Last year, the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission approved investor owned utility Minnesota Power’s mercury emissions reduction plan for the 585 MW Boswell Unit 4, its largest coal-fired power plant. Minnesota’s Mercury Emissions Reduction Act (MERA) requires utilities to prepare plans to reduce mercury emissions for the state’s six largest coal power plants. See Minn. Stat.
Energy Policy
California PUC Comissioner Michael Peevy to Step Down
By Seth Hilton on
Posted in California, Regulation
Last Thursday, longtime California Public Utilities Comissioner and President Michael Peevy announced he would not seek reappointment at the end of this year, when his second six-year term with the CPUC expires. In making his announcement, Peevy issued the following statement:
“I originally planned to make the following announcement at the CPUC’s regularly-scheduled…
Breaking: EPA Extends Clean Power Plan Public Comment Period
By Allison Smith on
Posted in Regulation
Janet McCabe, acting assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, announced today that EPA’s comment period for its proposed Clean Power Plan will be extended 45 days from the mid-October deadline to December 1, 2014. EPA’s announcement comes a week after a group of bipartisan U.S. senators asked for additional time to weigh…
MN PUC Affirms Path of Contentious Litigation for Externalities Value Determination
By Andrew Moratzka on
Posted in Litigation, Regulation
The MN PUC held a hearing on September 4, 2014, to address the impending investigation of social costs of pollutants under Minn. Stat. § 216B.2422 subd. 3 (known as externalities values). First established in the late 1990s, the MN PUC re-opened the investigation in a February 2014 Order, focusing exclusively on PM2.5,…
Businesses and Policymakers Confirm Mexican Energy Reforms Are Gaining Momentum
By Roger Stark on
Posted in International, Regulation
Earlier this year, a group of Stoel Rives attorneys traveled to Mexico to assess existing opportunities and pending developments in the Mexican power markets. Some of the reforms and key trends identified during that trip are now taking shape. See also my blog post “Let the Market Decide: The Third Wave of Energy Investment in Latin America and Caribbean.”
Our work in Mexico included meetings with existing clients, senior partners of a major Mexican law firm, a briefing with a senior Mexican policymaker regarding implementation of the reforms and attendance at the Mexican International Renewable Energy Conference. Here are some key “take-aways” from these meetings:
- A Mexican renewable energy market has been successfully launched, with more wind than solar developed to date.
- A package of “secondary” laws implementing Mexico’s energy reform legislation are pending in the Mexican Congress.
- The secondary laws will include some form of renewable portfolio standard (e.g., 30% by 2024) that relies on (among other elements) renewable energy certificates.
- The secondary laws are also expected to launch a wholesale electricity market, a demand response market and other provisions designed to encourage distributed generation.
- Solar module manufacturers and other stakeholders are concerned about the government’s decision to apply a 15% import tax on electrical “generators” to non-NAFTA solar modules.
Continue Reading Businesses and Policymakers Confirm Mexican Energy Reforms Are Gaining Momentum
Jon Wellinghoff Talks Grid Security, FERC, Smart Grid and Renewables
By Jason Johns on
We wanted to invite our readers to listen in on a one-on-one conversation between our colleague Jon Wellinghoff and Marty Rosenberg, EnergyBiz editor-in-chief, July 15, noon-1 p.m. Eastern. You can register here.
Jon, the immediate past chair of FERC, helped initiate a national debate about grid security when he raised concerns in a Wall…
Supreme Court Rolls Back EPA’s Regulation of Greenhouse Gases in Utility Air Regulatory Group Decision
By Allison Smith on
The U.S. Supreme Court has delivered a stunner with its decision this morning in Utility Air Regulatory Group v. Environmental Protection Agency. The Supreme Court has curtailed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) regulation of stationary source greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions under two Clean Air Act permitting programs – New Source Review Prevention of Significant …
FERC Initiates Proposed Rulemaking Affecting Interconnection Facilities
By Jason Johns on
FERC issues a proposed rulemaking that impacts the owners of gen-tie lines, and the rulemaking is particularly important to renewable energy developers who are interested in maintaining priority to gen-tie capacity for multi-phase projects.
Continue Reading FERC Initiates Proposed Rulemaking Affecting Interconnection Facilities
The Price of Developing Power Projects in Kern County Just Went UP
By Jason Johns on
The East Kern Wind Resource Area (EKWRA)–it’s a mouthful–and it’s also a hotbed for renewable energy development and the location of a fight over millions of dollars among Southern California Edison (SCE), the California ISO, and independent power developers (IPPs). Late last week, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) scored that fight in favor of…
California’s Utilities Must Lower Barriers to Energy Storage Systems
By Jason Johns on
In a proposed decision issued yesterday from the California Public Utilities Commission, an administrative law judge (ALJ) determined that energy storage devices (i) that are paired with net energy metering- (NEM) eligible generation facilities, and (ii) that meet the Renewables Portfolio Standard Eligibility Guidebook requirements to be considered an "addition or enhancement" to NEM-eligible systems are "exempt from interconnection application…