How to Talk to Regulators
Why some proceedings blow up, while others reach consensus.
The core of a good regulatory proceeding is a conversation.
Environmental
Securing the Smart Grid
Questions and answers on consumer privacy and threats to the grid – both physical and cyber.
The economic argument for investments in the smart grid is clear: the payback from those technologies in the U.S. is likely three to six times greater than the money invested, and grows with each sequence of grid improvement.
Digest (March 2015)
Pacific Gas and Electric and automaker BMW are teaming up to test the ability of EV batteries to provide services to the electric grid; MidAmerican Energy completed work on four of five wind farms across Iowa that make up its Wind VIII project; GE received an order from the Tennessee Valley Authority to supply two high-efficiency 7HA.02 gas turbine generators for the new combined-cycle Allen plant; Appalachian Power plans to rebuild the existing South Bluefield-Wythe 69-kV transmission line; Bechtel partnered with Westinghouse Electric to provide decontamination and decommissioning services for nuclear power plants throughout the U.S.; SunEdison and Omnigrid Micropower signed a framework agreement to develop 5,000 rural projects, representing 250 MW of electricity, throughout India; The Tennessee Valley Authority and DuPont partnered to generate power and steam at TVA's Johnsonville site in Tennessee; and others.
Commenting on Carbon
State PUCs take on EPA and its Clean Power Plan.
Everything about the Clean Power Plan seems surreal. States complain of unfair treatment. Regulators read the proposed rule and sound warnings of a coming apocalypse.
Early Clean Power Planning
A hedging strategy for sec. 111(d).
While the public comment period on EPA’s Clean Power Plan proposed rule has closed, there are still opportunities to engage in the federal policymaking process before the summer 2015 release of the final rule.
Keeping a Lid on Coal Ash
EPA’s rule said to favor repurposing and recycling – over landfills or disposal ponds.
The EPA’s new final rule marks a turning point in the handling of coal fly ash. EPA has tried to balance the needs of utilities with existing coal ash deposits and the needs of communities that are worried that such ponds will leak into waterways, or even worse, burst open and wreak havoc. In the process, it’s pleased few.
Integrated Distribution Planning
An Idea Whose Time Has Come
The next frontier, and the logical extension of integrated resource planning. Self-generation, the connected home, the celebrated internet of things – they all suggest it’s time to focus on the local grid.
From Coal to Gas
Regulatory and environmental challenges for power plant conversions under the EPA’s Clean Power Plan.
Converting a power plant from coal to natural gas triggers a host of environmental challenges and regulatory issues. Operators could be trading one set of regulatory obligations, liabilities, and costs for another, equally problematic, set of liabilities and costs.
Triggering & Tailoring
What the Supreme Court said, and didn’t.
Justice Scalia saw the need for tailoring as proof that EPA’s Triggering Rule was mistaken.
The Politics of Carbon
Supreme Court may ultimately clarify EPA’s authority under Clean Power Plan.
The Supreme Court questions federal agency authority over greenhouse gas emissions in the recent case of Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA.