• New version of Lieberman-Warner bill unveiled, but debate on the climate change bill is stymied
• 300-MW power plant starts up in Fort Pierce, Fla.
• More than $200,000 in DEED grants awarded
• Senate set to take up Lieberman-Warner bill today
• Gainesville to build biomass plant

New version of Lieberman-Warner bill unveiled, but debate on the climate change bill is stymied

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., unveiled a new, third version of the Lieberman-Warner climate change bill on June 4th, but debate on the legislation (S. 3036) ground to a halt in the afternoon as Republicans mounted a protest over what they said is the slow pace of work on judicial nominations. Republicans objected to a request by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., for unanimous consent to dispense with reading Boxer’s amendment (in the form of a substitute bill), forcing the Senate clerk to read the 492-page measure.

An initial review of Boxer’s latest version of the legislation showed few changes from the previous version. There were no changes to key sections dealing with an “emergency off-ramp;” cost containment auction; allocations to electric distribution companies; allocations to fossil-fuel generators; or allocations for carbon capture and sequestration. 

Prior to the halt to read the bill, Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., objected to plans by Reid to limit the number of amendments that could be offered. The Senate spent five weeks and considered more than 160 amendments when it took up the Clean Air Act, Domenici said. Earlier, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said he would offer a number of amendments, including the safety valve provisions of the climate change bill that he and Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., introduced last year.

From Public Power Daily - Posted 6.04.08

300-MW power plant starts up in Fort Pierce, Fla.

The Florida Municipal Power Agency’s newest power plant, located in St. Lucie County, near Fort Pierce, began serving electric customers last Saturday.

“This weekend we culminated more than four years of hard work and proudly began operation of our first wholly owned generating unit at a brand new power plant site,” said FMPA General Manager and CEO Roger Fontes. “The successful completion of this project exemplifies our commitment to provide reliable, fuel efficient and environmentally friendly electricity to our customers.”

Treasure Coast Energy Center, a 300-MW natural gas-fired power plant, will generate enough electricity to serve approximately 60,000 homes in the 15 cities served by FMPA’s All-Requirements Project: Bushnell, Clewiston, Fort Meade, Fort Pierce, Green Cove Springs, Havana, Jacksonville Beach, Key West, Kissimmee, Lake Worth, Leesburg, Newberry, Ocala, Starke and Vero Beach.

The power plant incorporates environmental control technologies that make it one of the lowest emission and highest efficiency plants in the state, FMPA said.

Construction of the $273 million project began in August 2006. The plant will be operated under contract by the Fort Pierce Utilities Authority.

From Public Power Daily - Posted 6.04.08

More than $200,000 in DEED grants awarded

APPA’s Demonstration of Energy-Efficient Developments (DEED) program awarded $231,194 in grants for utilities and students. The DEED board approved the 16 new projects at its spring meeting April 24-25 in Indianapolis.

The grants to utilities, totalling $199,194, are for the following projects:

• Feasibility Study of Municipal Solid Waste-to-Energy Project, Cleveland Public Power, Ohio ($35,000);

• Distributed Wind Evaluation Methodology, Waverly Light and Power, Iowa ($25,000);

• Active Reactor Field Test Trial, Jackson Energy Authority, Tennessee ($22,000);

• Tree Benefit Estimator Internet© Tool Expansion, Sacramento Municipal Utility District, California ($35,000);

•Traffic Control Bulb Replacement Energy Efficient Initiative, St. Clairsville Light & Power, Ohio ($7,554);

• Solar Utility Business Model Research and Implementation, Columbia Water and Light, Missouri ($25,000);

• Project Execution Plan, Florida Municipal Power Agency ($9,640);

• NERC ERO Compliance Plan Guideline and Template, National Rural Electric Cooperative Association ($40,000).

The DEED board approved the following student research grants and internships, each sponsored by a public power utility:

• Organic Waste Biogas/Electric Generation, Grays Harbor Public Utility District, Washington. The research will be done by Tim Burke of Saint Martins University.

• Use of Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles for Power System Control and Regulation, City Water, Light & Power of Springfield, Ill. The student is Renata Revelo of the University of Illinois at Urbana.

• Application of D-FACTS Devices for Increasing Transmission Capacity, City Water, Light & Power, Springfield, Ill. The student is Katherine Rogers of the University of Illinois at Urbana.

• Inexpensive Reflectors in Concentrating Solar Collector Prototype, Anaheim Public Utilities, California. Two students will conduct the research: Akasha Kaur Khalsa and Donald DeAndrade of San Diego State University.

• Optimum Penetration of Distributed Generation into the Electric Distribution System, Cookeville Electric Department, Tennessee. The student is Ndaga Mwakabuta of Tennessee Technological University.

• Design of a Utility-Scale Wind Farm for Southwest Ohio, American Municipal Power-Ohio. The student is Thomas Wenning of the University of Dayton.

• Strategic Analysis of Solar Photovoltaic Energy System for Northeast Ohio, Cuyahoga Falls Electric System, Ohio. The student is Shuihua Hu of the University of Dayton.

• Energy Efficiency Projects and Database Development, APPA internship. The student is Laura Cornwell of the College of William & Mary.

From Public Power Daily - Posted 6.04.08

Senate set to take up Lieberman-Warner bill today

The Senate will take up the Lieberman-Warner climate change bill (S. 2191) today, even though it is given no chance of passage this year. The floor action is seen as an opportunity to hold a pre-election debate on energy and environmental issues and to help set the stage for serious legislative efforts next year, with a new president who supports cap-and-trade legislation.

The debate could last one day (a cloture vote to cut off a filibuster is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. today), several days or perhaps two weeks. With Americans reminded of high energy prices every time they pass a gas station, Republicans want to emphasize the multi-trillion-dollar costs and economic impacts of the bill. To that end, Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., considered the bill’s staunchest opponent, may vote for cloture, an aide said.

Democrats will counter with a “manager’s amendment” offered by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., that includes a number of provisions intended to hold down costs. These include allowing utilities and other entities to borrow allowances from future allocations; a “cost containment auction” by the government of allowances borrowed from future allocations; and increasing the percent of domestic offsets or international allowances that a covered entity can submit to satisfy its allowance requirement. While the manager’s amendment would set a floor price for emission allowances in the cost containment auctions, it would not set a ceiling price.

In one key change to the electric utility provisions, no allowances are allocated to new fossil fuel-fired generating units (with “new” defined as extending three years back) under the manager’s amendment. After a set-aside of allowances for cooperative generators, all of the fossil fuel-fired generator allowances are allocated to units based on their carbon dioxide emissions in the three years prior to the bill’s enactment. (This is in contrast to the bill as passed by the committee, which allocated allowances to new units first, so that by around 2025, new units received all of the allocations and none were left for incumbent units.)

In another change, the electric load-serving entity allowances are now called “local distribution company” allowances. The percentage of allowances allocated to these entities has been increased slightly. Instead of 9 percent per year, their share of emission allowances under the manager’s amendment ranges from 9.5 percent in 2012 to 10 percent for the 2026-2050 period.

APPA Director of Statistical Analysis Diane Moody has modified her analysis of the bill to reflect changes in the manager’s amendment that are relevant to public power utilities. Her analysis is available to members on the association’s Web sitewww.APPAnet.org.

From Public Power Daily - Posted 6.02.08

Gainesville to build biomass plant

Gainesville Regional Utilities will negotiate with a private company to build a 100-MW power plant that will run on biomass fuel. The Gainesville City Commission in May voted unanimously to authorize the municipal utility to negotiate with Nacogdoches Energy, LLC to construct and operate the unit. GRU will purchase all of the unit’s output under a long-term purchased power agreement. The new plant could be online by 2013, GRU said.

“GRU has developed a two-part energy strategy that includes aggressive demand-side management and economical baseload generation fueled by renewable resources,” said Ed Regan, the utility’s assistant general manager for strategic planning. The utility issued a request for proposals in December, but had been searching for a new source of baseload generation since 2002, said GRU spokesman Dan Jesse.

The proposed facility will be constructed on the utility’s existing Deerhaven Generating Station site, which includes 421 MW (net) of coal and gas-fired steam and combustion turbine units. Nacogdoches will acquire the fuel and operate the plant.

Biomass is ideal as a renewable resource in north central Florida because the main agricultural industry in the region is forestry for paper pulp, chip and saw timber, said Jesse. The biomass burned in the plant will be waste wood from timber harvesting operations and other sources.

From Public Power Daily - Posted 6.02.08

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