FERC hands NERC solar flare standard, tweaks ISO-NE Order 1000 filing
- Details
-
17 May 2013
By Kennedy Maize
May 17, 2013 – The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission yesterday approved a final rule ordering the North American Electric Reliability Corp. to develop reliability standards to protect the electric grid against geomagnetic storms. It marks the first time FERC has used its authority to tell NERC to develop a particular standard, although the order gives NERC considerable flexibility as to what the standard should look like.
Do utilities need financial incentives to invest in power grid infrastructure?
- Details
-
17 May 2013
By Robert Marritz
May 17, 2013 – Two former state utility regulators – Susan Tierney, managing principal, and Paul Centolella, vice president, both of the Analysis Group – have suggested that reasonable incentives for utility transmission and distribution investment may be appropriate in today’s environment. Neither Tierney, a former Massachusetts regulator and subcabinet official in the Clinton administration Energy Department, nor Centolella, a former Ohio commissioner, are seen as being soft on utilities.
But why the argument for incentives? Isn’t infrastructure investment what utilities are supposed to do?
Pepco, D.C. officials, consumer advocates ink $1 bn underground deal
- Details
-
17 May 2013
An unusual admixture of Pepco executives, consumer advocates and utility regulators joined with District of Columbia Mayor Vincent C. Gray Wednesday to praise a task force proposal for Pepco to spend up to $1 billion to bury many of the city’s most vulnerable power lines to alleviate storm-related outages. The provisional agreement between Pepco and city leaders would finance the bulk of the project via a bill surcharge. Work could begin within a year, Gray said. Officials said they had identified the 60 high-voltage lines that run from substations to neighborhoods that would be buried under the proposal but did not identify specific neighborhoods. Ratepayer advocates, frequent opponents of Pepco’s rate proposals and critics of its reliability record applauded the agreement.
Read about D.C.’s novel undergrounding plan here.
Could solar PV topple PG&E?
- Details
-
17 May 2013
A blog on The Energy Collective website posits that solar PV could one day bring down PG&E. The northern California utility’s marginal prices cannot compete with solar under present circumstances, Douglas Short said. Large residential customers pay 31¢-35¢/kWh at the margin, and PG&E has said that rate could top 50 cents by 2022. Residential customers represent about 40% of PG&E’s retail electric revenue. Commercial customers, which comprise 46% of PG&E’s retail electric revenue, could also go partly or wholly off-grid, with the additional benefit of accelerated depreciation. No other US utility faces the same circumstances, says Short. “If ever an electric utility was set up to fall to solar, it is PG&E.”
Read about the threat that rooftop solar could pose for PG&E.
US summer supply looks good; demand response should boost ERCOT system
- Details
-
17 May 2013
The North American Electric Reliability Corp. said Wednesday that power system reliability for most of the country looks good, except perhaps for Texas, where the Electric Reliability Council of Texas summer planning reserve margin is projected to be a tad below the level NERC recommends. NERC’s 2013 Summer Reliability Assessment said ERCOT expects a 12.88% summer reserve margin, 6,780 MW above projected peak demand and down from a 7,258 MW margin in 2012. John Moura, NERC's director of reliability, noted that ERCOT has taken steps to improve reliability this summer with several demand response programs that were “not accounted for in [NERC’s] assessment because they are pilots.”
Here’s the story on prospects for summer 2013.
