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2.2-GW Coal-Fired Behemoth Could Permanently Close This Week

November 14, 2019

The post 2.2-GW Coal-Fired Behemoth Could Permanently Close This Week appeared first on POWER Magazine.

The 2,250-MW coal-fired Navajo Generating Station (NGS) in Arizona will permanently close likely this week, ending a long and bitter fight to keep the plant and its affiliated coal mine open.

The plant’s utility owners—Salt River Project (SRP), Arizona Public Service Co., Tucson Electric Power Co., and NV Energy—in February 2017 voted to shut down the plant located on tribal land near Page along the border with Utah, citing “rapidly changing economics of the energy industry,” which has seen natural gas prices sink to record lows.

SRP, the plant’s majority owner, told POWER in an email on Nov. 12 that operations at the plant are now expected to end within the next week, once fuel on site has been exhausted. “The best estimate now is for all units to be shut down permanently on Nov. 15—but that could change,” a spokesperson said.

After the project’s utility owners voted to close the plant in 2017, coal mining giant Peabody Energy, the Department of Interior (whose Bureau of Reclamation is a participant in the project), and the Navajo Nation launched concerted attempts to find an outside buyer to keep running the plant.…

PG&E: Judge’s Proposal Could Cost Utility $150 Billion

January 24, 2019

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Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) on Jan. 23 said a federal judge’s proposal that the utility mitigate fire danger in its service territory by trimming trees, along with inspecting and repairing thousands of miles of power lines, could cost the company as much as $ 150 billion this year.

William Alsup, a judge in the U.S. District Court for Northern California, earlier this month said he could order PG&E to remove or trim all trees that could threaten the utility’s equipment and possibly lead to wildfires. The judge said the work would need to be done by June 21.

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), which regulates the state’s utilities, is expected to express its opinion of Alsup’s proposal by Jan. 25. A hearing on the proposal is scheduled for Jan. 30 in San Francisco, the day after PG&E is expected to file for bankruptcy.

Alsup is supervising PG&E’s probation term that began in 2017 after PG&E was convicted of felony charges stemming from a 2010 natural gas pipeline explosion in San Bruno, Calif.,…

Report: Investments in Coal Risky, Billions in Assets Could Be Stranded

October 31, 2018

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A study from a London-based group focused on financial aspects of the energy industry said up to $ 60 billion of coal-fired power generation assets may be stranded in Southeast Asia in the next 10 years. The study released this week by Carbon Tracker said renewable energy resources and more-stringent environmental policies make investments in new coal generation “a mistake.”

The study was released on the heels of a report last week from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), a Cleveland, Ohio-based clean energy group, that said the U.S. will retire 15.4 GW of coal capacity in 2018, which it said represents 44 coal-fired generation units at 22 power plants. The group said another 21.4 GW of coal generation will close by 2024.

The IEEFA report said the U.S. is still operating 246 GW of coal generation capacity, with announced retirements from 2018 through 2024 (Figure 1) representing about 15% of that total. It said coal plants in at least 14 states are scheduled to close over the next few years, including units in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Indiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin, according to IEEFA.…

DOE Lays Out How Power Sector Could Win the Cybersecurity Battle

May 19, 2018

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Cybersecurity threats are outpacing the energy sector’s “best defenses,” and costs of preventing and responding to cyber incidents are straining company efforts to protect critical infrastructure, the Department of Energy (DOE) warned as it released a comprehensive five-year cybersecurity strategy for the industry.

The Multiyear Plan for Energy Sector Cybersecurity, dated March 2018 but which was made public by the DOE’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability (OE) on May 14, lays out an “integrated strategy” for the DOE’s new Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER). It essentially seeks to “gain an upper hand” in the fight against cybersecurity, outlining “disruptive changes in cyber risk management practices.”

Power companies and utilities, along with oil and gas entities, have integrated advanced digital technologies to automate and control physical functions for improved efficiency and adjust to a “rapidly changing generation mix,” but this has created a “larger cyber attack surface and new opportunities for malicious cyber threats,” the plan notes.…

Could Success Spoil ISO-NE?

September 6, 2017

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Independent System Operator-New England celebrated its 20th anniversary last July with a solid record in its energy and capacity markets, turning around a fragmented regional electric system. Can it repeat that performance in the face of new challenges: retiring coal, oil, and nuclear plants; gas deliverability problems; the rise of renewables; and the need for decarbonization?

On July 1, the Independent System Operator-New England (ISO-NE), headquartered in Holyoke, Massachusetts (Figure 1), marked 20 years as a wholesale, competitive market covering Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and most of Maine (Figure 2). When the ISO began operations, competitive wholesale markets were a bold experiment for the 1990s, fostered by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). The foundation was FERC’s belief, based in classical economics, that market competition would produce superior results compared to the conventional model of the state-regulated, vertically integrated monopoly electric companies.

1. At the controls. The control room of Independent System Operator-New England’s (ISO-NE’s) headquarters in Holyoke, Massachusetts, is the nerve center for the group’s operations.

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Report: Killing Clean Power Plan Could Cost Nation 560,000 Potential Jobs

June 23, 2017

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If the Trump administration’s efforts to roll back the Clean Power Plan (CPP) are successful, the nation could miss out on 560,000 potential jobs and a boost of $ 52 billion to the gross domestic product (GDP), according to a report released by Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2).

“From states with relatively small populations like Maine and Montana to highly populated states like Florida, the CPP could have substantial employment and economic benefits — benefits that would disappear with the Trump Administration’s repeal of the policy,” the June 21 report says.

The CPP has been a thorn in the side of coal proponents since it was proposed in 2014. The rule requires states to develop action plans to meet state-specific, federally-set carbon emissions reduction goals for existing coal-fired power plants.

According to the E2 report, implementation of the CPP would result in the creation of up to 560,000 jobs and add up to $ 52 billion to the nation’s GDP. Those benefits will be lost if the rule is weakened or rescinded, the report says.…