President Biden’s Proposed Budget Calls For Significant DOE Spending Increases
April 12, 2022
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
April 12, 2022
The Department of Energy (DOE) would see significant spending increases under a budget proposed recently by President Joe Biden.
Much of those increases, according to the budget, were made possible by or build on the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) signed into law last year.
The appropriation for DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) would nearly double under the budget with $4 billion allocated to “accelerating the research, development, demonstration, and deployment of technologies and solutions to cut energy costs through low-cost clean energy resources.”
Additionally, the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) would receive $700 million to expand its scope beyond energy technology focused projects to include climate adaptation and resilience innovations.
The Weatherization Assistance Program would receive $500 million, which DOE estimates could cover 50,000 homes. As part of that, $100 million would be targeted to low-income families under what is being called the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) Advantage pilot program. The program would retrofit LIHEAP qualifying households with energy efficient electric appliances and systems.
LIHEAP itself would receive $4 billion, a $225 million increase from the 2022 enacted level. However, the administration is proposing amending LIHEAP to allow states to divert LIHEAP funds toward water assistance, in light of the expiration at the end of 2023 of the Low-Income Home Water Assistance Program (LIHWAP) created under the American Rescue Plan Act.
The American Rescue Plan Act provided $500 million for LIHWAP, so if funding continued at that level, the overall amount provided under LIHEAP under the budget proposal for energy assistance would actually decline.
Also, as part of the Administration’s Justice40 pilot program, the Department of Health and Human Services – which administers LIHEAP – “plans to increase efforts to prevent energy shutoffs and increase support for households with young children and older people, and high energy burdens,” according to the budget.
The budget includes an American Public Power Association-supported request for $9 million to the Environmental Protection Agency for a coal combustion residual federal permit program. This program was fully funded at $9 million in the FY 2022 Appropriations bill.
The budget also proposes a “reserve” for legislation that reduces costs, expands productive capacity, and reforms the tax system. “Because discussions with Congress continue, the Budget does not break down the reserve among specific policies or between revenues and outlays,” the budget states.
At a White House briefing, staff clarified that these changes could include the provisions of the Build Back Better Act. Likewise, a Treasury Department explanation of revenue provisions in the budget does not include Build Back Better Act provisions, but instead simply assumes the Build Back Better Act is the baseline off which the budget’s revenue provisions would be built.
The budget does not propose selling the Power Marketing Administrations or the Tennessee Valley Authority, in whole or in part.
SMUD Board Approves 100-MW Geothermal Energy Contract With Calpine
April 12, 2022
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
April 12, 2022
California public power utility SMUD has approved a 100-megawatt (MW) contract with Calpine Corporation for geothermal power from The Geysers. The move marks a major step forward toward the SMUD’s 2030 zero carbon plan.
The 10-year power purchase agreement for 100 MW of energy from Calpine’s operations at The Geysers was approved by the SMUD Board of Directors on March 16. The contract takes effect on January 1, 2023.
Located north of San Francisco, The Geysers is the single largest geothermal electrical operation in the world.
A geothermal resource occurs when water deep below the earth’s surface is heated by exposure to hot, porous and permeable rock resulting in dry steam or hot water.
At The Geysers, dry, superheated steam is produced. Steam production wells about two miles deep are drilled to tap this naturally occurring steam. Once the steam reaches the surface, it is piped overland to a network of interconnected power plants where it spins conventional steam turbines that drive generators.
Interest Relief And Hazard Mitigation Included In Recently Passed House Bill
April 12, 2022
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
April 12, 2022
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) would be required to help pay interest expenses for loans taken out to cover costs that will eventually be repaid with FEMA public assistance grants under legislation recently passed by the House.
Under H.R. 5689, the Resilient Assistance for Mitigation for Environmentally Resilient Infrastructure and Construction by Americans Act (Resilient AMERICA Act), the amount automatically set aside for pre-disaster mitigation funds would also be increased from 6 percent of public assistance granted for the year to 15 percent.
The interest provision is based on legislation introduced in April of last year by Representatives Neal Dunn (R-FL) and Darren Soto (D-FL) called the FEMA Loan Interest Payment Relief Act (H.R. 2669). This bill was drafted to assist public power utilities and rural electric cooperatives that take out loans to cover disaster-related costs that will eventually be repaid by FEMA.
Under the bill, rural electric cooperatives and public power utilities would be reimbursed for at least some of the interest expense of such loans. Reimbursement would be set at the lesser of either: a) the actual interest paid, or b) the interest that would have been paid if the loan had been set at the prime rate.
The text of H.R. 2669 was incorporated into the Resilient AMERICA Act before being passed by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in October 2021.
The Resilient AMERICA Act was sent to the Senate on April 6 and referred to the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee. In addition, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) introduced a companion bill (S. 2212) last year that was also referred to Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.
Ditto Asks President Biden To Prioritize Modernization Of The Columbia River Treaty
April 7, 2022
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
April 7, 2022
President Biden should direct the State Department and a negotiating team working under National Security Council officials to move faster on renegotiating the Columbia River Treaty with a particular emphasis on the rebalancing the power provisions between the U.S. and Canada, Joy Ditto, President and CEO of the American Public Power Association (APPA) in an April 4 letter to Biden.
“Failure to act quickly on negotiations will continue to cost American consumers millions of dollars a year, as well as the continued loss of renewable, baseload hydropower important to keeping the grid reliable,” Ditto wrote in the letter.
She noted that public power has a heavy footprint in the Pacific Northwest, where community-owned electric utilities buy power generated on the Federal Columbia River System (FCRS) marketed by the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA).
BPA rates are set to cover all generation and transmission costs, as well as repayment, with interest, of the federal hydroelectric projects. None of the costs are borne by taxpayers.
“This multi-decade partnership has proven wildly successful, providing affordable, emissions-free, and reliable power that has served as the cornerstone of the Pacific Northwest’s economy since 1937. However, this success is increasingly threatened by the outdated Columbia River Treaty that has American ratepayers losing $150 million a year in lost hydropower value to Canada,” Ditto said.
The U.S. and Canada agreed to the Columbia River Treaty in 1964 for the mutual development of the Columbia River power and flood control systems.
Under the Treaty, the U.S. provides payments to Canada, called the Canadian Entitlement (CE), in the form of returned power generation. The CE amount is calculated using a formula from 1961, which was based on the expected improvement to U.S. hydropower generation capability due to Canadian storage.
Today, these calculations exceed the actual benefits of coordinated operations by an estimated 70-90 percent. “An equitable rebalancing of this problem is worth more than a billion dollars to U.S. consumers at a time when many are already facing rising energy prices,” Ditto wrote.
“I strongly urge you to direct the State Department and the entire negotiating team working under National Security Council officials to move faster on renegotiating the treaty with a particular emphasis on the rebalancing the power provisions between the U.S. and Canada,” Ditto said. “Making full use of the nation’s hydropower resource is key to ensuring that the nation’s grid remains reliable and resilient, and that utilities can meet emission reduction goals to address climate change.”
Vermont House Passes Bill That Includes AMI Funding For Public Power
April 7, 2022
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
April 7, 2022
The Vermont House has passed comprehensive transportation and appropriations bills that include significant investments in the state’s efforts to electrify the economy, including funding for advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) in public power communities.
The Vermont Public Power Supply Authority (VPPSA) has been representing its 11 community-owned electric utility members as a leading advocate for this funding.
The bill, which now heads to the Vermont Senate, includes $5 million for a 50% reimbursement to municipal and cooperative electrical distribution utilities for the implementation of AMI systems approved by the Public Utility Commission.
As Vermont advances towards meeting its climate action and energy requirements, it will be crucial for utilities to modernize their infrastructure to meet increasingly dynamic customer and load demands, VPPSA noted. “This state investment will ensure equitable access to this technology for all Vermonters and acts as a seed investment to open further federal funding opportunities.”
An $11 million funding request for AMI was supported by all 17 Vermont electric utilities as part of a comprehensive package of investments aimed at modernizing Vermont’s electric grid.
While nearly 90% Vermont electric consumers already have access to AMI due to a federal grant received by the state’s larger utilities in 2009, the remaining 10%, mainly in rural parts of the state, were not able to take advantage of that funding.
Deploying state funds now helps to close the existing technology gap and positions all Vermonters to access forthcoming federal Infrastructure and Investment Jobs Act (IIJA) funding, VPPSA said.
As the bill undergoes review by the Senate, VPPSA said it will continue to advocate for full funding of the utility request to obtain equitable treatment across the state.
Work Gets Underway On Project To Extend Electricity To Navajo Homes
April 4, 2022
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
April 4, 2022
Work got underway this week on Light Up Navajo III (LUN III), a joint effort between the American Public Power Association (APPA) and the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority (NTUA) to extend electricity to Navajo homes.
The LUN III initiative began on April 3, 2022 and will last for 11 weeks. The goal is to connect 300 families’ homes to the electric grid for the first time.
NTUA will be welcoming workers from public power utilities and organizations from 11 states, including Arkansas, Arizona, Delaware, California, Connecticut, North Carolina, New Mexico, Ohio, Washington, Texas, Utah, and Washington D.C.
There will be up to four crews working each week at different locations throughout the Navajo Nation.
“The Navajo Nation appreciates our partners in this collaborative effort to bring much-needed electricity to hundreds of homes this spring,” said Navajo Nation Speaker Seth Damon. “We commend the NTUA and the APPA for leading this project to help improve the standard of life for our families.”
Financing the cost to construct electric service “can be a burden for many, so the Light Up Navajo initiative will serve as the foundation to allow people to connect to the internet and modernize a way of living. The Navajo people are grateful for all the volunteer line workers and the utility companies involved to make this happen,” he said.
“Public power utilities have shown over the years that they are incredible at stepping up to help each other,” said APPA President and CEO Joy Ditto. “We are well practiced in sending aid in the wake of natural disasters, and we are leveraging these skills to help bring power to those who still don’t have it in our country in the year 2022, a situation that must be rectified.”
NTUA General Manager Walter Haase said the partnership embodies the true American spirit of helping one another. In its first year, the project connected more than 230 homes to electricity, reducing the total number of U.S. homes without electricity by one percent.
“We are grateful that outside communities are sending their electric crews to help,” said Haase. “These visiting crews are ready to help build and will be ready to celebrate with Light Up Navajo III families after they get connected. The project will not only make a positive life changing impact on our families, but it is also a powerful impression on the lineworkers and their communities who proudly volunteer their services.”
In 2020, the Coronavirus pandemic forced the cancellation of the Light Up Navajo II project. The suspension was not an easy decision for NTUA, knowing there were families waiting years for electricity. There were 48 utility companies from 15 states that had signed up for the project.
Although the project was canceled for the health, safety, and well-being of everyone involved, preparation resulted in NTUA acquiring the necessary clearances and making 330 projects construction ready.
In August 2020, NTUA received funds from the Navajo Nation through the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), and connected 330 Navajo homes initially identified and prepared for shovel-ready status through LUN II. Overall, 737 families received electricity through the CARES Act funding in 2020.
In 2021, NTUA spent most of the year preparing for LUN III, working with the Navajo Nation Land Department and with the families requesting electric service. NTUA had to secure Rights of Way, land clearances, permits and wire homes so that they will be ready to have their homes ready to be connected to the electric grid.
Earlier this year, Massachusetts public power utility Peabody Municipal Light Plant donated surplus equipment to help with electrification of Navajo Nation through the Light Up Navajo Project.
BOEM To Auction Offshore Leases With 1.3 GW Of Wind Potential On May 11
April 1, 2022
by Peter Maloney
APPA News
April 1, 2022
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has completed its environmental review and scheduled an auction for May 11 for two wind energy lease areas off the coast of the Carolinas.
The lease areas cover 110,091 acres in the Carolina Long Bay area that, if developed, could result in at least 1.3 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind energy, the Department of the Interior said in an announcement.
Developers will be able to bid one or both of the lease areas within the Wilmington East Wind Energy Area (WEA), as described in BOEM’s Final Sale Notice (FSN), which is available in the Federal Register reading room. The two lease areas include similar acreage, distance to shore, and wind resource potential, BOEM said.
Among the stipulations in the Final Sale Notice, BOEM is offering a 20 percent credit to bidders if they commit to invest in programs that would advance U.S. offshore wind energy workforce training or supply chain development.
The leases will also require lessees to identify Tribal Nations, underserved communities, agencies, ocean users and other interested stakeholders, and report on their communication and engagement activities with those parties.
Through a public comment process for the upcoming lease auction that began in November 2021, BOEM reduced the acreage available for leasing by 14 percent from the originally proposed lease areas in order to avoid conflicts with ocean users and minimize environmental impacts. BOEM said it would continue to engage with its partners and stakeholders as the process unfolds.
In October 2021, the administration of President Joe Biden announced a new leasing path forward that identified up to seven potential lease sales by 2025, including the upcoming Carolina Long Bay lease sale and last month’s New York Bight lease sale. Lease sales offshore California and Oregon, as well as in the Central Atlantic, Gulf of Maine, and the Gulf of Mexico are expected to follow, BOEM said.
In February, an auction of six lease areas totaling over 488,000 acres in the New York Bight for potential wind energy development drew winning bids from six companies totaling about $4.37 billion, making it the highest-grossing competitive offshore energy lease sale in history, including oil and gas lease sales.
The announcement of the Wilmington East Wind Energy Area auction marks “significant progress in achieving this Administration’s goal for deploying 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030, while creating jobs and strengthening a sustainable domestic supply chain,” Amanda Lefton, director of BOEM, said in a statement.
Nebraska Public Power District Joining National Electric Highway Coalition
April 1, 2022
by Peter Maloney
APPA News
April 1, 2022
Nebraska Public Power District (NPPD) has signed a memorandum of cooperation to become a member of the National Electric Highway Coalition (NEHC).
The National Electric Highway Coalition currently consists of more than 60 investor-owned, public power and cooperative electric companies that have committed to providing electric vehicle (EV) fast charging stations along major travel corridors by the end of 2023.
“Our membership in NEHC reaffirms our commitment to support the expansion of the EV charging infrastructure along highways and main thoroughfares across the state,” Tom Kent, NPPD’s president and CEO, said in a statement.
“Most EV owners will charge their vehicles overnight, and that’s very convenient for daily travel, but getting more fast charging stations out in the public along heavily traveled corridors is an important next step to support our customers who are purchasing EVs,” Kent said.
NPPD says it has installed or provided financial assistance for the instillation of several DC fast charging stations in its service territory, including five charging stations installed in Auburn, Aurora, Kearney, Norfolk, and York, as well as eight stations planned in Ainsworth, Chadron, Hebron, McCook, O’Neill, Scottsbluff, Thedford, and Wahoo.
NPPD also offers a variety of incentives for customers who want to install residential or public electric vehicle charging stations or who are interested in purchasing an electric vehicle.
In 2018, NPPD launched a pilot program under which owners of electric vehicles will receive a $200 incentive if they install a charging station at their home.
The following year, NPPD in partnership with its wholesale utility customers, the Nebraska Environmental Trust and the Nebraska Community Energy Alliance, introduced three programs that will help to reduce the purchase price of an electric vehicle.
“We will continue to work with our wholesale customers and retail communities to install new chargers where the opportunities arise,” Kent said.
Reports Present Framework For Using Storage To Mitigate Solar Interconnections
April 1, 2022
by Peter Maloney
APPA News
April 1, 2022
A pair of reports from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory presents resources to aid developers and utilities with the integration of solar power to the grid by using battery energy storage to mitigate interconnection costs.
The project, Use of Operating Agreements and Energy Storage to Reduce Photovoltaic Interconnection Costs, was done under the auspices of the Solar Energy Innovation Network and comprises two reports, a Technical and Economic Analysis report by researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a Conceptual Framework report authored by the national laboratory researchers, as well as staff from the Rhode Island Office of Energy Resources, National Grid, and the Rocky Mountain Institute.
The researchers set out to address the problem that connecting solar photovoltaic systems to the grid can result in time consuming and expensive upgrades. Developers usually either pay the cost of the grid upgrades, which can delay construction and interconnection, or reduce the capacity of the solar system to eliminate the risk of grid violation fees and reduce interconnection costs. A third option, controlling the generation exported to the grid, can be achieved through curtailment or the addition of equipment such as battery storage.
To minimize time from project conception to operation, developers often downsize the size of their solar system in order to maintain proper voltage and power quality requirements on a feeder, the researchers said.
However, because of decreasing land availability and increasing public concern over the visual impact of many small solar power systems, there may be benefit to a shift in strategy, the researchers said. Instead of maximizing the number of solar systems, “there may be future emphasis on maximizing the revenues (and perhaps grid benefit) of each PV system by providing electrons during expensive hours and near large load centers,” they said.
In addition, instead of grid upgrades on an as-needed, project-by-project basis, “focus could shift to using advanced controls and storage technology at the point of interconnection to increase the hosting capacity for distributed resources,” the researchers said.
The two reports examine how controlling exported solar generation at critical hours can be a viable alternative to downsizing a solar project.
The technical report explores the viability and economic feasibility of pairing energy storage to mitigate solar system grid violations. The second report develops an Operating Envelope Agreement that can serve as the conceptual framework for a contractual agreement between a solar system owner and an electric utility on how to operate the paired solar and storage system.
The technical report concluded that an Operating Envelope Agreement that “specifies technical parameters by which a developer can avoid downsizing a proposed PV system and avoid paying expensive infrastructure upgrade costs can be an economically attractive option under select conditions.”
In the second report presents the parameters for developing an Operating Envelope Agreement (OEA). In the future, the researchers said they hope “to produce a follow-on report with real-world examples of OEAs, or interconnection service agreements that include OEA concepts.”
Arizona City Offers Cryptocurrency As Payment Option For Utility Bill Payments
April 1, 2022
by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
April 1, 2022
The City of Chandler, Ariz., now offers cryptocurrency as a payment option for Chandler residents to pay their utility bills.
Customers who have Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Litecoin connected to their PayPal account can use their cryptocurrency when making a utility bill payment.
By selecting PayPal as the payment option, the crypto option will automatically display as a payment method in PayPal Checkout if there is a sufficient balance of cryptocurrency to cover the payment amount.
The option began being offered in March, following research by the city to determine if it was a feasible option for its customers.
Chandler determined that the best option was to use a third-party payment processor and reached out to Invoice Cloud, its current payment partner for online utility bill payments. Invoice Cloud was able to initiate the additional payment option in its system.
Chandler is believed to be one of the first valley cities to offer cryptocurrency as a payment option.