Legislation Offers Reimbursement for Interest Expenses Incurred for FEMA-Related Loans
April 24, 2023
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
April 24, 2023
Lawmakers in the Senate and House recently introduced legislation that would reimburse local governments and electric cooperatives for interest expenses incurred on loans taken out to cover costs that are to be covered by disaster assistance payments from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Last week, Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Rick Scott (R-FL) re-introduced the FEMA Loan Interest Payment Relief Act (S.1180) in the Senate, while Reps. Neal Dunn (R-FL), Darren Soto (D-FL), and Garrett Graves (R-LA) on April 18 introduced companion legislation (H.R. 2672) in the House.
The bills would amend the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act. The amount of interest to be reimbursed is capped at the lesser of the amount of interest paid or the prime rate.
The American Public Power Association strongly supports the proposed legislation. Similar legislation introduced last year failed to advance.
California’s Peninsula Clean Energy Reaches Agreements to Install Solar and Battery Storage
April 24, 2023
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
April 24, 2023
Peninsula Clean Energy has reached innovative agreements with nine cities and the County of San Mateo, Calif., to install solar and future battery storage on public buildings, the California community choice aggregator said on April 18.
Peninsula Clean Energy is executing 20-year power purchase agreements to install 1.7 megawatts of solar power on 12 public buildings in San Mateo County and the City of Los Banos.
The agreements include solar power systems at the San Mateo County Human Services Agency Center in Redwood City; Atherton Town Hall; Brisbane Mission Blue Center; Colma Community Center; Hillsborough Public Works Yard; Los Banos Community Center; Los Banos Wastewater Plant; Millbrae Town Center complex; Millbrae Recreation Center; Pacifica Community Center; San Bruno Aquatics Center; and the San Carlos Youth Center.
In addition, at least three communities will be adding battery storage to provide backup power.
The solar power installations are expected to be operational by the end of 2023 and deliver an estimated $17 million in lifetime energy savings to participating cities and San Mateo County.
Peninsula Clean Energy is providing the construction capital and is among the first to utilize the direct pay benefits included in the federal Inflation Reduction Act, it said.
This allows qualified tax-exempt project developers to directly claim the full value of the 30-percent federal Investment Tax Credit without having to share the value of the credit with a tax equity partner. The result is a lower PPA price and higher energy savings for the cities and county facilities where these projects will be installed, the CCA noted.
“We want to do everything we can to bring more renewable power online. With this innovative program, we take the burden of solar and storage project development off of city and county staff and achieve cost reductions through scale,” Peninsula Clean Energy CEO Jan Pepper said. “This is a win for our customers as well as a win for Peninsula Clean Energy in continuing to execute on our public agency mission. Congress and the Biden administration have given us a valuable tool with ‘direct pay’ under the Inflation Reduction Act.”
A second round of the program is also already underway, with Peninsula Clean Energy having completed designs and interconnection applications for more than 40 sites to install approximately 15 MW of solar and potentially battery storage systems across its service territory.
DOE Offers Awards to Recognize Best Practices in Community Solar Projects
April 24, 2023
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
April 24, 2023
The Department of Energy on April 20 said it was offering $200,000 in prize awards for community solar projects and programs that increase equitable access and ensure benefits go to subscribers and their communities.
The Sunny Awards for Equitable Community Solar were announced by DOE’s Solar Energy Technologies Office. Applications will be accepted until July 14, 2023.
In its second year, the Sunny Awards recognize community solar projects, and state, municipal, Tribal, and utility-led community solar programs that employ best practices in delivering benefits to their subscribers and communities.
This second round offers up to five $10,000 Sunny Awards Grand Prizes to the top teams, up to 30 additional $2,500 Sunny Finalist Awards, and up to 15 $5,000 Meaningful Benefits/Engagement Awards to competitors who find effective ways to equitably deliver the specific, meaningful benefits of community solar identified by the National Community Solar Partnership, DOE said.
In 2020-2021, the American Public Power Association partnered with the National Community Solar Partnership on the Municipal Utility Collaborative to identify and address common barriers to community-based solar for public power.
Click here for additional details.
National Community Solar Partnership Selects Teams to Participate in Competition
Separately, DOE announced that the National Community Solar Partnership has selected 25 teams to participate in the $10 million Community Power Accelerator Prize competition, which aims to establish a nationwide network of community solar project developers.
Successful teams have the potential to deploy as much as 150 megawatts of community solar across the country and access $5 billion in private sector financing through the Community Power Accelerator.
Click here for additional details including the list of the 25 teams selected.
Western Area Power Administration Seeks Proposals for 65 MW of Firm Capacity and Energy
April 24, 2023
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
April 24, 2023
The Western Area Power Administration is seeking proposals on behalf of the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration for 65 megawatts of firm capacity and energy through a request for proposals issued on April 14.
The proposed contract must begin on January 1, 2024, and go through December 31, 2024, or December 31, 2025. WAPA is seeking the proposals through the Colorado River Storage Project Management Center.
The NNSA oversees the power procurement for its facilities within the Sandia National Laboratory facilities, both co-located at Department of Defense Kirtland Air Force Base near the southern boundary of the City of Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Both facilities are served through the Public Service Company of New Mexico transmission system and Balancing Authority.
Proposals in response to the RFP are due May 12.
Department Of Energy Loan Guarantee Would Support Virtual Power Plant Program
April 21, 2023
by Peter Maloney
APPA News
April 21, 2023
The Department of Energy has granted a conditional commitment for a partial loan guarantee of up to $3 billion to Sunnova Energy for the company’s solar-powered virtual power plant program.
Sunnova’s Project Hestia would aggregate grid-connected distributed energy resources such as photovoltaics, battery storage systems, electric vehicles with communications and control software to create virtual power plants.
If finalized, the Department of Energy partial loan guarantee would support the origination of Sunnova loans associated with solar, storage, or other Sunnova technologies that use the company’s demand response and virtual power plant software.
Sunnova anticipates the partial loan guarantee would support $4 to $5 billion in Sunnova loan originations for approximately 75,000 to 115,000 homeowners.
The project is expected to prioritize households in disadvantaged communities across the United States, as well as homeowners with lower credit ratings. Sunnova would also aim to provide up to 20 percent of Project Hestia loans to homeowners in Puerto Rico for installations that would include both solar and battery storage.
The partial loan guarantee would be the Department of Energy’s first for a virtual power plant project.
To be eligible for the program, each energy system must be outfitted with Sunnova’s technology, accessible by smart phone or other personal electronic device, that is designed to improve customers’ visibility into their power usage and enable them to reduce electricity use or contribute electricity to the grid when it is under stress.
Sunnova has agreed to provide monthly servicing reports supplemented by hardware and software deployment information to the Department of Energy. Sunnova also has agreed to measure the reduction in greenhouse gases associated with Project Hestia.
Several steps remain for Project Hestia to reach critical milestones, and certain conditions must be satisfied before the Department of Energy partial loan guarantee is issued, including finalization of definitive financing documents.
The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2023. Sunnova said it plans to issue its first securitization under the program in the first half of 2023.
Federal Energy Regulators Schedule PJM Interconnection Capacity Market Forum for June
April 21, 2023
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
April 21, 2023
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on April 19 said it will convene a Commissioner-led forum to examine PJM Interconnection’s capacity market on June 15, 2023.
The forum will include three panels to solicit perspectives on the current state of the PJM capacity market, potential improvements, and related proposals to address resource adequacy.
The first panel, an overview panel, will explore whether the PJM capacity market is achieving its objectives of ensuring resource adequacy at just and reasonable rates.
The second panel, a technical panel, will discuss potential market design reforms that may be needed to ensure PJM’s capacity market is achieving its objectives.
The third panel, a roundtable with state representatives (including state Commissioners), will discuss their views and respond to the first and second panels’ discussions.
Additional detail on these topics and panels will be shared in subsequent notices.
FERC’s notice also invited individuals interested in participating as panelists to submit self-nominations by 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time on April 28, 2023 in accordance with instructions in the notice.
Report Shows Omaha Public Power District is Maintaining High Levels of Reliability
April 21, 2023
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
April 21, 2023
An annual monitoring report recently shared with the Board of Directors of Omaha Public Power District shows that OPPD earned high marks for minimizing the number of service disruptions its customers experience.
Troy Via, OPPD’s COO and Vice President of Utility Operations, presented details on the monitoring report on April 18.
The Nebraska public power utility tracks power outage frequency and the latest data puts it in the top quartile compared with similar-sized utilities.
OPPD also ranks in the top quartile for outage duration. The utility has continued to reduce the amount of time customers are without power for the past five years to half of what it was in 2018.
Via said steadily increasing tree-trimming budgets have made a big impact in reducing both outage frequency and duration. OPPD’s Forestry Department works with new neighborhood and business developments, as well as residential customers, providing education on planting the “right tree in the right place” in order to avoid interference with power lines.
In addition, he said, underground cable replacements and “critter guards” to help prevent animal interference, have helped.
Interim Generation Needs
During the board committee meetings, OPPD leaders also shared information about near-term power generation needs within the utility’s service territory, which is experiencing unprecedented growth across all customer classes.
OPPD must maintain enough accredited power generation to cover what is needed within its service territory at peak usage, plus 15% more load to meet regulatory requirements. This not only maintains local reliability, but also reliability of the larger grid, the utility noted.
The district’s Power with Purpose project will provide critical accredited capacity and electricity to support reliability and resiliency and provide generation diversity for customers. This power is expected to meet the district’s immediate needs.
However, more load growth is projected. OPPD identified the need for additional generation within its Pathways to Decarbonization study and as a part of ongoing resource planning work.
OPPD is analyzing several resource options to power this growing load, and leaders told board members they are confident the utility can meet the challenge.
Solutions must be feasible to engineer, procure, construct and interconnect to the regional electric system in the time frame needed to reliably serve customers, the utility noted.
Santee Cooper Board Approves Purchase of Natural Gas Combined Cycle Plant
April 21, 2023
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
April 21, 2023
The Santee Cooper Board of Directors on April 21 approved the purchase of Cherokee County Cogeneration Partners LLC, a natural gas combined cycle power plant in Gaffney, S.C.
The planned $17 million purchase also requires approval by the South Carolina Public Service Commission and the legislative Joint Bond Review Committee.
The 98-megawatt Cherokee plant will help Santee Cooper reliably meet increased customer demand caused by new and expanded industries in the state and a fast-growing residential and commercial base in areas served by Santee Cooper, its municipal wholesale customers and the state’s electric cooperatives, Santee Cooper said.
“We need a quick power supply for new industry and new people, and that’s a great problem to have,” said President and CEO Jimmy Staton. “Cherokee offers an existing, in-state solution that matches well with our generating portfolio and will help provide the reliable, affordable power our customers have come to expect.”
Cherokee was built in 1998 and sold to LS Power in 2011. Santee Cooper began taking the Cherokee output under a purchased power agreement in early 2022.
Owning the actual unit will provide additional reliability to Santee Cooper’s customers. The purchase has been endorsed by Santee Cooper’s largest customer, Central Electric Power Cooperative, which intends to seek formal support from its board in May.
The Cherokee purchase helps address a near-term need for additional power, Santee Cooper noted.
Santee Cooper, the state-owned public power utility in South Carolina, is continuing its comprehensive, long-term resource planning process and intends to submit its proposed Integrated Resource Plan to the PSC on May 15. That process is focused on planning for generating resources beginning later this decade.
Groups Voice Opposition to Proposed Pole Attachments Legislation
April 20, 2023
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
April 20, 2023
A draft proposal being considered by the House Energy and Commerce Committee related to pole attachments “is a thinly veiled attempt to have not-for-profit electric utilities subsidize for-profit entities’ infrastructure,” the American Public Power Association, National Rural Electric Cooperative Association and Utilities Technology Council told lawmakers in an April 18 letter.
The draft proposal would amend section 224 of the Communications Act to provide that the current exemption public power utilities and electric cooperatives have from Federal Communications Commission jurisdiction over pole attachments would not apply to entities that receive certain federal broadband assistance.
The draft proposal was part of a slate of bills that was scheduled to be discussed at the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications and Technology legislative hearing on April 19.
“The narrative for offering this proposal is that broadband attachers are having difficulty spending federal broadband funding they have recently received because attachment rates are making deployment costs too high or that utilities are making access to poles too difficult by requiring recovery of pole replacement costs,” the three trade groups said.
“These assertions are false and essentially imply that not-for-profit electric utilities are making it difficult for their communities to receive broadband service. That premise couldn’t be further from the truth given such not-for-profit utilities are owned by their customers and want them to have essential broadband services,” APPA, NRECA and UTC said.
Congress first addressed pole attachments in the Pole Attachment Act of 1978, which added section 224 to the Communications Act, to require the FCC to establish subsidized rates for pole attachments for the then-new cable industry.
Under the law, public power utilities and rural electric cooperatives were exempted from this requirement “because the pole attachment rates charged by municipally owned and cooperative utilities [were] already subject to a decision-making process based upon constituent needs and interests.” This exemption continued through multiple telecommunications law reform efforts, including the enactment of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, because Congress maintained that the existing process is appropriate and adequate.
“Electric utilities must balance their own need to maintain and operate their utility systems in a safe, reliable, and affordable manner while also addressing the often-competing needs of a variety of attaching communications entities,” the letter noted.
The groups said that Congress has repeatedly recognized that federal pole attachment regulation is unnecessary for public power and electric cooperative pole owners because they are owned by their customers, “the same customers that would benefit from communications services provided over the facilities attached to their poles.” Not-for-profit electric utilities “have every incentive to apportion the costs of constructing and maintaining the pole attachments in an equitable manner among attaching entities.”
This legislative proposal “is nothing more than an effort to weaken or eliminate the exemption in section 224 of the Communications Act. Modifying or eliminating the exemption will not result in any significant increases in broadband deployment, adoption, and use. Instead, it will merely result in not-for-profit electric utility customers subsidizing for-profit telecommunications and cable companies,” the groups said.
Therefore, APPA, NRECA, and UTC oppose this draft legislation, “which would weaken or eliminate the exemption in section 224 for consumer-owned poles.”
The letter was directed to leaders of the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and Technology and the House Energy and Commerce Committee and has been shared extensively with membership on the committee.
Clean Energy Projects Flood Interconnection Queues, Causing Backlogs
April 20, 2023
by Peter Maloney
APPA News
April 20, 2023
Requests to connect clean energy projects to the grid have soared in recent years, leading to longer wait times and backlogs for project developers, according to new research from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
At the end of 2022, the total capacity of projects in interconnection queues across the country stood at over 2 terawatts, which is greater than the current United States generating capacity of 1.25 terawatts, the report, Queued Up: Characteristics of Power Plants Seeking Transmission Interconnection, found. The capacity in those queues is more than six times the capacity that was queued up for connection in 2014, the authors noted.
Solar, battery storage, and wind energy account for 95 percent of all the proposed capacity, almost equal to the nation’s total installed capacity, according to the report. In addition, the amount of solar, wind, and storage projects in the queues exceeds the amount needed to reach to 90 percent of United States electricity from zero-carbon resources by 2035, the report said.
President Joseph Biden has set goals to create a carbon dioxide pollution free power sector by 2035 and net zero emissions economy by no later than 2050 to combat climate change. “The trends in these interconnection queues suggest that developers are eager to meet this ambition, though they may face some headwinds,” said Joseph Rand, an energy policy researcher at Berkeley Lab and lead author of the study, said in a statement.
The report’s authors also noted that the recent passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which increased incentives for renewable energy, is likely to drive even further growth in interconnection requests in coming years.
“The interconnection queues illustrate both the opportunity and challenges of electric sector decarbonization in the U.S.,” Rand said. “On the one hand, we see unprecedented interest and investment in clean energy development. On the other hand, the increasing delays and high withdrawal rates point to a major barrier for developers of these projects.”
Interconnection requests now typically take more than three years to complete the requisite grid impact studies in most regions, and the timeline from the initial connection request to having a fully built and operational plant has increased from less than two years for projects built in 2000 and 2007 to nearly four years for projects built between 2018 and 2022, the report found.
In addition, much of the proposed capacity in the queues will not be built for a variety of reasons, the authors noted. Analyzing a subset of queues for which data are available, only 21 percent of the projects, and 14 percent of capacity, seeking connection from 2000 to 2017 reached commercial operations, the report found.