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PG&E Asks Bankruptcy Judge to Back Restructured Power Deals

August 2, 2019

California utility Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) has asked the judge overseeing its bankruptcy case to support restructured deals with some of the utility’s power suppliers in an effort to reduce the price PG&E pays for those companies’ electricity.

The fate of $ 42 billion worth of long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs) is a key component of PG&E’s bankruptcy and is being closely watched by the power industry, which relies on long-term power contracts to attract financing.

PG&E’s court filing comes just weeks after California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law a measure to create a $ 21 billion state wildfire fund, designed to help the state’s three investor-owned utilities pay for damages resulting from wildfires in the state.

Allan Marks, a partner in the Los Angeles office of global law firm Milbank LLP, working in Milbank’s Project, Energy and Infrastructure Finance practice, told POWER, “In general, [the wildfire fund] is designed to provide liquidity if utilities aren’t able to handle wildfire claims without becoming insolvent.”…

The POWER Podcast

July 29, 2019

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The POWER Podcast Archive:

Worried About Climate Change? Save Nuclear Plants

Interview with Nuclear Matters Advocacy Council member, Carol Browner. Browner is a former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator and former energy and climate change senior advisor to President Obama.

https://www.powermag.com/worried-about-climate-change-save-nuclear-plants-podcast/

Reversing Climate Change with Nuclear Power

Interview with Bret Kugelmass, managing director of the Energy Impact Center.

https://www.powermag.com/reversing-climate-change-with-nuclear-power-podcast/

Lithium-Ion Batteries: Costs Down, Benefits Up

Interview with Tony Cooper, general manager of Green Cubes Technology’s Motive division.

https://www.powermag.com/lithium-ion-batteries-costs-down-benefits-up-podcast/

How to Monitor and Predict Operational Performance with Digital Analytics

Interview with Thomas Dhollander, CTO and co-founder of TrendMiner, and Nick Petrosyan, data analytics engineer with TrendMiner.

https://www.powermag.com/how-to-monitor-and-predict-operational-performance-with-digital-analytics-podcast/

Future May Not Be as Rosy as It Seems for Natural Gas

Interview with Tom Baker, a partner and managing director in Boston Consulting Group’s (BCG’s) San Francisco office, and Alex Dewar, senior manager with the Center for Energy Impact in BCG’s Washington, D.C., office.

https://www.powermag.com/future-may-not-be-as-rosy-as-it-seems-for-natural-gas-podcast/

Power Company Business Models Are Evolving

Interview with Aaron Zahn, managing director and CEO of JEA.…

Watch Stack Come Down at Florida Power Plant

July 21, 2019

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JEA, the electric utility in Jacksonville, Florida, has been decommissioning the St. Johns River Power Park over the past year. A third implosion as part of the decommissioning occurred July 19, as a 640-foot-tall stack and two steam generating boilers were demolished.

Friday’s work followed similar implosions in June 2018, when the plant’s two, 464-foot-tall cooling towers were taken down, and in April of this year when four selective catalytic reactors were destroyed.

The coal-fired plant, which was closed in January 2018 after operating since March 1987, is scheduled to be fully decommissioned in June 2020. JEA has said it will keep at least some of the 2,000-acre site for a future power station, and also for coal ash disposal. The plant was co-owned by JEA and Florida Power & Light.

Total Wrecking & Environmental, a demolition and remediation company based in Buffalo, New York, was awarded a $ 14.5 million contract to demolish the plant and provided video of Friday’s blast.…

The POWER Interview: CleanCapital Drives Investments in Clean Energy

July 17, 2019

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Investments in clean energy projects have hummed along in the past few years, with the growth of renewables worldwide continuing to increase levels of solar, wind, and other resources in the global energy mix.

Thomas Byrne has been in the middle of this energy transformation. Byrne, co-founder and CEO of CleanCapital and a graduate of the University of California-Berkeley and the UCLA School of Law, leads the company’s strategy and operations. Before CleanCapital, he served as partner and general counsel at True Green Capital, a private equity firm focused on distributed solar investments. He led the financing of landmark clean energy projects including NRG’s California Valley Solar Ranch, Caithness’ Shephards Flat Wind Project, and Terra Gen’s Alta Wind Energy Center.

Thom Byrne of CleanCapital

In his role as an attorney specializing in clean energy financing, Byrne saw first-hand how inefficiency was hampering the growth of clean energy investment. He envisioned a technology-based solution, and founded CleanCapital, which looks to connect investors with opportunities in the clean energy space, with an eye toward “reducing the world’s dependence on fossil fuels and generating attractive returns to boot.”…

POWER Notebook: Investment in Renewables Down in 1H2019

July 15, 2019

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Investments in renewable energy projects slowed in the first half of 2019, primarily due to a 39% year-over-year drop in China, the world’s largest renewables market, according to data published July 10 by BloombergNEF (BNEF).

BNEF said investments in China dropped to $ 28.8 billion, the lowest figure for any six-month period since 2013. China is moving away from government-set tariffs for solar and wind capacity and instead moving to auctions for renewable power. BNEF said global investment in renewables was $ 117.6 billion in the first half of this year, off 14% compared to the January-June 2018 period.

Justin Wu, head of Asia-Pacific for BNEF, in a news release said: “The slowdown in investment in China is real, but the figures for first-half 2019 probably overstate its severity. We expect a nationwide solar auction happening now to lead to a rush of new PV project financings. We could also see several big deals in offshore wind in the second half.”…

How to Position Your Power Company for the Future

July 1, 2019

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Faced with the challenge of making the right moves to accommodate a swiftly changing energy ecosystem, one question draws into sharp focus for generators and the entire power and utilities industry: What will their role become in the years ahead, considering evolving portfolio mixes and changing industry dynamics?

Leaders know there’s a very real possibility that if they don’t fortify that answer quickly, they’ll continue to lose ground to new entrants eager to step in and take their place. It doesn’t have to be that way. We believe that power and utilities can avoid this fate by shifting toward a new role—what we’re calling a Utility Platform Player.

Evolving Frontier for Generation

The days of highly centralized generation, with business decisions largely focused on pursuing economies of scale, continue to transform into a world that is becoming far more decentralized. This is happening as more and more customers invest in their own sources of generation—from rooftop or commercial-scale solar facilities to microturbines or other technologies that produce power on a non-centralized basis.…