Rapid Texas wind growth a warning to power market

Nevada Renewable Portfolio Standard 2030 targets 50% clean energy, advancing solar, geothermal, and wind, cutting GHG emissions, phasing out coal, and expanding storage, EV infrastructure, and in-state renewables under PUCN oversight and tax abatements.

Key Points

A state mandate requiring 50% of electricity from renewables by 2030, driving solar, geothermal, wind, and storage.

✅ 50% clean power by 2030; 100% carbon-free target by 2050

✅ Growth in solar, geothermal, wind; coal phase-out; natural gas remains

✅ RETA incentives spur 6.1 GW capacity, jobs, and in-state investment

Nevada is on track to meet its Renewable Portfolio Standard of 50% of electricity generated by renewable energy sources by 2030, according to the Governor's Office of Energy's annual Status of Energy Report.

Based on compliance reports the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada has received, across all providers, about 20% of power is currently generated by renewable resources, and, nationally, renewables ranked second in 2020 as filings show Nevada's investor-owned utility and other power providers have plans to reach the state's ambitious RPS of 50% by 2030, according to the report released Jan. 28.

"Because transportation and electricity generation are Nevada's two largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions, GOE's program work in 2021 underscored our focus on transportation electrification and reaching the state's legislatively required renewable portfolio standard," GOE Director David Bobzien said in a statement Jan. 28. "While electricity generated from renewable resources currently accounts for about 25% of the state's electricity, a share similar to projections that renewables will soon provide about one-fourth of U.S. electricity overall, we continue to collaborate with the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada, electricity providers, the renewable energy industry and conservation organizations to ensure Nevada reaches our target of 50% clean energy by 2030."

The state's RPS, enacted in 1997 and last modified in 2019, requires an increase in renewable energy, starting with 22% in 2020 and increasing to 50% by 2030. The increase in renewables will reduce GHG emissions and help the state reach its goal of 100% carbon-free power by 2050, while states like Rhode Island have a 100% by 2030 plan, highlighting varying timelines.

Renewable additions
The state added 1.332 GW of renewable capacity in 2021 as part of the Renewable Energy Tax Abatement program, at a time when U.S. renewable energy hit a record 28% in April, for a total renewable capacity of 6.117 GW, according to the report.

The RETA program awards partial sales and use tax and partial property-tax abatements to eligible renewable energy facilities, which increase Nevada's tax revenue and create jobs in a growing industry. Eligible projects must employ at least 50% Nevada workers, pay 175% of Nevada's average wage during construction, and offer health care benefits to workers and their dependents.

Since its adoption in 2010, the GOE has approved 60 projects, including large-scale solar PV, solar thermal, biomass, geothermal and wind projects throughout the state, according to the report. Projects granted abatements in 2021 include:

• 100-MW Citadel Solar Project
• 150-MW Dry Lake Solar + Storage Project
• 714-MW Gemini Solar Project
• 55-MW North Valley Power Geothermal Project
• 113-MW Boulder Flats Solar Project
• 200-MW Arrow Canyon Solar Project

"Nevada does not produce fossil fuels of any significant amount, and gasoline, jet fuel and natural gas for electricity or direct use must be imported," according to the report. "Transitioning to domestically produced renewable resources and electrified transportation can provide cost savings to Nevada residents and businesses, as seen in Idaho's largely renewable mix today, while reducing GHG emissions. About 86% of the fuel for energy that Nevada consumes comes from outside the state."

Phasing out coal plants
Currently, more than two-thirds of the state's electricity is produced by natural gas-fired power plants, with renewables covering most of the remaining generation, according to the report. Nevada continues to phase out its remaining coal power plants, as renewables surpassed coal nationwide in 2022, which provide less than 10% of produced electricity.

"Nevada has seen a significant increase in capturing its abundant renewable energy resources such as solar and geothermal," according to the report. "Renewable energy production continues to grow, powering Nevada homes and business and serves to diversify the state's economy by exporting solar and geothermal to neighboring states, as California neared 100% renewable electricity for the first time. Nevada has more than tripled its renewable energy production since 2011."

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Saskatchewan COVID-19 economic impact: real-time data shows drops in electricity demand, oil well licensing, traffic and tickets, plus spikes in internet usage, government site visits, remote work, and alcohol wholesale volumes.

Key Points

COVID-19 reduced energy use, drilling and traffic, while pushing activity online; jobs, rents and sales show strain.

✅ Electricity demand down 6.7%; residential usage up

✅ Oil well license applications fell 15-fold in April

✅ Internet traffic up 16%-46%; wireless LTE up 34%

We’re only just beginning to grasp how COVID-19 has upended Saskatchewan’s economy, its government and all of our lives.

The numbers that usually make headlines — job losses, economic contraction, bankruptcies — are still well behind the pace of the virus and its toll.

But other numbers change more quickly. Saskatchewan people are using less power, and the power industry is adopting on-site staffing plans to ensure reliability as conditions evolve. We’re racking up fewer speeding tickets. And as new restrictions come, we’re clicking onto Saskatchewan.ca as much as 10,000 times per minute.

Here’s some data that provides a first glimpse into how much our province has changed in just six weeks.

Electricity use tends to rise and fall in tandem with the health of the economy, and the most recent data from SaskPower suggests businesses are powering down, while regional utilities such as Manitoba Hydro seek unpaid days off to trim costs.

Peak load requirements between March 15 and April 26 were 220 MW lower than during the same period in 2019, and elsewhere BC Hydro is posting COVID-19 updates at Site C as it manages project impacts. That’s a decrease of 6.7 per cent, with total load on April 29 at 2,551 MW. A megawatt is enough electricity to power about 1,000 homes.

Separate from pandemic impacts, an external investigation at Manitoba Hydro has drawn attention to workplace conduct issues.

But it’s not homes that are turning off the lights. SaskPower spokesman Joel Cherry said commercial and industrial usage is down, while residential demand is up, with household electricity bills rising as more people stay home.

The timing of power demand has also shifted, a pattern seen as residential electricity use rises during work-from-home routines. Peak load would usually come around 8 or 9 p.m. in April. Now it’s coming earlier, typically between 5 and 6 p.m.

Oil well applications fall 15-fold
Oil prices have cratered since late February, and producers in Saskatchewan have reacted by pulling back on drilling plans, while neighbouring Alberta provides transition support for coal workers amid broader energy shifts.

Applications for well licences fell from 242 in January to 203 in February (including nine potash and one helium operations), before dropping to 84 in March. April, the month benchmark oil prices went negative for one day, producers submitted just 15 applications.

That’s 15 times fewer than the 231 applications the Ministry of Energy and Resources received in April 2019.

Well licences are needed for drilling, operating, injecting, producing or exploring an oil and gas or potash well in the province.

There has been no clear trend in well abandonment, however. There were 176 applications for abandonment in March and 155 in April, roughly in line with figures from the year before.

SGI spokesman Tyler McMurchy believes the lower numbers might stem from a combination of lower traffic volumes during part of the month, possibly combined with a shift in police priorities. The March 2020 numbers are also well below January and February figures.

Indeed, the Ministry of Highways and infrastructure reported a 16 per cent decrease in average daily traffic last month compared to March 2019, through its traffic counts at 11 different spots on highways across the province.

In Regina, traffic counts at 16 locations dropped from a high of 2.1 million in the first week of March to a low of 1.3 million during the week of March 22. That’s a 44 per cent decrease.

Counts have gradually recovered to 1.6 million in the weeks since. The data was fairly consistent at all 16 spots, which are largely major intersections, though the city cautioned they may not be representative of Regina as a whole.

Tickets for cellphone use while driving also fell, dropping from 562 in February to 314 in March. McMurchy noted that distracted driving numbers in general have been falling since November as stiffer penalties were announced. Impaired driving tickets were up, by contrast, but still within a typical range.

Internet traffic shoots up 16 per cent, far more for rural high speed
You may be spending a lot more time on Netflix and Facebook in the age of social distancing, and SaskTel has noticed.

From late February to late April, SaskTel has seen “very significant increases in provincial data traffic.” DSL and fibre optic networks have handled a 16 per cent increase in traffic, while demand on the wireless LTE network is up 34 per cent.

Usage on the Fusion network up 46 per cent. That network serves rural areas that don’t have access to other high-speed options.

The specific reference dates for comparison were February 24 and April 27.

“We attribute these changes in data usage to the pandemic and not expected seasonal or yearly shifts in usage patterns,” said spokesman Greg Jacobs.

Saskatchewan.ca was attracting just 70 page views per minute on average in February. But page views jumped over 10,000 per minute at 2:38 p.m. on March 18, as Moe was still announcing the new measures.

That’s a 14,000 per cent increase.

For all of March, visitor sessions on the site clocked in at 3,905,061, almost four times the 944,904 recorded for February.

Bureaucracy has increasingly migrated to cyberspace, with 62 per cent of civil servants now working from home. Government Skype calls, both audio and video, have tripled from 12,000 sessions per day to 35,000.Telephone conference calls increased by a factor of 14 from the first week of February to the second full week of April, with 25 times more weekly call participants. 

The Ministry of Central Services reported a 17 per cent jump in emails received by government over the past two months, excluding the Ministry of Health.

But as civil servants spend more time on their computers, the government’s fleet is spending a lot less time on the road. The ministry has purchased 40 per cent fewer litres of fuel for its vehicles over the past four weeks, compared to the same time last year.

Alcohol wholesale volumes up 22 per cent, then fall back to normal
Retailers bought more alcohol from the Saskatchewan Liquor and Gaming Authority (SLGA) last month, just as the government began tightening pandemic restrictions.

Wholesale sales volumes were up 22 per cent over March 15 to 28, compared to the same period in 2019. SLGA spokesman David Morris said the additional demand “was likely the result of retailers stocking-up as restrictions related to COVID-19 took effect.”

But the jump didn’t last. Wholesale volumes were back to normal for the first two weeks of April. SLGA did notice a very slight uptick last week, however, with volumes out of its distribution centre up three per cent. The numbers do not include Brewer’s Distributors Ltd.

It’s unclear how much more alcohol consumers actually purchased, since province-wide retail numbers were not available.

There was no discernible trend in March for anti-anxiety medication, however. The number of prescriptions filled for benzodiazepines like Valium, Xanax and Ativan see-sawed over March, according to data provided by the College of Physicians and Surgeons, but its associate registrar does not believe the trends are statistically relevant.

One-fifth of tenants miss April rent
About 20 per cent of residential rent went totally unpaid in the first six days of April, according to the Saskatchewan Landlord Association (SLA).

The precise number is 19.7 per cent, but there’s some uncertainty due to the survey method, which is based on responses from 300 residential landlords with 14,000 units. An additional 12 per cent of tenants paid a portion of their rent, but not the full amount. The figures do not include social housing.

Cameron Choquette, the association’s executive officer, partly blames the province’s decision to suspend most landlord tenant board hearings for evictions, saying it “allows more people to take advantage of landlords by not paying their rent and not facing any consequences.”

The government has defended the suspension by saying it’s needed to ensure everyone has a safe place to self-isolate if needed during the pandemic.

March’s jobs numbers were bad, with almost 21,000 fewer Saskatchewan people employed compared to February.

April’s labour force survey is expected on Friday. But new April numbers released Wednesday show that two-thirds of the province’s businesses managed to avoid laying off staff almost entirely.

According to Statistics Canada, 66.2 per cent of businesses reported laying off between zero and one per cent of their employees due to COVID-19. That was better than any other province. Just 7.6 per cent laid off all of their employees, again the best number outside the territories. The survey period was April 3 to 24.

Some businesses are even hiring. Walmart, for instance, has hired 300 people in Saskatchewan since mid-March.

Trade and Export Development Minister Jeremy Harrison chalked the data up to a relatively more optimistic business outlook in Saskatchewan, combined with “very targeted” restrictions and a support program for small and medium businesses.

That support program, which provides $5,000 grants to qualifying businesses affected by government restrictions, has only been around for three weeks. But it’s already been bombarded with 6,317 applications.

The total value of those applications would be $24,178,000, according to Harrison. Of them, 3,586 have been approved with a value of $11,755,000.

Businesses are coming to Harrison’s ministry with thousands of questions. Since it opened in March, the Business Response Team has received 4,125 calls and 1,758 emails.

The kinds of questions have changed over the course of the pandemic. Many are now asking when they can open their doors, according to Harrison, as they wonder about “grey areas” in the Re-Open Saskatchewan plan.

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Clorox Enel 70 MW VPPA accelerates renewable energy, sourcing Texas solar from the Roadrunner project to support 100% renewable electricity, Scope 2 reductions, and grid decarbonization through a virtual power purchase agreement starting in 2021.

Key Points

A 12-year virtual power purchase agreement for 70 MW of Texas solar to advance Clorox's 100% renewable electricity goal.

✅ 12-year contract supporting 100% renewable electricity by 2021

✅ Supplies 70 MW from Enel's Roadrunner solar project in Texas

✅ Cuts Scope 2 emissions via grid-delivered virtual PPA

The Clorox Company and a wholly owned subsidiary of Enel Green Power North America announced today the signing of a 12-year, 70 megawatt (MW) virtual power purchase agreement (VPPA) for the purchase of renewable energy, aligned with carbon-free electricity investments across the power sector beginning in 2021. Representing about half of Clorox's 100% renewable electricity goal in its operations in the U.S. and Canada, this agreement is expected to help Clorox accelerate achieving its goal in 2021, four years ahead of the company's original plan.

"Climate change and rising greenhouse gas emissions pose a real threat to the health of our planet and ultimately the long-term well-being of people globally. That's why we've taken action for more than 10 years to measure and reduce the carbon footprint of our operations," said Benno Dorer, chair and CEO, The Clorox Company. "Our agreement with Enel helps to expand U.S. renewable energy infrastructure, reflecting our view that companies like Clorox play an important role in addressing global climate change, as landmark policies like the U.S. climate deal further accelerate the transition. We believe this agreement will significantly contribute toward Clorox achieving our goal of 100% renewable electricity in our operations in the U.S. and Canada in 2021, four years earlier than originally planned. Our commitment to climate stewardship is an important pillar of our new IGNITE strategy and part of our overall efforts to drive Good Growth – growth that's profitable, sustainable and responsible."

The 70MW VPPA between Clorox and Enel Green Power North America for the purchase of renewable energy delivered to the electricity grid is for the second phase of Enel's Roadrunner solar project to be built in Texas, and complement global clean energy collaborations such as Canada-Germany hydrogen cooperation announced recently. Roadrunner is a 497-direct current megawatt (MWdc) solar project that is being built in two phases. The first phase, currently under construction, comprises around 252 MWdc and is expected to be completed by the end of 2019, while the remaining 245 MWdc of capacity is expected to be completed by the end of 2020. Once fully operational, the solar plant could generate up to 1.2 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity annually, while avoiding an estimated 800,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year.

Based on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator[i], this VPPA is estimated to avoid approximately 140,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions each year. This is equivalent to the annual impact that 165,000 acres of U.S. forest can have in removing CO2 from the atmosphere, and illustrates why cleaning up Canada's electricity is central to emissions reductions in the power sector, or the carbon impact of the electricity needed to power more than 24,000 U.S. homes annually.

"We are proud to support Clorox on their path towards 100% renewable electricity in its operations in the U.S. and Canada by helping them achieve about half their goal through this agreement," said Georgios Papadimitriou, head of Enel Green Power North America. "This agreement with Clorox reinforces the continued significance of renewable energy as a fundamental part of any company's sustainability strategy."

Schneider Electric Energy & Sustainability Services advised Clorox on this power purchase agreement and, amid heightened investor attention exemplified by the Duke Energy climate report, supported the company in its project selection, analysis, negotiations and deal execution.

Clorox Commits to Scope 1, 2 and 3 Science-Based Targets

For more than 10 years, Clorox has consistently achieved its goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in its operations. Clorox is focused on setting emissions reduction targets in line with climate science. As a participant in the Science Based Targets Initiative, Clorox has committed to setting and achieving science-based greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets in its operations (Scopes 1 and 2) and across its value chain (Scope 3), and consistent with national pathways such as Canada's net-zero 2050 target pursued by policymakers. The targets are considered "science-based" if they are in line with what the latest climate science says is necessary to meet the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement – a global environmental accord to address climate change and its negative impacts.

Clorox's climate stewardship goals are part of its new integrated corporate strategy called IGNITE, which includes several other environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals and reflects lessons from Canada's electricity progress in scaling clean power. More comprehensive information about Clorox's IGNITE ESG goals can be found here. Information on Clorox's 2020 ESG strategy can be found in its fiscal year 2019 annual report.

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Bitcoin Energy Consumption drives debate on blockchain mining, proof-of-work, carbon footprint, and emissions, with CCAF estimates in terawatt hours highlighting electricity demand, fossil fuel reliance, and sustainability concerns for data centers and cryptocurrency networks.

Key Points

Electricity used by Bitcoin proof-of-work mining, often fossil-fueled, estimated by CCAF in terawatt hours.

✅ CCAF: 40-445 TWh, central estimate ~130 TWh

✅ ~66% of mining electricity sourced from fossil fuels

✅ Proof-of-work increases hash rate, energy, and emissions

The University of Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) studies the burgeoning business of cryptocurrencies.

It calculates that Bitcoin's total energy consumption is somewhere between 40 and 445 annualised terawatt hours (TWh), with a central estimate of about 130 terawatt hours.

The UK's electricity consumption is a little over 300 TWh a year, while Argentina uses around the same amount of power as the CCAF's best guess for Bitcoin, as countries like New Zealand's electricity future are debated to balance demand.

And the electricity the Bitcoin miners use overwhelmingly comes from polluting sources, with the U.S. grid not 100% renewable underscoring broader energy mix challenges worldwide.

The CCAF team surveys the people who manage the Bitcoin network around the world on their energy use and found that about two-thirds of it is from fossil fuels, and some regions are weighing curbs like Russia's proposed mining ban amid electricity deficits.

Huge computing power - and therefore energy use - is built into the way the blockchain technology that underpins the cryptocurrency has been designed.

It relies on a vast decentralised network of computers.

These are the so-called Bitcoin "miners" who enable new Bitcoins to be created, but also independently verify and record every transaction made in the currency.

In fact, the Bitcoins are the reward miners get for maintaining this record accurately.

It works like a lottery that runs every 10 minutes, explains Gina Pieters, an economics professor at the University of Chicago and a research fellow with the CCAF team.

Data processing centres around the world, including hotspots such as Iceland's mining strain, race to compile and submit this record of transactions in a way that is acceptable to the system.

They also have to guess a random number.

The first to submit the record and the correct number wins the prize - this becomes the next block in the blockchain.

Estimates for bitcoin's electricity consumption
At the moment, they are rewarded with six-and-a-quarter Bitcoins, valued at about $50,000 each.

As soon as one lottery is over, a new number is generated, and the whole process starts again.

The higher the price, says Prof Pieters, the more miners want to get into the game, and utilities like BC Hydro suspending new crypto connections highlight grid pressures.

"They want to get that revenue," she tells me, "and that's what's going to encourage them to introduce more and more powerful machines in order to guess this random number, and therefore you will see an increase in energy consumption," she says.

And there is another factor that drives Bitcoin's increasing energy consumption.

The software ensures it always takes 10 minutes for the puzzle to be solved, so if the number of miners is increasing, the puzzle gets harder and the more computing power needs to be thrown at it.

Bitcoin is therefore actually designed to encourage increased computing effort.

The idea is that the more computers that compete to maintain the blockchain, the safer it becomes, because anyone who might want to try and undermine the currency must control and operate at least as much computing power as the rest of the miners put together.

What this means is that, as Bitcoin gets more valuable, the computing effort expended on creating and maintaining it - and therefore the energy consumed - inevitably increases.

We can track how much effort miners are making to create the currency.

They are currently reckoned to be making 160 quintillion calculations every second - that's 160,000,000,000,000,000,000, in case you were wondering.

And this vast computational effort is the cryptocurrency's Achilles heel, says Alex de Vries, the founder of the Digiconomist website and an expert on Bitcoin.

All the millions of trillions of calculations it takes to keep the system running aren't really doing any useful work.

"They're computations that serve no other purpose," says de Vries, "they're just immediately discarded again. Right now we're using a whole lot of energy to produce those calculations, but also the majority of that is sourced from fossil energy, and clean energy's 'dirty secret' complicates substitution."

The vast effort it requires also makes Bitcoin inherently difficult to scale, he argues.

"If Bitcoin were to be adopted as a global reserve currency," he speculates, "the Bitcoin price will probably be in the millions, and those miners will have more money than the entire [US] Federal budget to spend on electricity."

"We'd have to double our global energy production," he says with a laugh, even as some argue cheap abundant electricity is getting closer to reality today. "For Bitcoin."

He says it also limits the number of transactions the system can process to about five per second.

This doesn't make for a useful currency, he argues.

Rising price of bitcoin graphic
And that view is echoed by many eminent figures in finance and economics.

The two essential features of a successful currency are that it is an effective form of exchange and a stable store of value, says Ken Rogoff, a professor of economics at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

He says Bitcoin is neither.

"The fact is, it's not really used much in the legal economy now. Yes, one rich person sells it to another, but that's not a final use. And without that it really doesn't have a long-term future."

What he is saying is that Bitcoin exists almost exclusively as a vehicle for speculation.

So, I want to know: is the bubble about to burst?

"That's my guess," says Prof Rogoff and pauses.

"But I really couldn't tell you when."

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Millstone COVID-19 safety concerns center on a nuclear refueling outage in Connecticut, temporary workers, OSHA complaints, PPE shortages, and disinfecting protocols, as Dominion Energy addresses virus precautions, staffing, and cybersecurity for safe voting infrastructure.

Key Points

Employee and union claims about PPE, cleaning, and OSHA compliance during a refueling outage at the nuclear plant.

✅ 10 positive cases; 750 temporary workers during refueling outage

✅ Union cites PPE gaps, partitions, and disinfectant effectiveness

✅ Dominion Energy notes increased cleaning, communication, staffing

Workers at Connecticut's only nuclear power plant worry that managers are not taking enough precautions against the coronavirus, as some utilities weigh on-site staffing measures to maintain operations, after 750 temporary employees were brought in to help refuel one of the two active reactors.

Ten employees at the Millstone Power Station in Waterford have tested positive for the virus, and, amid a U.S. grid pandemic warning, the arrival of the temporary workers alarms some of the permanent employees, The Day newspaper reported Sunday.

"Speaking specifically for the guard force, there's a lot of frustration, there's a lot of concern, and I would say there's anger," said Millstone security officer Jim Foley.

Foley, vice president of the local chapter of the United Government Security Officers of America, noted broader labor concerns such as unpaid wages for Kentucky miners while saying security personnel have had to fight for personal protective equipment and for partitions at access points to separate staff from security.

Foley also has filed a complaint with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration saying Millstone staff are using ineffective cleaning materials and citing a lack of cleaning and sanitizing, as telework limits at the EPA drew scrutiny during the pandemic, he said.

Officials at Millstone, owned by Dominion Energy, have not heard internal criticism about the plant's virus precautions, Millstone spokesman Kenneth Holt said.

"We've actually gotten a lot of compliments from employees on the steps we've taken," he said. "We've stepped up communications with employees to let them know what's going on."

As another example of communication efforts, COVID-19 updates at Site C have been published to keep workers informed.

Millstone recently increased cleaning staff on the weekends, Holt said, and there is regular disinfecting at the plant.

Separately, utility resilience remains a concern, as extended outages for tornado survivors in Kentucky may last weeks, affecting essential services.

Responding to the complaint about ineffective cleaning materials, Holt said staff members early in the pandemic went to a Home Depot and got a bottle of disinfectant that wasn't approved by the federal government as effective against the coronavirus. An approved disinfectant was brought in the next day, he said.

The deaths of nearly 2,500 Connecticut residents have been linked to COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus. More than 29,000 state residents have tested positive. As of Sunday, hospitalizations had declined for 11 consecutive days, to over 1,480.

With more people working remotely, utilities have reported higher residential electricity use during the pandemic, affecting household bills.

For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough, that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, and death.

In other developments related to the coronavirus:

SAFE VOTING

Secretary of the State Denise Merrill released a plan Monday aimed at making voting safe during the Aug. 11 primary and Nov. 3 general election.

Merrill said her office is requiring all cities and towns in the state to submit plans for the two elections that include a list of cleaning and safety products to be used, a list of polling locations, staffing levels at each polling location, and the names of polling workers and moderators.

Municipalities will be eligible for grants to cover the extra costs of holding elections during a pandemic, including expenses for cleaning products and increased staffing.

Merrill also announced her office and the Connecticut National Guard will perform a high-level cybersecurity assessment of the election infrastructure of all 169 towns in the state to guard against malicious actors.

Merrill's office also will provide network upgrades to the election infrastructures of 20 towns that have had chronic problems with connecting to the elections system.

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Utility Battery Storage Rankings measure grid-connected capacity, not ownership, highlighting MW, MWh, and watts per customer across PJM, MISO, and California IOUs, featuring Duke Energy, IPL, ancillary services, and frequency regulation benefits.

Key Points

Rankings that track energy storage connected to utility grids, comparing MW, MWh, and W/customer rather than ownership.

✅ Ranks by MW, MWh, and watts per customer, not asset ownership

✅ Highlights PJM, MISO cases and California IOUs' deployments

✅ Examples: Duke Energy, IPL, IID; ancillary services, frequency response

The rankings do not tally how much energy storage a utility built or owns, but how much was connected to their system. So while IPL built and owns the storage facility in its territory, Duke does not own the 16 MW of storage that connected to its system in 2016. Similarly, while California’s utilities are permitted to own some energy storage assets, they do not necessarily own all the storage facilities connected to their systems.

Measured by energy (MWh), IPL ranked fourth with 20 MWh, and Duke Energy Ohio ranked eighth with 6.1 MWh.

Ranked by energy storage watts per customer, IPL and Duke actually beat the California utilities, ranking fifth and sixth with 42 W/customer and 23 W/customer, respectively.

Duke ready for next step

Given Duke’s plans, including projects in Florida that are moving ahead, the utility is likely to stay high in the rankings and be more of a driving force in development. “Battery technology has matured, and we are ready to take the next step,” Duke spokesman Randy Wheeless told Utility Dive. “We can go to regulators and say this makes economic sense.”

Duke began exploring energy storage in 2012, and until now most of its energy storage efforts were focused on commercial projects in competitive markets where it was possible to earn revenues. Those included its 36 MW Notrees battery storage project developed in partnership with the Department of Energy in 2012 that provides frequency regulation for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas market and two 2 MW storage projects at its retired W.C. Beckjord plant in New Richmond, Ohio, that sells ancillary services into the PJM Interconnection market.

On the regulated side, most of Duke’s storage projects have had “an R&D slant to them,” Wheeless said, but “we are moving beyond the R&D concept in our regulated territory and are looking at storage more as a regulated asset.”

“We have done the demos, and they have proved out,” Wheeless said. Storage may not be ready for prime time everywhere, he said, but in certain locations, especially where it can it can be used to do more than one thing, it can make sense.

Wheeless said Duke would be making “a number of energy storage announcements in the next few months in our regulated states.” He could not provide details on those projects.

More flexible resources
Location can be a determining factor when building a storage facility. For IPL, serving the wholesale market was a driving factor in the rationale to build its 20 MW, 20 MWh storage facility in Indianapolis.

IPL built the project to address a need for more flexible resources in light of “recent changes in our resource mix,” including decreasing coal-fired generation and increasing renewables and natural gas-fired generation, as other regions plan to rely on battery storage to meet rising demand, Joan Soller, IPL’s director of resource planning, told Utility Dive in an email. The storage facility is used to provide primary frequency response necessary for grid stability.

The Harding Street storage facility in May. It was the first energy storage project in the Midcontinent ISO. But the regulatory path in MISO is not as clear as it is in PJM, whereas initiatives such as Ontario storage framework are clarifying participation. In November, IPL with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, asking the regulator to find that MISO’s rules for energy storage are deficient and should be revised.

Soller said IPL has “no imminent plans to install energy storage in the future but will continue to monitor battery costs and capabilities as potential resources in future Integrated Resource Plans.”

California legislative and regulatory push

In California, energy storage did not have to wait for regulations to catch up with technology. With legislative and regulatory mandates, including CEC long-duration storage funding announced recently, as a push, California’s IOUs took high places in SEPA’s rankings.

Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric were first and fourth (63.2 MW and 17.2 MW), respectively, in terms of capacity. SoCal Ed and SDG&E were first and second (104 MWh and 28.4 MWh), respectively, and Pacific Gas and Electric was fifth (17 MWh) in terms of energy.

But a public power utility, the Imperial Irrigation District (IID), ended up high in the rankings – second in capacity (30 MW) and third  in energy (20 MWh) – even though as a public power entity it is not subject to the state’s energy storage mandates.

But while IID was not under state mandate, it had a compelling regulatory reason to build the storage project. It was part of a settlement reached with FERC over a September 2011 outage, IID spokeswoman Marion Champion said.

IID agreed to a $12 million fine as part of the settlement, of which $9 million was applied to physical improvements of IID’s system.

IID ended up building a 30 MW, 20 MWh lithium-ion battery storage system at its El Centro generating station. The system went into service in October 2016 and in May, IID used the system’s 44 MW combined-cycle natural gas turbine at the generating station.

Passing savings to customers
The cost of the storage system was about $31 million, and based on its experience with the El Centro project, Champion said IID plans to add to the existing batteries. “We are continuing to see real savings and are passing those savings on to our customers,” she said.

Champion said the battery system gives IID the ability to provide ancillary services without having to run its larger generation units, such as El Centro Unit 4, at its minimum output. With gas prices at $3.59 per million British thermal units, it costs about $26,880 a day to run Unit 4, she said.

IID’s territory is in southeastern California, an area with a lot of renewable resources. IID is also not part of the California ISO and acts as its own balancing authority. The battery system gives the utility greater operational flexibility, in addition to the ability to use more of the surrounding renewable resources, Champion said.

In May, IID’s board gave the utility’s staff approval to enter into contract negotiations for a 7 MW, 4 MWh expansion of its El Centro storage facility. The negotiations are ongoing, but approval could come in the next couple months, Champion said.

The heart of the issue, though, is “the ability of the battery system to lower costs for our ratepayers,” Champion said. “Our planning section will continue to utilize the battery, and we are looking forward to its expansion,” she said.” I expect it will play an even more important role as we continue to increase our percentage of renewables.”

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