After a full day of hearing arguments on Xcel’s proposed Community Solar Garden (CSG) program (see more on that here), the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission deliberated in public on the issue yesterday and made some important modifications to Xcel’s proposal. The program would allow Xcel customers to invest in off-site solar facilities and receive…

Qualifying facility interconnection conversions can be an effective way to bypass the interconnection queue, even during a repower. But there are groundrules to a conversion, and today FERC applied those rules and determined that qualifying facility owners may not be entitled to as much converted capacity as they might think.
Continue Reading Qualifying Facility Conversions – It’s What All the Kids Are Talking About

Final comments were filed yesterday on the proposed methodology for calculating a value of solar (VOS) rate for utilities in Minnesota (more on the proposed methodology is here). With the Commission required to make a decision within 60 days of January 31, 2014, parties remain in fairly wide disagreement about what is required by statute, particularly what values are truly “known and measurable” and whether the value calculation or proposition applies to the particular utility or more broadly to society. Depending on the interpretation of these factors among others, the estimated  VOS rate could vary from half of that suggested by the Department’s original $0.135/kWh example to something considerably higher. The rate would eventually apply to Xcel’s Community Solar Garden (CSG) Program and potentially as an alternative to net-metering arrangements for projects under 1MW. In a separate proceeding yesterday, the Commission set interim rates for the CSG program that could be even higher with a placeholder SREC value included (more on that in a separate blog).
Continue Reading Viewpoints Diverge on the Value of Solar in Minnesota

 For those companies owning generation on the Bonneville Power Administration system, mark your calendars for March 15, 2014.  That’s the day by which you must submit your facility displacement costs for Bonneville’s implementation of its Oversupply Management Protocol (aka Environmental Redispatch) that provides compensation for certain generator curtailments.  The failure to submit facility displacement costs…

Ralls Corp., a privately-held company owned by executives of the China-based heavy machinery manufacturing conglomerate Sany Group, recently filed an appeal in its ongoing effort to avoid President Obama’s order requiring the company to divest itself of its interest in four wind farms in Oregon. We have previously reported on the order, which was issued…

by Sara Bergan and Sarah Johnson Phillips

In May 2013, the Minnesota Legislature passed legislation that, among other things, set a solar standard, directed Xcel Energy to develop a community solar garden program, and provided for the development of an alternative tariff mechanism to net metering that would also serve as the rate for community solar garden programs. Under this new scenario and instead of traditional net-metering arrangements, customers would potentially buy all of their electricity from their local distribution utility and then sell all of their PV generation under that utility’s Value of Solar (VOS) tariff which would be designed to capture the societal value of PV-generated electricity.

The legislation directed the Department of Commerce to work with stakeholders to develop a VOS methodology and to deliver its recommendations to the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (Commission) on Friday, January 31, 2014.  The Department’s filing today includes its recommendation, with a more in-depth document addressing the methodology.  The  Department’s recommendations do not set a rate, but rather propose the methodology for calculating a utility-specific rate for distributed PV solar (1 MW and smaller). If the Department’s sample calculation is any indicator of what’s to come, however, the value went from $0.126/kWh in its initial draft to $0.135/kWh in the documents filed this morning.Continue Reading What is the Value of Solar? Minnesota Agency Starts to Answer. . .

At the close of last year, Minnesota Administrative Law Judge Eric Lipman determined that the single solar proposal in a competitive resource acquisition process would provide the best value to Xcel ratepayers (see more here). Key to his decision was his conclusion that Xcel’s capacity needs in the timeframe considered were uncertain and potentially…

We last reported to you about Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) activities in connection with the Ralls Corporation case. CFIUS is a multi-agency U.S. government committee charged with reviewing foreign acquisitions of U.S. businesses for national security implications

The committee recently released its unclassified Annual Report to Congress for 2013…

Nebraska filed suit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in federal court on Wednesday, challenging the agency’s newly proposed standards for greenhouse gas emissions from new power plants. Nebraska argues that EPA’s proposed regulation, officially released last week, violates the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The Act prohibits EPA from considering new technology or a level of emissions reduction to be “adequately demonstrated” under the Clean Air Act where the emissions reduction is achieved ‘solely by reason of the use of the technology’ by one or more facilities receiving funding under the Act. Under the Clean Air Act, any new source performance standard (NSPS) must be based on the “best system of emissions reduction” that EPA determines has been “adequately demonstrated.”

EPA has proposed a greenhouse gas NSPS for new fossil fuel-fired boilers, including coal-fired power plants, based on the partial implementation of carbon capture and storage (CCS). EPA’s notice of the proposed NSPS cites to various facilities that have successfully implemented CCS, adequately demonstrating the commercial viability of the technology as a basis for the stringent greenhouse gas emissions standard of 1,000 to 1,100 lb CO2/MWh. The flaw, Nebraska argues, is that the very CCS projects that support EPA’s determination have all received significant funding under the Energy Policy Act, which prohibits EPA from considering such technology as “adequately demonstrated.” Nebraska, and other critics of the proposed standard, argue that the proposed NSPS would severely limit the construction of any new coal-fired plants in the U.S. 

Nebraska’s lawsuit may be more of a political statement than anything, however. The suit challenges the proposed rule under the Administrative Procedure Act as a “final” action of EPA. The “proposed” NSPS was just released, however. The proposed rule is open for public comment until March 10, 2014 and may not be finalized by EPA until mid-2015. The Nebraska suit is wide open to challenge on the basis that the case is not ripe for judicial review until a final NSPS has been issued by EPA.

For more details on the proposed NSPS, including the standards proposed for natural gas-fired facilities,Continue Reading Nebraska Sues U.S. EPA Over Proposed Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards for New Power Plants