As part of the 2013 CE3 Energy Webinar Series, the Consortium for Energy, Economics & the Environment (CE3) at the Ohio University Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs is hosting a webinar called "Ohio's Transmission & Distribution Future" on Tuesday, April 2, 2013, from 12:00 p.m. to 1:15 p.m.  With experts from the PUCO, AEP-Ohio and Benjamin Schlesinger and Associates, the webinar will discuss how trends such as "federal regulations, marketing conditions and fuel diversification are changing the outlook for Ohio's electricity generation and its transmission and distribution (T&D) infrastructure."  This webinar is free and open to the public, but attendees must register as seating is limited.  For more, read the event's brochure.

Ohio-based American Electric Power announced last week that in an effort to “make its remaining coal plants compliant with current and proposed federal regulations,” the company will spend between $4 billion and $5 billion over the next seven years to move its generating fleet “away from coal toward cleaner burning natural gas,” Reuters reports. AEP, described here as “the nation’s biggest coal generator,” said that it is now economical to retire “over 5,400 MW of coal generation by 2016” and to possibly convert as much as “1,800 MW of coal units to gas” since gas prices reached the $3.25 per mmBtu breakpoint. The company estimates that its generating capacity from coal-fired plants will drop from its current 65 percent to about 50 percent by 2020, the article said. For more, read the full story.

Houston-based Hudson Energy – a business-to-business supplier of electric and natural gas, and a subsidiary of Just Energy Group Inc. – announced that it will sell electricity in the Ohio Edison, Cleveland Electric Illuminating and Toledo Edison territories – all FirstEnergy Corp. companies, Crain’s Cleveland Business reports. Hudson Energy said that it also plans to “launch in other large Ohio electric distribution markets next spring,” the article said. For more, read the full story.

Akron-based electric utility, FirstEnergy Corp., will replace its Wadsworth Township transmission control center with a new $45 million transmission control center at its West Akron campus, Akron Beacon Journal reports. This comes as part of the company’s efforts to consolidate its three transmission control centers by transferring the system operators from its Reading, Pennsylvania, center to Ohio, the article said. For more, read the full story.

Gov. John Kasich gave a preview of his plan to overhaul Ohio's energy policies on Tuesday at the Greater Cleveland Partnership, The Plain Dealer reports. The plan calls for governing several elements of the shale gas industry; developing new sources of power and transmission grids; and allowing "waste heat from industrial processes such as blast furnaces" to count as "meeting renewable energy or advanced energy mandates set down by existing state law," the article said. As reported earlier (Feb. 22, 2012, blog – Ohio Lawmaker wants blast furnace waste gas to be classified as renewable energy), opponents fear that such a move would flood the market with renewable energy credits, thereby slashing the value of the credits and making it more difficult to finance wind and solar projects. For more, read the full story here.

Researchers at Case Western Reserve University are working to build a flow battery out of iron that will be able to cheaply store solar and wind energy for the grid, according to an article at CleanEnergyAuthority.com. The Department of Energy's Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, through Sandia National Laboratories, is funding the research with a $600,000 grant. For large-scale energy storage, a flow battery has significant advantages over a standard battery, according to the article. 

Courtesy of North American Windpower, renewable resources, including demand response and energy efficiency, made up nearly 68 percent of the new capacity available and about 10 percent of the resources clearing PJM Interconnection's recently completed capacity auction. PJM, a regional transmission organization, coordinates and directs the operation of the transmission grid serving 54 million people in all or parts of Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia. More information about PJM's capacity auction is available here.

AES has announced its acquisition of DPL, Inc., the parent company of Dayton Power & Light, which serves nearly 500,000 customers in western Ohio. According to this article in the Dayton Business Journal, the transaction is valued at $4.7 billion on an enterprise value basis, with AES paying $3.5 billion in cash for the equity and assuming $1.2 billion in net debt. It is expected to take 6-9 months to wrap up the deal. AES is a global energy company based in Arlington, Virginia, and the owner of 14 distribution companies, including Indianapolis Power & Light.

FirstEnergy Corp. recently entered into an agreement to sell its Fremont Energy Center to American Municipal Power Inc. (AMP).  The Fremont Energy Center is a natural gas combined cycle generation plant located in Sandusky County, Ohio, that is capable of producing 544 MW of load-following capacity and 163 MW of peaking capacity.  Under terms of the agreement, AMP will purchase the facility for approximately $485 million. 

For more information about the purchase, visit the AMP Web site.

First Energy recently held its second auction—pursuant to the stipulation approved in FirstEnergy’s most recent ESP case—to acquire portions of FirstEnergy’s generation supply. The auction established a new generation price of $55.60 per megawatt hour (MWh) effective for the delivery period of June 1, 2011 through May 31, 2012. There were ten electric generation suppliers registered for the auction, and seven submitted winning bids.

The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) has released the results of the auction, which are substantially similar to the results of the prior auction held in October 2010. The results indicate a slight upward movement in electric-generation prices, but not in an amount that will have a significant impact on generation prices in the near future. The result is a positive one for customers served by FirstEnergy.  Additional auctions will be held in October 2011, January 2012, October 2012, and January 2013 to establish the generation prices for 2012 and 2013.

For more information, visit the PUCO website.

The latest issue of Renew Grid magazine has two worthwhile articles on developments impacting the U.S. power grid, one looking back at the large and growing amount of smart-grid investments made by the nation's utilities in 2010, and the other looking forward to the promise of new transmission being added to the grid in 2011. Both articles set the stage nicely for the big changes that are brewing in the way the nation's electricity is delivered and consumed.  

The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) is praising the decision of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to approve a proposal by a Midwest grid operator creating a new regime for paying for new transmission development. The cost allocation policy proposed by Midwest Independent System Operator (MISO) creates a new category of transmission projects called Multi-Value Projects (MVPs). The MVP concept, according to AWEA, is based on the recognition of the numerous, widely shared benefits provided by enhanced transmission infrastructure and, accordingly, spreads the costs for these lines across the beneficiaries of the new transmission in the MISO footprint. AWEA said it believes that the new policy will help develop needed transmission infrastructure and provide access to wind energy.

The project would be made up of two main parts: one transmission line that runs from the Indiana-Ohio border to Illinois at a cost of $1.6 billion, and another that runs from Illinois to Iowa at a cost of $650 million. Once completed, Ohio electricity customers will have easier access to power from the west, particularly wind power from Iowa and the Dakotas, which would be connected to AEP’s existing transmission system in Ohio.

AEP filed an application yesterday (October 18) with the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio seeking approval of a merger between its Ohio Power and Columbus Southern Power subsidiaries.  AEP's application states that the merger is necessary to "efficiently prepare, file, and process" a standard service offer (SSO) application (which is expected to be filed soon) as well as a general distribution rate (which AEP proposes to file within the next few months).

The application can be found on the PUCO's website (pdf required).

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has taken the first step in starting a formal rulemaking proceeding for national smart grid standards. Working in conjunction with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), FERC has the task of implementing the mandates in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 to incorporate smart grid technologies into the nation's electric grid. The new standards are aimed at ensuring smart grid functionality and interoperability in interstate transmission of electric power, and regional and wholesale electricity markets. Among other things, the rules will:

• provide a common information model necessary for exchanges of data between devices and networks, primarily in the transmission and distribution domains;
• facilitate substation automation, communication and interoperability through a common data format; and
• facilitate exchanges of information between control centers.

FERC has created a docket, RM11-2-000, for this rulemaking, and in the near future will issue a notice of proposed rulemaking that will include opportunity for public comment.

Courtesy of The New York Times, Google and New York financial firm Good Energies have each agreed to invest heavily in a proposed $5 billion, 350-mile transmission backbone for future offshore wind farms along the Atlantic Seaboard. With a capacity of 6,000 megawatts, the system would equal the output of five large nuclear reactors. It would run in shallow trenches on the seabed in federal waters 15 to 20 miles offshore, from northern New Jersey to Norfolk, Va.

Duke Energy has selected California-based Echelon Corporation and Massachusetts-based Ambient Corporation to further develop its grid-based communications architecture that connects various digital devices such as smart meters, power line sensors and automated power switching equipment. Duke currently uses products developed by both Ambient and Echelon as part of its smart grid deployment efforts in Ohio, and in pilot projects in North Carolina and South Carolina.

A key component of Duke’s smart-grid communications architecture is the communications node. The nodes are installed on the grid alongside electric power transformers. Once in place, the devices can gather data from numerous digital devices and send it over a telecommunications network to Duke, where the information is collected and used for purposes such as billing and power grid management.

On August 12, 2010, the Office of the Ohio Consumers' Counsel filed a complaint against the First Energy electric distribution companies (FirstEnergy) alleging violations of Ohio's "net-metering rules, and interconnection rules by enforcing interconnection standards that are unduly burdensome and expensive."  In particular, the complaint alleges that FirstEnergy: 1) has made it unduly burdensome for five (5) customers to interconnect their small wind turbines to FirstEnergy's distribution system; and 2) included language in its net metering application that violates Ohio's net metering policies.  FirstEnergy will have 20 days to respond to the complaint.  A copy of the complaint can be found here.

Duke Energy announced plans to change the membership of Duke Energy Ohio and Duke Energy Kentucky from the Midwest Independent System Operator to the PJM regional transmission organization. The company says that joining PJM will bring long-term benefits for Duke Energy’s Ohio customers because it puts all Ohio utilities in the same wholesale market, where customers will benefit from the same wholesale and retail market rules. The company also said that its Kentucky generation, which is connected to its Ohio transmission system, is also making the move. Duke will make a filing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the federal administrative agency that oversees wholesale electricity markets, seeking approval of the transfer.