Tag Archives: EEI

Dominion, SCE
 A Continent Apart
 On Distributed Energy

Dominion’s 2016 integrated resource plan is on the docket at Virginia’s State Corporation Commission this week: The hearings would be a perfect time to explore the utility’s plan for addressing the massive changes sweeping across the electricity industry, but it’s not going to happen. Instead, Dominion will defend a document seemingly developed in a time warp, when there were no options other than central station, utility-generated power and the term distributed energy resources was still a twinkle in Amory Lovins’ eye.

Here’s all you really need to know: In the Richmond, Va.-based company’s 307-page IRP (which can be found here), the term distributed energy resources only shows up once, on page 112, when the company references the federal Department of Energy’s definition of a microgrid: “…a group of interconnected loads and distributed energy resources within clearly defined electrical boundaries that acts as a single controllable entity with respect to the grid…”

Now, to be fair to Dominion, the utility does talk about distributed generation, but generally in terms designed to underscore its potential risks while downplaying any possible benefits. Its discussion of future energy resources, for example, which begins on page 88, includes a number of standard beefs about renewable resources—they aren’t dispatchable, they are intermittent and they add uncertainty to system operations. The topper, though, appears on pages 95-96 when the company talks about distributed photovoltaics: “While the grid may not be adversely impacted by the small degree of variability resulting from a few distributed PV systems, larger levels of penetration across the network or high concentrations of PV in a small geographic area may make it difficult to maintain frequency and voltage within acceptable bands. On a multi-state level, it is possible that the resulting sudden power loss from disconnection of distributed PV generation could be sufficient to destabilize the system frequency of the entire Eastern Interconnection.” [Emphasis added]

Continue reading Dominion, SCE
 A Continent Apart
 On Distributed Energy

Time For Utilities
 To Rethink
 Ratemaking Process

The utility industry has launched what amounts to an all-out attack on net energy metering, under which customers receive credit for power they generate on-site and feed back into their utility’s distribution system.

In a report issued earlier this month, the Edison Foundation’s Institute for Electric Innovation (offshoots of EEI, the industry trade association) took aim at the net energy metering program in California, where roughly 120,000 customers (both residential and non-residential) are enrolled in the state’s NEM tariff, and found it, shall we say, lacking.

“The legitimate purpose of a subsidy is to provide an incentive to pursue a desirable public policy. Subsidies should not be overly generous; the amount of the subsidy should be transparent; and the recipient of the subsidy should be clearly identified. As our analysis demonstrates, the current NEM regulatory approach in California fails all three tests,” IEI concluded. The report, Net Energy Metering: Subsidy Issues and Regulatory Solutions, can be found here.

Continue reading Time For Utilities
 To Rethink
 Ratemaking Process