Energy Exchange

Don’t Turn The Lights Off On Demand Response

Source- FERC: National Assessment of Demand Response Potential

If Texas Legislators want to make sure the lights stay on this summer, they have a great opportunity to do so tomorrow, April 9, 2013, while saving electric customers money.  There are two critical bills being considered at the legislature in Texas that would expand the use of demand response, a tool that allows customers to voluntarily reduce peak, or high, electricity use and receive a payment for doing so in response to a signal from their energy provider.  We need to take advantage of tools like demand response to alleviate the pressures facing the Texas electric grid, what EDF refers to as the ‘Texas Energy Crunch,’ which include a shrinking water supply, growing population and rising summer temperatures.

Demand response has been identified by numerous experts as a key component to a reliable electric grid in Texas, and Tuesday’s Senate Business & Commerce Committee hearing at 8 am represents a great opportunity for the legislature to help meet future energy needs while providing direct benefits to customers and reducing water usage.

Demand response is critical to keeping the Texas electric grid humming.  According to a comprehensive report on the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) reliability from the Brattle Group, “the energy-only market will not dependably support ERCOT’s current reliability target until sufficient demand response penetration is achieved.”  Demand response can be deployed in a matter of months, while it usually takes two to five years to build a natural gas power plant, even after all the permitting and financing is completed.  At the same time, demand response provides financial incentives; in the mid-Atlantic region, where demand response plays a critical role in the electric market, customers were paid a total of $330 million last year.  At the same time, according to the grid operator for the region, PJM, demand response actually lowers overall energy system costs by bringing more competitive resources into the market.  During the summer of 2012, PJM estimates this effect saved all customers around $650 million.

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An Old-Timer Reflects On The Importance Of New Technology To Battle Methane Emissions, And What You Can Do About It

Anyone younger than 30 may not understand what a skipping record sounds like;  in their lives, listening to tunes has more often meant hitting a playlist on iTunes or streaming Pandora, than it has meant dusting off an old record. To us “old” folks who remember when clunky 8-track tapes were the height of portable music cool, today’s options are nothing less than astounding.

Believe it or not, I was thinking about this as I participated yesterday in a panel at the World Resource Institute in Washington, D.C. to discuss their new paper titled, “Cleaning the Air: Reducing Upstream Greenhouse Gas Emissions From U.S. Natural Gas Systems.”  Reviewing the report, and reflecting on EDF’s own work to understand and reduce methane and other air pollution, it’s clear a huge opportunity exists for technology to revolutionize air quality practices in the gas industry, just as it reengineered production and delivery of audio in the music industry. And the prospects are very bright that it will.

Champions of natural gas like to say that natural gas is a preferred fossil fuel alternative to coal and oil because it has less carbon content than either, and therefore, when burned, produces less carbon dioxide, which is the a primary cause of global warming. This is true.

But what is often not said is that natural gas is primarily made up of methane, which itself is a powerful greenhouse gas pollutant, many times more powerful than carbon dioxide, particularly when methane is first released into the atmosphere. Even small leaks at the wellhead or along the infrastructure used to process and transport the gas to our power plants, homes and businesses can undo much of the greenhouse gas benefits we think we are getting when we substitute natural gas for coal or petroleum sources.  Read More »

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New York City’s Air Is Well On Its Way To Becoming Cleaner Than Ever

NYC Clean Heat is halfway to achieving its goal of reducing harmful heating oil soot pollution in New York City by 50 percent by the end of 2013.

The NYC Clean Heat program experienced tremendous growth in 2012. The Mayoral announcement in June 2012 marked the official transition from the pilot phase to full implementation of the NYC Clean Heat program, which aims to clean the air in New York City by helping buildings convert from highly-polluting No. 6 and No. 4 heating oils to the cleanest available fuels. The heating oils used in one percent of New York City buildings create more soot pollution than all the cars and trucks in the City combined – that’s why upgrading these buildings to cleaner heating fuel is the single largest step New Yorkers can take to solve local air pollution.

The goal of NYC Clean Heat is to cut heating oil soot pollution in half by the end of 2013. NYC’s Department of Health estimates that achieving this goal will result in over 120 lives saved each year and prevent hundreds of emergency room visits and hospitalizations for respiratory and cardiovascular conditions.

I’ve been a part of the NYC Clean Heat team for almost two years now, and I can tell you that I am floored by the progress we’ve made. For instance: 

  • By the end of 2012, over 1,200 boilers – well beyond the number of conversions the regulations required – have switched to natural gas or ultra-low sulfur No. 2 (some of the cleanest available fuels), and over 2,000 additional boilers in line to convert.
  • These 1,200 conversions have resulted in over 150 tons of reduction of soot pollution, or particulate matter (PM2.5), which is equivalent to removing over 800,000 light-duty passenger vehicles from the road for 1 year. That’s over 13 billion miles travelled!
  • NYC Clean Heat won the 2013 Citizen Budget Commission’s Award for Public Service Innovation.

Why is all of this important? Approximately 1,500 buildings still need to complete conversions in 2013. Also, roughly 2,000 permits for No. 6 oil are set to expire before March 2014, representing 232 tons of soot pollution. Because this week is National Public Health Week, we are more aware than ever of what reducing air pollution in New York City will mean. NOW is the time to take action. Read More »

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More voices emerge in support of California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard

In the past two weeks, California’s California Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) received a heavy dose of positive news: strong support from major companies to develop cleaner transportation fuel options and solid evidence to prove the standard is working.

On April 2nd, major business interests and non-profit organizations across the state filed four separate briefs supporting the LCFS in the state Appeals Court in Fresno. The briefs, filed in response to a letter from the court in February, say definitively that the LCFS is a necessary program for California because it creates a market signal for new, cleaner fuels and solutions that can grow California’s economy and improve air quality.

The impressive diversity of interests weighing in is a who’s-who list of energy giants, including the nation’s largest supplier of natural gas for vehicles (Clean Energy), a 108-year old utility with 15 million customers (Pacific Gas & Electric), a consortium of alternative diesel companies (National Biodiesel Board and the California Biodiesel Alliance), and a coalition of five environmental organizations.

Notable excerpts from the briefs include:

With the impetus of the LCFS, the biodiesel industry in California is poised to triple in the next few years with substantial investments and new jobs in many of California’s most economically disadvantaged areas.

The National Biodiesel Board/California Biodiesel Alliance

Companies with the potential to exceed this target… can sell credits to regulated entities who can’t…creating a strong financial incentive for lower-carbon fuel innovation.

This is why the LCFS is so important- it provides a long term investment signal to create a robust alternative fuel market in a reasonable timeframe.

Clean Energy

PG&E supports the California Air Resources Board (CARB) in its efforts to preserve the LCFS…the LCFS is an important part of the overall California strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, contributing 16 million metric tons of reductions…with a significant disruption to the LCFS program, it will make it less likely that California will reach its GHG emission reductions goals.

Pacific Gas & Electric

The LCFS encourages companies to invest in low-carbon fuels to meet increasingly stringent performance targets. Based on statements from alternative fueling industries and the CARB LCFS Fourth Quarterly 2012 Update, even at this early stage of implementation, the LCFS has resulted in rising quantities of lower carbon fuels being consumed in California and the market is rewarding investments in cutting edge, low-carbon fuels.

NGO Coalition that includes American Lung Association, Coalition for Clean Air, Conservation Law Foundation, EDF, and the Sierra Club

 

In addition to the legal filings, California also released its latest progress report on LCFS implementationin March showing growth in low carbon fuel deliveries to the state. Credits from the cleanest biofuels have grown by 300% in just nine months, and the data shows that regulated companies have over-complied with the standard by 45% — that’s more than a million tons over the past two years.

Reports have also begun surfacing that major deals for bulk volumes of low carbon fuels are on the horizon. For example, Neste Oil submitted a letter to the California State Senate stating they have already delivered commercial volumes of renewable diesel from tallow (an ultra-low carbon fuel) to California and “expects to deliver approximately a hundred million gallons of NExBTL renewable diesel fuel into California this year.”

In a similar story, San Diego-based Sapphire Energy recently entered into its first commercial agreement for “green crude” (made from algae) sales – an agreement with oil giant Tesoro. According to Sapphire’s president, “This moment is enormously important for the industry as it validates the benefits and advantages of [our] crude, and confirms its place as a market-viable, refiner-ready, renewable crude oil solution.” In a story on Sapphire’s website, the new partnership with Tesoro was described as potentially helping supply clean energy to meet the demand created by new fuel standards, including California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard.

Implementation of the LCFS is still in the early stages, but in just over two years the standard has started to deliver tangible economic and environmental benefits. The regulation is poised to change a fossil-fuel dependent transportation system that has been developed over the last one hundred years and that costs California drivers almost one hundred billion dollars every year – most of which leaves our state (and nation) the moment it’s spent.

Using Californian ingenuity and the American entrepreneurial engine, we can change the status quo – toward a more sustainable system that doesn’t poison the air and pinch our pocketbooks.

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Consumers At The Heart Of Illinois Smart Grid Revitalization Project

On April 1, Illinois’ largest utilities, ComEd and Ameren Illinois (Ameren), updated their plans to launch one of the nation’s largest electrical grid upgrades, a $3.2 billion project that will set the stage in Illinois for how utilities and customers interact in the future.  The ComEd and Ameren plans provide new detail on how they intend to replace the aging Illinois grid and begin to transform it into a digital smart grid capable of monitoring customer and environmental benefits.  EDF and Citizens Utility Board (CUB) teamed up with both utilities to create twenty new benchmarking metrics that will measure how the utilities deliver benefits to consumers and improve their performance annually. 

To elaborate, such metrics include reductions in peak energy demand, increased adoption of renewable energy, such as solar power, wide-spread implementation of smart energy devices and diminished greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, among others.  In addition, ComEd and Ameren have elected to work with EDF and CUB to develop new and better ways to measure how smart grid technology can help reduce GHG emissions and electrical inefficiencies.  Using smart grid devices to precisely measure GHG and line loss is technically challenging, but key to unlocking the promise of smart grid technology.

When customers are empowered with the knowledge and tools to control their own energy usage, they are also empowered to save money on their utility bills.  As CUB Executive Director David Kolata points out, “A smart grid begins with smart policy. These new metrics will help bring the power grid into the 21st century more quickly and cost-effectively, ensuring that consumers see the benefits in the form of lower electric bills.”

To take full advantage of the $3.2 billion project, born out of the Illinois Energy Infrastructure Modernization Act of 2011, ComEd and Ameren must go above and beyond the business-as-usual utility metrics.  Utility metrics to date have commonly focused on general measures to gauge customer benefits, such as customer awareness survey completions and number of customer outreach events attended.  These new tracking mechanisms go further in that they will allow the utilities to track and report where customers are realizing the benefits of electric grid improvements, and the extent to which they are participating in these opportunities.  This includes measures like the number of customers who can directly access their own energy usage data and the time it takes to connect renewable energy resources, like solar power, to the electric grid. Read More »

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A Silk Purse From A Sow’s Ear: Federal Cuts May Spur Environmental And Energy Savings

Holly Pearen, EDF’s Attorney for the Natural Gas Campaign, contributed to this blog post.

Source: http://bit.ly/10w6rIi

The federal government notified 36 states last week that it plans to temporarily stop monthly mineral revenue payments as a part of the mandatory sequestration budget cuts. These cuts will hit western states especially hard with an estimated $26 million cut coming to New Mexico over the next six months, $8.7 million to Utah, $8.4 in Colorado and $5.5 in California, while North Dakota and Montana will see $3.2 and $2.5 million in cuts, respectively, according to data from the U.S. Department of Interior’s Office of Natural Resources Revenue.

However, no state will be hit as hard as mineral resource and federal lands-rich Wyoming, which has been notified to prepare itself to lose $53 million in federal mineral revenue payments through July.

The money is the state’s share of royalties paid by producers who operate on federal leases in Wyoming. Not surprisingly, Wyoming officials are very unhappy with the federal plan, both its details and the way it was announced to the states via letter with little forewarning. As Wyoming Governor Matt Mead said in a statement: “As far as communications go, this method of passing along significant information that greatly impacts Wyoming gets a grade of F minus or worse. It is not acceptable.”

While Governor Mead has vowed to fight the plan and is working with the Wyoming Attorney General, Wyoming’s congressional delegation and neighboring states to come up with a strategy to oppose the cuts, we would like to offer a suggestion. Perhaps Interior should make up the shortfall owed to the states by charging royalties on vented and flared natural gas? Read More »

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