the CAISO, CPUC, and CEC are underway to improve advance coordination for contingencies, including communication protocols and development of a contingency plan. “The contingency plan will draw from actions taken statewide under the leadership of the Governor’s Office to mitigate the anticipated shortfall from August 17 through 19, 2020,” they said.
“Publicly owned utilities have been leaders in achieving the California’s aggressive clean energy and carbon reduction goals, and during the August event, POUs made significant power supply contributions to help the state avoid further widespread outages,” said Barry Moline, executive director, California Municipal Utilities Association. “Our emphasis has always been on maintaining the highest reliability and controlling costs. As we move forward, we’ll be working closely with California leaders to keep these objectives front and center to protect our customers.”
The final root cause analysis is available here.
DEED project demonstrates costs and benefits of reclosers in Florida
January 12, 2021
by Peter Maloney
APPA News
January 12, 2021
Replacing fuses with reclosers can lead to a “notable” reduction in the number and duration of outages, according to the results of a Demonstration of Energy & Efficiency Developments (DEED) project in Florida.
The project, Demonstration Project to Achieve Cost Effective Reliability Improvement Using Single Phase Reclosers, involved the demonstration of advanced reclosers at three Florida utilities: the Town of Havana, Keys Energy in Key West, and the City of Tallahassee. The Florida Municipal Power Agency (FMPA), an Orlando-based wholesale power agency, applied for the DEED grant and managed the project on behalf of the member utilities.
The TripSaver II Cutout Mounted Recloser manufactured by S&C Electric was selected for the project because of the low installed cost, ease of installation and reported success by some FMPA members who have installed TripSavers on their systems.
A circuit selection methodology was developed for the project and 13 reclosers were installed at each of the three utilities for a total of 39 reclosers.
FMPA’s report on the DEED project noted that legacy recloser designs are bulky, contain oil and lack communication and data recording capability while newer designs are more compact, less costly, and do not use oil making them highly desirable for single-phase applications.
Despite the advantages of more recent design reclosers, the report noted that FMPA member cities face barriers such as lack of internal staff to lead a reliability initiative, lack of engineering support to analyze their network and select recloser locations, and a perceived high cost relative to the reliability benefit.
“The TripSavers installed in two cities experienced fewer faults than what was expected given the laterals’ outage history,” according to FMPA’s report on the DEED project.
A decline in storms and wildlife activity may have resulted in reduction of outages, but further analysis will be required to determine the influence of external factors on the project’s results. Nonetheless, “it was proven that even a limited deployment of reclosers could have a significant impact for a small system” and in a “much larger system, results indicate that replacement of a small percentage of lateral fuses with TripSavers reclosers could yield “notable” improvements in both System Average Interruption Frequency Index (SAIFI) and System Average Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI) metrics, according to the report.
If utilities interested in pursuing a lateral recloser deployment target their worst performing laterals regardless of the feeder they could expect results “better than those achieved in this project,” according to the DEED report.
The report also noted that many utilities, particularly the smaller ones, struggle with the same barriers to deploying advanced reclosers that some FMPA members face.
“It is FMPA’s hope that the accomplishments of this project will be helpful in assisting other members wishing to deploy single phase reclosers as a cost-effective means to improve their system reliability,” the report concluded.
Specifically, FMPA said the project could provide guidance on circuit selection criteria, actual performance data, and an indicative range of investment costs necessary to avoid a single customer interruption.
The DEED grant from the American Public Power Association awarded FMPA $64,400 to carry out the project. FMPA, the three participating cities, and S&C Electric also contributed funding for the project, bringing the total budget to $134,000.
DEED members can read more about the project, Demonstration Project to Achieve Cost Effective Reliability Improvement Using Single-Phase Reclosers, on the DEED project database.
A webinar related to the project is scheduled for Jan. 28. For additional details, click here.
American Public Power Association invites board nominations
January 12, 2021
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
January 12, 2021
The American Public Power Association is inviting voting members to nominate candidates for APPA’s 2021-2022 Board of Directors. Nominations are due no later than February 12, 2021.
The Nominating Committee will meet virtually on Monday, March 1, 2021, to consider nominations for new board members. The Committee’s recommendations for new board members will be presented to the association’s membership at the annual business meeting held in June during APPA’s National Conference.
The nomination form can be found here.
A chart available here lists board members who will continue on the board, those who are eligible for re-election, and those who are not eligible for re-election. It also includes one open seat due to a retirement and one newly added seat.
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 if you need any assistance or additional information.
Berlin, Maryland, generator expected to enhance peak shaving capabilities
January 12, 2021
by Peter Maloney
APPA News
January 12, 2021
The town of Berlin, Md., has deployed a 2 megawatt (MW) natural gas generator, replacing a diesel generator.
The Caterpillar G3520 generator is expected to enhance the town’s peak shaving capabilities and joins a fleet of three generators that operate about 100 hours a year and are used to offset the cost of energy during periods of high demand in the summer and winter.
Berlin officials estimate its upgraded generation system will save the town up to $600,000 in annual energy costs, including about $200,000 in reduced transmission congestion costs paid to the PJM Interconnection. In addition, maintenance of a gas generator is about half the cost of maintenance for a diesel generator and natural gas is cheaper than diesel gas.
“For more than a century, the Town of Berlin has managed its own power generation capabilities to minimize energy costs for local residents and businesses,” Jeff Fleetwood, town administrator for Berlin, said in a statement.
“We take tremendous pride in offering the lowest prices for electricity on Maryland’s Eastern Shore,” Tim Lawrence, Berlin’s electric utility director, said in a statement. “This Cat gas generator set offers the reliability and low total owning and operating costs that will benefit the town’s finances and utility customers for years to come.”
The Caterpillar natural gas diesel also has lower emissions and is the first generator in the 2 MW to 2.5 MW range certified by the Environmental Protection Agency for use in 60 megahertz power markets.
“Cat gas generator sets are designed to deliver low-emissions, high-efficiency performance to the utilities and their customers who rely on them for the long haul,” Bart Myers, general manager in Caterpillar’s electric power division, said in a statement.
Carter Machinery installed the new generator and will provide periodic inspections and service through a planned maintenance program.
In February 2015, the Town of Berlin became a member of American Municipal Power, which provides wholesale energy and member services for 135 publicly owned electric utilities in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia, Indiana, Maryland, and Delaware.
EIA reports that nuclear power on track to account for largest share of 2021 capacity retirements
January 12, 2021
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
January 12, 2021
The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) on Jan. 12 said that 9.1 gigawatts (GW) of electric generating capacity are scheduled to retire in 2021 and that nuclear generating capacity will account for the largest share of total capacity retirements (56%), followed by coal (30%).
EIA reported the figures in its most recent inventory of electric generators.
At 5.1 GW, nuclear capacity retirements represent half of all total expected retirements in 2021 and 5% of the current operating U.S. nuclear generating capacity.
EIA noted that Exelon Corp. is scheduled to retire two of its Illinois nuclear plants, Dresden and Byron. Each of these plants has two reactors, and their total combined capacity is 4.1 GW. The Unit 3 (1.0 GW) reactor at the Indian Point nuclear power plant in New York state is scheduled to retire in April.
If all five reactors close as scheduled, 2021 will set a record for the most annual nuclear capacity retirements ever, EIA said.
The decrease of U.S. nuclear power generating capacity is a result of historically low natural gas prices, limited growth in electricity demand, and increasing competition from renewable energy, EIA said.
Meanwhile, after significant retirements of coal-fired electric generating capacity over the past five years, totaling 48 GW, coal retirements will slow in 2021, according to EIA.
It said that 2.7 GW of coal-fired capacity is scheduled to retire, which accounts for 1% of the U.S. coal fleet.
EIA said that these retirements will come primarily from older units, noting that the capacity-weighted average age of retiring coal units is more than 51 years old.
Nearly two-thirds of the capacity retirements are located in just four states: Maryland, Florida, Connecticut, and Wisconsin.
EIA said that the largest coal retirement in 2021 will be at Chalk Point in Maryland, where both of its coal-fired units — 670 megawatts combined — are expected to retire.
With respect to other energy sources, EIA said that more than 800 MW of petroleum-fired capacity and 253 MW of natural gas-fired capacity are scheduled to retire in 2021.
Almost all of the retiring petroleum capacity will be from the 786 MW unit at Possum Point in Virginia, while the largest natural gas retirement will be McKee Run (103 MW) in Delaware.
After operating for 34 years, a 143 MW biomass waste-to-energy plant in Southport, North Carolina, will retire in March, EIA said.
The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same: Renewable Energy Growth Continues
by Aaron Larson
POWER Magazine
Wind and solar power capacity and generation have been growing steadily for years, as efforts to halt climate change and a desire for clean energy have gained public support around the world. As renewable energy costs have come down, growth is now being driven by economics. New technologies could also find a place in the energy mix over the next decade, as research and development efforts begin to pay off.
Read complete article https://view.imirus.com/427/document/13483/page/29
NuScale Power, UAMPS execute agreements tied to development of small modular reactors
January 11, 2021
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
January 11, 2021
NuScale Power on Jan. 11 announced together with Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) that it has executed agreements to facilitate the development of the Carbon Free Power Project (CFPP), which will deploy NuScale small modular reactors (SMRs) at the Idaho National Laboratory.
The CFPP will be comprised of nuclear power modules to be provided by NuScale. Electricity from the plant will be distributed to customers of 33 UAMPS member utilities in five states. Other western utilities are expected to join the project in the future.
The SMRs in the project will provide the flexibility to ramp up and down as needed to follow load and complement intermittent renewable supply.
Established in 1980, UAMPS is an energy services interlocal agency of the state of Utah. As a project-based consortium, UAMPS provides a variety of power supply, transmission and other services to its 47 members, which include public power utilities in six western states: Utah, California, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, and Wyoming.
Pursuant to the initial orders from UAMPS, Fluor Corporation and NuScale — as a subcontractor to Fluor — are to develop higher maturity cost estimates and initial project planning work for the licensing, manufacturing and construction of the CFPP.
The orders are the result of recently signed agreements to manage and de-risk the development of the CFPP. These include the Development Cost Reimbursement Agreement between UAMPS and NuScale, and the $1.355 billion multi-year financial assistance award from the U.S. Department of Energy to CFPP LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of UAMPS established to develop, own and operate the CFPP.
In addition, UAMPS and Fluor have signed a cost-reimbursable development agreement to provide estimating, development, design and engineering services to develop the site-specific cost estimates for deployment of the NuScale technology at the Idaho National Laboratory site.
Concurrently, UAMPS will continue to evaluate the size of the NuScale power plant as Fluor refines the engineering of alternatives to ensure that the plant is the best overall cost of energy and size to meet the CFPP participants’ subscription needs.
“The orders executed today allow for important progress in the development of the Carbon Free Power Project, and we are excited to take this next step alongside our partners NuScale Power and Fluor Corporation,” said Doug Hunter, UAMPS’ CEO and General Manager. “We are confident that NuScale’s small modular reactor will deliver affordable, stable, carbon-free energy to participating members, complementing and enabling large amounts of renewable energy in the region.”
The NuScale power plant will be located at the DOE’s Idaho National Laboratory site near Idaho Falls, Idaho.
NuScale’s SMR became the first and only design to ever receive approval from the NRC in August 2020.
NuScale and UAMPS expect that the initial orders will address the final step in the regulatory process to proceed with plans to build a NuScale Power Plant as they plan for and develop the Combined License Application (COLA) for the CFPP.
The UAMPS COLA is expected to be submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by the second quarter of 2023.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission review of the COLA is expected to be completed by the second half of 2025, with nuclear construction of the project beginning shortly thereafter.