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.
Comments: none

Project removed from Appalachian Power’s rate base

Weekly Update courtesy of Utility Regulatory News #3981: While finding it reasonable for the American Electric Power (AEP) system to study various options for complying with possible future federal limitations on greenhouse gas emissions, the Virginia State Corporation Commission has deemed it unreasonable for the ratepayers of an AEP subsidiary, Appalachian Power Co. (APCo), to be responsible for the costs of any such exploratory project, at least at the present time.

In a general rate case, APCo had sought to reflect in rate base $74 million associated with AEP’s West Virginia-based Mountaineer Carbon Capture and Sequestration Demonstration Project. The utility asserted that the project is the first such endeavor to occur at an in-service coal plant and that it is likely to yield valuable information as to the commercial viability of such technology, to the benefit of not only APCo’s customers, but all electric consumers. Although the commission did not refute the possible attributes carbon sequestration might offer, the commission determined that it was inequitable to ask APCo’s customers to pay for AEP’s project.

Given that the project was still in its earliest stages, the commission held that AEP’s shareholders should be the ones shouldering the financial risks of AEP’s research and development programs. Subscribe to URN for the full story.

Posted: August 13th, 2010 under IGCC, R&D, carbon regulation, climate change, coal, energy policy, finance, green energy, regulation.
Comments: none

Weekly Update Courtesy of URN #3973: The Minnesota Court of Appeals has affirmed a Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) decision in which the commission had declined to compel an electric utility, Northern States Power Co. d/b/a Xcel Energy, to enter into a power purchase agreement (PPA) with the sponsor of an integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plant.

The project developer, Excelsior Energy Inc., had touted its Mesaba Energy Project as a state-of-the-art IGCC facility that would be both environmentally friendly and economically productive. Although it had received certain preliminary permits and local approvals for the project, Excelsior was unable to reach agreement with Xcel Energy for purchasing the unit’s output. Excelsior thereupon petitioned the PUC for an order mandating that Xcel Energy sign the developer’s proffered PPA.

In considering the terms of the proposed PPA, the commission undertook a two-part analysis, the first part of which looked at whether the plant qualified as an innovative energy project (IEP) under state law. The commission said that if that first part were answered in the affirmative, then it needed to determine if the associated PPA would be in the public interest. Despite various parties’ claims to the contrary, the PUC declared that the Mesaba project did indeed fit within the definition of an IEP under state law. The commission explained that the IGCC technology was clearly innovative, would use coal as a primary fuel, and would significantly reduce four noxious emissions enumerated in the controlling statute. The commission thus concluded that the project met the basic criteria for IEP status established in the legislation. However, the commission ultimately disapproved the PPA, deeming it to involve an excessive and unrealistic cost structure that could jeopardize Xcel Energy’s financial health if it were forced to enter the agreement. Although the project developer argued that the PUC’s public interest analysis had exceeded its PPA review authority, the court held that the commission was clearly within its rights to conduct such a review, given its obligation to protect the overall public interest and the broad discretion conferred upon it to interpret those laws and regulations which it has been charged with enforcing, such as the IEP statute.

Accordingly, the court refused to substitute its judgment for that of the commission.-Subscribe to Utility Regulatory News for the full story.

Posted: June 18th, 2010 under IGCC, Uncategorized, carbon regulation, climate change, coal, green energy.
Comments: none