The Illinois Commerce Commission authorized $71.6 million in additional revenue for Ameren Illinois Company’s electric service, resulting in a $4 increase in monthly residential bills, according to a Nov. 1 press release. The commission approved $31.7 million rate increase for the company’s gas delivery service, raising monthly bills by about $3.50. The gas rates take effect…
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas forecasts a peak demand of 61,780 megawatts for the upcoming winter from December through February 2019, according to a Nov. 1 press release. The grid operator expects nearly 80,000 megawatts of resource capacity to be available for peak demand this winter. Since the preliminary winter assessment released in September,…
The Bureau of Land Management authorized EDF Renewable Energy Inc.’s Palen Solar Project, a 500-megawatt solar photovoltaic facility that would span 3,478 acres of federal lands in Riverside County, California. The project, expected to come online in 2020, would be located in the bureau’s Solar Energy Zone and Development Focus Area that has been designated…
PJM Interconnection LLC released its fuel security analysis on Nov. 1 finding that its system is reliable and can endure prolonged periods of highly stressed conditions. The study analyzed over 300 scenarios that could occur from 2023 considering generation retirements, customer demand, fuel delivery, and fuel disruptions. The results underscored that in a sustained cold…
The California Public Utilities Commission approved energy storage procurement proposals of the state’s large investor-owned utilities for the 2018 biennial procurement period, according to an Oct. 31 decision. The 2018 cycle is the third of the four solicitation cycles the commission directed the utilities to conduct following the 2010 Energy Storage Law. In 2013, California…
Retail electricity prices for customers enrolled with competitive suppliers in the New England region are less volatile compared to wholesale power prices, although temporary price hikes occur when wholesale prices experience the largest increases, according to an Oct. 31 report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. All the New England states except Vermont have deregulated…
The Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission approved a settlement increasing Indianapolis Power & Light’s annual revenues by about $43.9 million, resulting in a $5.18 hike in monthly residential bills, according the agency’s Oct. 31 press release. In February, the utility lowered its revenue request to $96.7 million from its initial request of $124.5 to account for…
Northern Indiana Public Service Company LLC, a subsidiary of NiSource Inc., on Oct. 31 filed its 2018 integrated resource plan with the Indiana Utility Regulatory Authority, detailing a strategy to retire its coal-fired generation portfolio over the next decade and transition to more cost-efficiency renewable energy. The resource plan charts a path to meet customer…
Massachusetts electric and gas utilities on Oct. 31 filed a joint energy efficiency plan with the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities proposing an investment of $2.77 billion over three years from 2019 to 2021. The proposal seeks to invest over $200 million more in the new plan compared to the prior three-year period and achieve…
The Department of Energy announced its inaugural Grid Optimization (GO) Competition consisting of a series of challenges to develop software that will improve the reliability, resilience and security of the nation’s power grid. In an Oct. 31 press release, U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry recognized that the grid has become more diverse, with the…
States have started to build the foundation for a future of battery storage to capitalize on the multiple benefits the technology provides to the grid, from helping integrate renewables to bolstering the reliability of the network. State legislatures are boosting the number and diversity of measures proposed to stoke storage markets, considering a broad array…...
The Western Energy Imbalance market generated about $100 million in savings in the third quarter of this year, with total benefits reaching $502 million since its launch in November 2014, according to an Oct. 29 press release from the California Independent System Operator Corporation. The third quarter benefits were the highest for any quarter due…
