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Minnesota Looks to Double Renewable Energy Standard to 50% by 2030

March 1, 2017

Bipartisan lawmakers in Minnesota want utilities in that state to procure 50% of power sold by 2030 from renewable sources. The measure, if passed, could put the state’s renewable efforts on par with California’s.

The bipartisan bill introduced in the Minnesota Legislature on February 27 seeks to double the state’s renewable energy standard, which is currently 25% by 2025.

Lawmakers noted that the state is already on track to surpass current goals set by the Next Generation Energy Act, which was enacted by former Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) in 2007. That bill was overwhelmingly supported by 97% of legislators.

About 21% of Minnesota’s generated electricity came from renewable sources in 2015, according to the Minnesota Department of Commerce. Wind energy generated 17% of the state’s power, biomass generated 3%, and hydro 1%. About 44% came from coal, 21% from nuclear, and 13% from natural gas.

Under a 2007 statute, Xcel Energy—the state’s largest utility—has a separate, more aggressive requirement of getting 31.5% of its power from renewables by 2020, with at least 24% of sales from wind and 1.5% of sales from solar.…

Pruitt Pitches New Era of EPA at CPAC

February 27, 2017

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The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of the next four years is going to be a very different beast than the EPA under the presidency of Barack Obama, newly confirmed EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said on February 25 while addressing the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). “We’re going to restore power back to the people. We’re going to recognize the regulatory uncertainty and the regulatory state needs to be reined in. We’re going to make sure that the states are recognized with the authority that they have,” Pruitt said.

Pruitt was sworn in as administer of the EPA February 17 after a controversial confirmation process. The former Oklahoma Attorney General was a vocal critic of the EPA during the Obama administration and sued the agency numerous times.

According to Pruitt, the EPA overreached its authority consistently over the course of the last eight years. In fact, Pruitt said, the EPA has been so tyrannical that conservatives are justified in wanting to abolish the agency altogether.…

SDG&E Unveils World’s Largest Li-Ion Storage Battery

February 25, 2017

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California utility San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) on February 24 officially put into service what is currently the largest lithium-ion storage battery in the world, wrapping up a fast-track procurement process that began less than a year ago.

The 30-MW, 120-MWh system (Figure 1) supplied by AES Energy Storage and located in Escondido about half an hour north of San Diego is part of an expedited response by the state and the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to the loss of the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility north of Los Angeles last year. The sudden loss of that storage capacity put major constraints on the area’s gas-fired generation and meant that peaker facilities faced the risk of not having gas to run when they were needed.

1. Bulk storage. San Diego Gas & Electric’s new 30-MW, 120-MWh battery storage system in Escondido, Calif., is the largest grid-connected battery in the world. Source: POWER/Tom Overton

Gov. Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency over the leak, and the CPUC in May told the state’s utilities to expedite plans for meeting their obligations under the agency’s energy storage mandate.…

Kemper IGCC, Delayed Again, May Not Be Economically Viable

February 23, 2017

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Southern Co.’s Kemper County integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) project, stricken by steep cost increases and an in-service date delayed again to mid-March, isn’t economically viable in the face of projected long-term natural gas prices, the company said.

Southern Co. subsidiary Mississippi Power reported that integrated operation of the facility’s two gasifiers and combustion turbines has “continued for periods” since late January. In the past month, the project has also captured carbon dioxide and placed it in the pipeline for use in enhanced oil recovery.

However, the company was once again forced to adjust the project’s schedule after Mississippi Power determined that an outage was needed to remove ash deposits from Gasifier B’s ash removal system. The gasifier has been producing syngas 60% of the time since November 2016. During the outage, Gasifier A and one combustion turbine are expected to remain operational, continuing to produce power as well as sulfuric acid and ammonia as designed. But the full IGCC project won’t be placed into service until mid-March.…

Cybersecurity a Main Concern for Connected Plants, but Tech is Improving

February 21, 2017

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Security issues are second only to cost concerns when energy generators consider the risks related to implementing connected technology at their power plants, according to a February 15 poll of the audience at POWER’s Connected Plant Conference.

However, continued improvements in available cybersecurity systems are quickly reducing those risks, Stan Schneider, CEO of Real-Time Innovations, told the audience in his keynote address.

“Security is a huge problem, everybody knows,” he said. “I think it’s getting better because security is a layer game.”

Using the most common security technology, such as air gap and firewalls, is not sufficient, but new technologies have the potential to greatly reduce the threat of a cybersecurity attack, according to Schneider. “If you’re dependent on fire walls, realize an insider attack easily breaches a fire wall protection. There’s just so many things that don’t work that people are dependent on for various reasons, but the new technologies [where] you can layer in different levels of security, are definitely making it better,” he said.…

Pruitt Confirmed as Head of EPA

February 19, 2017

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In a final 52–46 vote, the Senate on Friday confirmed Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt as Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The vote was mostly along party lines. Every Republican present except Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) voted for Pruitt (Sen. John McCain [R-Ariz.] did not vote because he is at a military conference in Germany). All Democrats except West Virginia’s Sen. Joe Manchin and North Dakota’s Heidi Heitkemp voted against him.

The Senate confirmed Pruitt even though an Oklahoma state court ordered Pruitt’s office to turn over more than 2,500 emails with coal, gas, and oil corporations that his office had withheld despite open records requests that had been outstanding for more than 740 days. Democrats had sought to delay today’s vote, suggesting the emails could help uncover information needed to understand whether the attorney general engaged with industries that he will be responsible for regulating as EPA administrator.

Scott Pruitt will be sworn in as the Environmental Protection Agency’s administrator on February 17.

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