LOCKHEED MARTIN SPONSORS FREE ACCESS TO EXCLUSIVE CONTENT.

Vienna, Va.: Public Utilities Fortnightly magazine launched a new twice-monthly online resource today. Fortnightly’s Green Utility (http://greenutility.fortnightly.com) features content developed by Fortnightly’s editorial staff, focusing on renewable power generation technology, finance and regulatory policies in the United States and Canada. The new editorial resource is made possible with sponsorship support from Lockheed Martin.

Fortnightly’s Green Utility will feature exclusive articles, webcasts, intelligence and commentary, as well as special access to related articles from the archives of other publications at Public Utilities Reports Inc. — including Public Utilities Fortnightly, Fortnightly’s Spark and Utility Regulatory News.

“Green Utility will focus Fortnightly’s editorial analysis on the challenges and opportunities of building out North America’s renewable energy infrastructure,” said Michael T. Burr, Fortnightly’s Editor-in-Chief. “Fortnightly brings the world-class editorial expertise to look beyond the news and hype, and analyze renewable energy issues in a way no other publication does. Lockheed Martin’s support allows us to make this unique and objective analysis freely accessible online.”

Fortnightly’s Green Utility is part of Fortnightly.com’s growing inventory of online resources. In the past two years, Fortnightly.com launched two financial databases — the Utility ROE Database and the Transactions Database — providing data about utility ratemaking decisions and financial transactions, such as mergers, acquisitions and debt issues.

The March 1, 2011, installment of Fortnightly’s Green Utility, with a webcast and article developed by Fortnightly Contributing Editor Steven Andersen, features a conversation with tax-credit guru Keith Martin of Chadbourne & Parke. The second installment is scheduled for release on March 15.

PUBLIC UTILITIES FORTNIGHTLY (www.fortnightly.com), published by Public Utilities Reports Inc., in Vienna, Va., is the journal of record for the U.S. utility industry, providing authoritative, in-depth analysis of trends in generation, transmission and distribution of electricity and natural gas. For more than 80 years, Public Utilities Fortnightly has delivered exclusive interviews and expert analysis to help utility-industry executives and regulators decide where to invest, how the industry will be regulated and what the future holds. Subscription rate: $287/year.

Posted: March 1st, 2011 under IGCC, R&D, biomass, carbon regulation, climate change, efficiency, electric vehicles, geoengineering, green energy, offshore wind, regulation, renewable energy credits, renewables.
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Gainesville plant ‘not technically needed’

Weekly Update courtesy of Utility Regulatory News #3980: Because a municipally planned biomass-fired power plant project would provide the city with additional fuel diversity as well as various environmental benefits, the Florida Public Service Commission (PSC) has issued the project a determination of need, even though the city was found to have sufficient generating capacity through at least 2023.

In Florida, no entity may proceed with construction of a generating facility rated at more than 75 megawatts (MW) unless it first receives a determination of need from the commission. Although other state and local consents also are required, those authorizations may not be pursued until the requisite determination of need has been obtained from the PSC. In the instant case, the City of Gainesville, through its municipal electric service provider, Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRU), had sought a determination of need from the PSC for a proposed 100-MW biomass-fired station, which it said should be ready for service by the end of 2013.

As support for its proposal, the city noted that a primary power purchase agreement is set to expire in 2013 and that a large coal-fired plant is expected to be taken out of service for scheduled maintenance in the same time frame. According to GRU, the two events taken together would leave the city in a capacity-deficient situation, at least temporarily, although it acknowledged that because of a 15% capacity reserve policy and various other power purchase arrangements, it is unlikely that it will experience any true shortage of capacity before 2023 at the earliest.

The commission agreed that the biomass project was not “technically needed” in order for GRU to maintain reliable service in the short term. However, the commission said that the concept of “need” can be viewed in different ways. From the PSC’s perspective, the biomass unit would contribute to greater fuel and supply diversity, would offer a good hedge against possible future carbon emission reduction requirements, and would provide environmental attributes not available from conventional fossil-fueled plants. Consequently, the commission held that the biomass facility’s ability to replace older, less efficient sources of power with a cleaner, more productive form of generation, while not necessary in a technical sense, nevertheless would satisfy other types of need, such that it was appropriate to issue the formal determination of need. Subscribe to URN for the full story.

Posted: August 13th, 2010 under biomass, carbon regulation, climate change, coal, energy policy, green energy, regulation, renewables.
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Further to last Friday’s post re: hybrid coal-biomass plants, today private equity firm Energy Investors Funds (EIF) and developer NTE Energy announced a joint venture to develop, build and operate large hybrid renewable and natural-gas fired power plants in the United States. The announcement called hybrid plants a way to generate “sustainable sources of clean electricity at a lower cost.”

The joint venture intends to build gas-fired plants that also use solar, biomass and other renewable technologies. While the companies didn’t reveal any specific projects in development, they did promise announcements of new projects in Florida, South Carolina and Alabama to come in “the near future.”

By targeting the renewable-challenged Southeast, the joint venture might be positioning the company to help such utilities as Florida Power & Light, Progress Energy and Southern Company to meet pending federal renewable energy standards without taking the politically unpopular steps of sending ratepayer dollars out of state to buy renewable power or renewable energy credits.-Michael T. Burr

Posted: April 5th, 2010 under biomass, energy policy, finance, green energy, investment banks, natural gas, renewable energy credits, renewables.
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By Michael J. Zimmer

I like the fundamentals of the biomass footprint even more now this year. Wind is facing trouble with the PTC extension, turbine product availability, a nagging de minimis capacity factor, and need for transmission that isn’t being developed nationwide. Transmission constraints could strand many new renewable energy projects over the next five years, as occurred for cogeneration, small power producers and independent power projects during the prior decades.

Now is the time to diversify the renewables supply base with existing technologies that have more base-load attributes—such as geothermal, hydropower and biomass, including landfill gas and municipal solid waste. Biomass in particular offers great potential for increased expansion in the next five years.

The key to success for advanced biomass development will arise from the ability to lock up sufficient and reliable fuel supplies. Failure to do this will keep biomass from scaling up until non-cultivated, closed-loop fuels become competitive on an emissions-cost adjusted basis. The determining factors are political, structural and technical/agronomical at this stage.

The political issue comes down to GHG regulation and setting carbon costs. If the GHG regulatory calculus prices carbon under $50 a ton, it will be a long time before any alternative power sources can really compete with fossil fuels, particularly coal. Until carbon emissions credits reach $50 a ton, coal plants won’t sequester carbon, but likely will just buy credits in a compliance regime. That’s exactly what occurred after enactment of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, when major scrubber investments and more capital intensive strategies were postponed for a dozen years or more.

The technical issue arises from the difficulty of securing firm fuel supplies. A closed-loop solution could project biomass ahead of wind and solar in many ways, making it the least-cost renewable supply option with better operating characteristics. But I’m hearing more discussion bemoaning the possible environmental costs of increasing reliance on cellulosic energy sources. What happens after 10 cycles of harvesting switchgrass, poplar and kudzu, without any serious fertilizer input? A natural biome replaces humus nutrients with necrotic material from the previous growing season. If we’re burning that material, the humus will disappear and eventually the soil will turn into sand.

However, by aggregating supplies under a regional “hub” approach, a closed-loop system can allow careful management of growing biomass areas. And of course biomass fuels from such sources as forest thinnings, sawdust and bark from private and government properties could be aggregated by rural communities. Rural development funds to supply clean, untreated lumber for biomass power production could revitalize local forest industries. And federal and state lands can contribute feedstocks from efforts to cull overgrowth and avoid forest fires.

Additionally, biomass power plants with waste-heat capture equipment can provide thermal energy for drying, processing or other industrial or commercial purposes. This enhances the community tax base, prompts a new feedstock industry, increases local jobs and contributes to the local economy.

From a public-policy perspective, the critical factor will be for lawmakers to include supply chain and logistics support in energy legislation, to create a closed-loop biomass fuel industry and provide proper scale to capture the potential of biomass power. Inordinate focus on creating incentives for supply, without anticipating the complete logistics of transportation, storage, handling and distribution, is a fatal flaw of many of our national energy strategies for all of our fuels and power strategies. Correcting this flaw will allow the industry to harvest the true potential of dispatchable biomass power.

Michael J. Zimmer is Of Counsel with Thompson Hine LLP in Washington, D.C.

Posted: June 26th, 2008 under biomass, carbon regulation, renewables.
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