Sep 15 Proper compensation in markets is a high priority issue: FERC’s Cha...
Saying that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission can “walk and chew gum at the same time,” FERC Chairman Neil Chatterjee told a House hearing on Sept. 14 that he sees the issue of proper compensation for baseload generation in wholesale electr...
Sep 12 After Irma, 6 million lack power in Florida — and the trucks are on...
The extent of the damage in Florida still is being assessed, after Hurricane Irma made landfall on Sunday morning, Sept. 10, as a Category 4 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 130 miles per hour. But it is already clear that, true to the pr...
Sep 8 Need for PURPA reforms is debated at House hearing
On Sept. 6, the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy held the third in its series of “Powering America” hearings, entitled “Powering America: Reevaluating PURPA’s Objectives and Its Effects on Today’s Consumers.”
Sep 6 NYPA awards $1.4M to capital for energy-saving projects
The New York Power Authority has awarded $1.4 million to three energy-saving projects in the city of Albany, N.Y., including one that will connect 22 municipal buildings there to the New York Energy Manager, NYPA’s network operations center for re...
Sep 6 FERC rejects RTO’s resource adequacy requirement plan, provides gui...
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rejected revisions that the Southwest Power Pool proposed earlier this year to its open access transmission tariff, and asked the regional transmission organization to revise its proposal.
Aug 31 Utility's Colorado plan would expand wind, solar, shut coal plants
Investor-owned utility Xcel Energy, backed by a coalition of 14 diverse consumer and energy groups, are asking the Colorado Public Utilities Commission to approve a proposal called the Colorado Energy Plan that they say could lead to $2.5 billion ...
Aug 29 Colo. high court to review ruling in Boulder municipalization case
On Aug. 21, the Colorado Supreme Court granted a petition filed by the City of Boulder, Colorado, asking the high court to review a lower court’s decision in a case involving the city’s effort to create a local electric utility.
Aug 29 Houston struggles with floods, outages, as the rain keeps falling
Electric utility crews, including those at public power utilities, have been at the ready over the last few days to help with the disaster unfolding in Houston, but so far, the situation in the biggest city in Texas looks more like a matter of sav...
Aug 25 Third party billing services: convenience with a cost?
Third-party billing services aim to help keep customers’ personal finances organized, but the added layer between customer and utility can lead to mix ups and delays in payments, and even service disconnects.
Aug 24 Natural gas – and economics – are main reason for coal, nuclear pla...
A hefty, much-awaited report from the Department of Energy staff on the state of the U.S. electric grid — with a focus on the grid’s reliability — concludes that the shale revolution, by ushering in very low natural gas prices, is the main reason ...
Aug 23 RGGI states target additional 30 percent emissions cap decline
The nine Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states participating in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a market-based regulatory program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, on Aug. 23 proposed a regional cap trajectory that would provide an additi...
Aug 21 California grid successful in meeting challenge of solar eclipse: ISO
Officials at the California Independent System Operator on Aug. 21 said that planning paid off for the grid operator as the state’s power system successfully responded to the temporary loss of several thousand megawatts of solar power due to the e...
Aug 21 President Trump issues executive order on infrastructure
President Trump on Aug. 15 issued an executive order aimed at rebuilding the country’s infrastructure.
Aug 21 Built by bonds: Kansas utility revamps a coal plant
Faced with the need to add air pollution controls to its Nearman Creek coal-fired power plant or shut it down, the Board of Public Utilities in Kansas City, Kansas decided to undertake a major construction project: adding $250 million worth of air...
Aug 16 Public power urged to participate in GridEx security simulation
The American Public Power Association is encouraging its members to participate in the big nationwide grid security exercise — GridEx IV — that is taking place in November.
Aug 16 Ocala Electric Utility is working to make public power a household ...
Florida’s Ocala Electric Utility has been working to build up its reputation with customers and remind them of the hometown connection of the public power utility by stepping up its outreach to the community through a number of activities, includi...
Aug 16 New Mexico regulators amend IRP rule to include energy storage
Early this month, the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission voted unanimously to amend its rule governing integrated resource plans for electric utilities to include energy storage as a resource for utility planning purposes.
Aug 16 Report says carbon price would have little effect on N.Y. consumers
In a first step towards possibly adopting a price for power plant carbon dioxide emissions, New York’s grid operator is reviewing a report that found that adding a $40 per ton charge would have little effect on customer bills in the state.
Aug 15 Calif. utilities ready for big shadow; eclipse called ‘credit posit...
The major solar eclipse that will traverse the country on Aug. 21 will be “credit positive” for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power because LADWP will be able to learn lessons from the event, Moody’s Investors Service said in an Aug. 9 r...
Aug 15 FERC’s Chatterjee focused on backlog, highlights role of baseload p...
Neil Chatterjee, who was recently sworn in as a commissioner at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and is serving as acting chairman, said that his first priority is to “get started on the accumulated backlog” at the federal agency, which un...
Aug 14 SMUD sees benefits flowing from partnership focused on Japanese pow...
California’s SMUD discusses a newly-formed partnership with NEC Corporation and SpaceTime Insight that will deliver smart energy products and services to Japanese electric power companies. The partnership formation was spurred by the ongoing dereg...
Aug 14 New York ISO examines reliability need tied to nuclear plant deacti...
The New York Independent System Operator has initiated an analysis to determine whether a reliability need will result from the deactivation of Indian Point Units 2 and 3, the grid operator reported in a recent notice posted on its website.
Aug 11 Court issues indefinite hold in 111(b) litigation
A federal appeals court on Aug. 10 put an indefinite hold on litigation challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s final rule on carbon dioxide emissions from new, modified, and reconstructed electric generating units.
Aug 11 Bill in Calif. aimed at boosting EVs calls for new rebate system
California lawmakers soon could decide the fate of ambitious legislation aimed at jumpstarting the state's use of electric vehicles.
Aug 9 Public power successfully responds to record-breaking demand in Nor...
The Bonneville Power Administration’s record for peak summertime electricity consumption was recently broken three days in a row after intense heat blanketed the Pacific Northwest. But thanks to several steps BPA took in concert with federal partn...
Aug 9 Court orders new 60-day abeyance on Clean Power Plan litigation
In a fresh setback for the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan — the EPA’s final 2015 rule requiring cuts in carbon dioxide from power plants — a federal appeals court issued an order on Aug. 8 putting another 60-day hold on litigat...
Aug 8 Kelly asks IRS to withdraw proposal affecting tax-exempt bonds ‘in ...
The Internal Revenue Service should withdraw a proposal it issued early this year that would change the definition of the term “political subdivision” for purposes of tax-exempt bonds, said Sue Kelly, president and CEO of the American Public Power...
Aug 8 Fayetteville helps get lights back on in Outer Banks
The Fayetteville Public Works Commission in Fayetteville, North Carolina, helped its neighbors on the North Carolina Outer Banks by providing material needed to expedite the building of an overhead transmission line following an accident in late J...
Aug 7 EIA: Aug. 21 eclipse expected to affect solar units, but not reliab...
On Aug. 21, a solar eclipse will block the sunlight needed to generate electricity at about 1,900 utility-scale solar photovoltaic power plants in the United States, but the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, or NERC, does not expect...
Aug 7 Report details growth of state energy efficiency standards
As of July 2017, thirty states and the District of Columbia have adopted energy efficiency policies, either mandated requirements, voluntary goals, or pilot programs, the Energy Information Administration reported on Aug. 3.
Aug 7 Energy efficiency takes a variety of shapes at public power utilities
The inspiration for this article came from Akeyla Clarke, pricing and rates manager for the Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority. Earlier this year, in an inquiry posted to one of the American Public Power Association’s list servers, Clarke as...
Aug 4 Senate confirms two for FERC, restoring quorum at agency
The Senate voted to confirm the nominations of Neil Chatterjee and Robert F. Powelson for seats on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
Aug 3 Austin Energy signs contract for new Gulf Coast wind farm
Austin Energy, the public power utility in Austin, Texas, will receive an additional 200 megawatts of Texas wind power as a result of an agreement recently reached with Portland, Oregon-based Avangrid Renewables LLC, the utility said Aug. 1.
Aug 2 US electric sector provides 5% of GDP, supports 7 million jobs, stu...
The electric power industry in the United States supports more than 7 million jobs — or one in 20 American jobs — and contributes 5 percent of total gross domestic product, or GDP, says a report released Aug. 2 by M.J. Bradley & Associates.
Aug 1 Wholesale power markets are focus of House hearing
The bulk power markets in the U.S. — and the role of the regional grid operators, or RTOs, that oversee them — were the focus of a hearing held late last month by the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy.
Jul 27 EIA: Daily gas power burn hits highest daily level so far in 2017
Over the past week, the amount of natural gas used for electricity generation (known as “power burn”) reached its highest daily level so far this year, the Energy Information Administration said July 27 in its daily publication, Today in Energy.
Jul 26 To reduce impact of regulations, DOE should comply with process rul...
On July 14, the American Public Power Association filed comments in response to a request for information that the Department of Energy filed in late May, seeking to identify existing regulations, paperwork requirements, and other regulatory oblig...
Jul 25 House bill designates municipal bonds as high-quality liquid asset
The House Financial Services Committee began consideration Tuesday of legislation that would require bank regulators to consider municipal bonds as high-quality liquid assets for purposes of minimum capital requirements.
Jul 25 Senate panel opposes sale of PMA assets, bolsters cybersecurity agr...
The Senate Appropriations Committee has voiced opposition to the Trump administration’s recent proposal to sell transmission assets owned by the federal power marketing administrations, or PMAs.
Jul 24 Palo Alto Utilities thermal microgrid project funded through DEED g...
California's Palo Alto Utilities has been awarded a grant from the American Public Power Association's Demonstration of Energy & Efficiency Developments, or DEED, program to help fund a project aimed at providing information and tools to support p...
Jul 21 House passes pipeline review, electric transmission bills
The House on July 19 approved a bill, H.R. 2910, which would reaffirm the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s role as the lead federal agency on environmental reviews of interstate gas pipelines and improve interagency coordination. The America...
Jul 18 California lawmakers pass bill extending cap-and-trade program
California lawmakers on July 17 passed legislation that would extend the state’s greenhouse gas cap-and-trade program, as well as a measure that would impose air monitoring requirements in polluted areas.
Jul 13 California lawmakers eye cap-and-trade extension
California Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, and state lawmakers have crafted compromise legislation that would extend the state’s greenhouse gas cap-and-trade program and impose air monitoring requirements in polluted areas, with a vote coming as soo...
Jul 10 Industry, government say no operational impact from cyber incidents
There were no operational impacts from recent cyber incidents involving the U.S. power sector, government and industry officials recently said.
Jul 10 Association’s RP3 designation has been a huge benefit: Elk River’s ...
The designation of Minnesota’s Elk River Municipal Utilities as a Reliable Public Power Provider through the American Public Power Association’s RP3 program not only validates just how seriously ERMU takes reliability, but the program has also ser...
Jun 30 House committee passes several bills of importance to public power
The House Energy and Commerce Committee on June 28 approved eight bills aimed at modernizing energy infrastructure and environmental laws, several of which are of particular importance to the American Public Power Association.
Jun 30 Broad energy, natural resources bill is introduced in Senate
Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., the committee’s ranking member, on June 28 introduced S. 1460, the Energy and Natural Resources Act of 2017.
Jun 30 LED streetlight conversion to save NY town $900K a year
The New York Power Authority is partnering with the Town of Clarkstown, New York, to install LED street lighting throughout the town in a project that will save the municipality an estimated $900,000 in annual energy and maintenance costs.
Jun 30 FERC Commissioner Honorable to depart agency on June 30
Colette Honorable, a commissioner with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, has formally announced her plans to leave the agency on June 30.
Jun 29 Officials urge public power utilities to be prepared for cyberattacks
The latest rounds of cyberattacks — the WannaCry and now the Petya, or GoldenEye, attacks — are reminders about how important it is to be vigilant, to install computer security updates, and to keep up on cybersecurity developments and alerts, offi...
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