Monthly Archives: October 2013

The U.S. Power Grid’s Cyber War Games

In the 1983 thriller WarGames, Matthew Broderick plays a teen-age computer geek who unknowingly signs onto a Pentagon computer while hacking into a toy company’s new computer game. Thinking that he’s simply playing a game called Global Thermonuclear Warfare, Broderick launches the game and nearly starts a nuclear war.  The North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) will hold its own war game next month with a simulated attack on the U.S. power grid.

The drill, called GridEx II, will take place on November 13-14 of this year. The participants will include 65 utilities and eight regional transmission organizations, representing most of the nation’s electricity customers.  The drill will test how well the electric utility industry and the grid itself respond to physical and cyber attacks.

A NERC Critical Infrastructure Protection Committee (CIPC) working group will begin the drill by sending participants a series of simulated physical and cyber attacks, climaxing in a national security emergency.  Participants will then respond and interact with each other, just as they would in a real emergency.  The simulation will last 36 hours, and the CIPC working group will evaluate the participants’ responses and provide feedback on how their actions impact the ongoing scenario.  After the drill, the working group will analyze the results and prepare a report on lessons learned.

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Posted in Grid Modernization, Utility Business Models / Tagged , , , | Read 3 Responses

On-Bill Repayment & Community Solar: Clean Energy Investments Underserved Californians Can Afford

This commentary originally appeared on EDF’s California Dream 2.0 blog.

It sounds like the opening line of a joke: What can finance do to reduce inequality?

However, this is exactly the question I tried to tackle during my presentation at the Clean Power, Healthy Communities conference last week. Hosted by the Local Clean Energy Alliance, this annual conference focuses on equitable, community-based clean energy solutions for the Bay Area.

In keeping with this theme, I took the opportunity to explain how On-Bill Repayment (OBR) can increase access to energy efficiency and distributed generation installations for low and middle-income families. By overcoming cost barriers, OBR can deliver energy savings, cost savings, jobs and more comfortable and healthy homes to underserved communities. In addition to these tangible benefits, it offers residents greater control over energy generation, as well as their energy consumption.

While I was able to share EDF’s finance work with community organizers and other environmental advocates, the conference was also a chance to hear about and discuss variety of other community-based solutions. One initiative that OBR has tremendous potential to support and complement is community-owned solar. Signed into law in September, California’s Senate Bill 43 allows for shared ownership of renewable generation. This means that individuals who are unable to install solar panels at their residences can invest in an off-site solar system, and receive credit on their utility bill for their share of the power generated.

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Posted in California, On-bill repayment / Tagged , | Read 1 Response

New Jersey Takes Initial Step Toward Modernizing Its Vulnerable Energy Infrastructure

When Hurricane Sandy barreled through our country’s Northeast nearly a year ago, ravaging coastlines and submerging entire neighborhoods, New Jersey suffered catastrophic effects.  The state suffered more than $30 billion in damage, most of it along the Jersey shore, while an estimated 2.6 million households lost power, many of them for weeks.  Five days after Sandy hit, a third of New Jersey’s homes and businesses still did not have electricity.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie immediately sought to restore the state’s most vital infrastructure and was tireless in attracting funds for the relief effort.  However, it became clear that it was imperative to not just repair damage caused by Sandy but to upgrade and modernize the state’s outmoded, century-old grid to prevent damage from the next superstorm.

Last week, Governor Christie took a positive  step toward upgrading to a smarter, more flexible  power grid, which is crucial to resilience, safety, and storm recovery.  He announced the allocation of $25 million in federal funds to local governments to develop alternative energy projects designed to make New Jersey’s energy infrastructure resilient and reliable in the face of power outages.

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Posted in Climate, Grid Modernization / Tagged , | Read 1 Response

“Go Time” for Groundwater Testing In Wyoming

Everyone wins when states institute strong, science-based groundwater testing programs around oil and gas development areas. Landowners get important information about their water quality and protection from potential spills. Oil and gas companies get what is essentially an insurance policy tracking the quality of area drinking water sources both before and after drilling. And regulators get an important new source of data to help them understand local conditions and target clean up, if needed.

EDF has advocated for a program in Wyoming that aims to do exactly this – establish a groundwater quality baseline in areas where oil and gas development is planned, and then follow up with two sets of tests to monitor for potential impacts from this specific activity. And Wyoming regulators have proposed a program that would, on the whole, create a strong, scientifically valid groundwater testing program.

Late last week, Wyoming’s powerful paper of record, the Casper Star-Tribune, announced it agrees.

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Posted in Natural Gas, Wyoming / Comments are closed

New Study Launches In Series Evaluating Methane Across The Natural Gas System

Source: San Antonio Business Journal

This year is proving to be a big year for methane research.  We’ve seen a handful of new studies published, some funded by EDF and some not, as well as new projects announced.

The attention methane is getting by the scientific community is justified and overdue. Methane emissions are a central issue in the debate over the role that natural gas may play in our national energy future. From a climate perspective, methane is 72 times more powerful than carbon dioxide (CO2) on a per ounce basis when released into the atmosphere over the first 20 years.  And according to new projections by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), methane is far more potent than we realized (as much as 84 to 87 times more potent than CO2 on a 20-year basis).

The oil and natural gas industry is the single largest source of manmade methane emissions in the United States. Despite this, little is known about how much methane is released from where across the natural gas supply chain. But, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s latest estimates, we know enough to say that methane poses a serious problem to the climate. Read More »

Posted in Natural Gas / Comments are closed

History Repeats Itself Again: CARE’s New Cost Analysis Paints a One-Sided Picture

Major polluters funding skewed analysis of the costs and benefits of environmental regulations is a long-standing tradition in regulatory circles. In a recent version of this phenomenon, CARE (Californians for Affordable and Reliable Energy), an industry funded front group aimed at attacking clean energy and clean fuel policies in California, hired Navigant Consulting to do just that.

Last week, EDF economists pulled back the curtain on the recently released CARE report and found more of the same scare tactics: one-sided costs estimates yielding unfounded results and cherry-picked outcomes.

Unsurprisingly, our economists found that the CARE study “focused exclusively on the costs of California’s complementary clean energy and clean fuels policies while avoiding comparative assessment of the benefits.” Additionally, the study was found to “rely on sources that have not been peer reviewed, and misinterpret analyses and energy market trends.”

Due to the noted inaccuracies of the study, the memo makes the point that “policy makers should treat the Navigant study with extreme caution; it likely overstates costs while considering neither the benefits to be enjoyed nor the cost-minimizing aspects of policies carefully designed to deliver environmental benefits as efficiently and quickly as practicable.”

A CARE funded analysis that results in a one-sided finding shouldn’t come as a shock. The group is funded by some of the largest polluters and fossil fuels producers in California – those that have the most obligations to change under the state’s comprehensive clean energy and climate change laws. CARE members include the Western States Petroleum Association, the California Manufacturers & Technology Association and the California Chamber of Commerce, as reported on its website.

As California transitions to cleaner, more diversified sources of energy, many businesses will be faced with the stark choice of participating in the modernization of our energy and transportation system or fighting against progress and innovation. Whichever way those businesses trend, the recent CARE report prepared by Navigant shows that misinformation will continue to be a part of the portfolio approach used by polluters to undermine California’s progress.

For other analysis of industry reports that have overblown costs and underestimated benefits of California’s clean energy and clean fuels policies, read here, and here.

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