Key Takeaways: Litigation over the merits of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan (CPP) rulemaking will affect compliance timelines for state implementation plans Uncertainty over the timeline and outcome of litigation will burden utilities to begin preparations for state plans before the 2016 deadline The potential for the CPP to be wholly or partially…...
Key Takeaways: The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) revised Market-Based Rate Program will reduce administrative burden on industry participants and increase certainty for sellers FERC will no longer require market-based rate sellers to file quarterly land acquisition information for new generation sites Market-based rate sellers will not have to report behind-the-meter generation in the indicative…...
Key Takeaways: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will strengthen the requirements for ground-level ozone under the National Ambient Air Quality Standards States and local areas would strengthen emissions control for stationary and mobile sources to ensure their plans receive EPA’s approval Stronger ozone standards will increase the burden on sources of ozone precursors, including the…...
Key Takeaways: The Department of Transportation’s proposal to strengthen hazardous liquid pipeline safety would expand the agency’s integrity management requirements related to assessments, repairs, and leak detection The proposal would establish reporting requirements for certain unregulated pipelines, including all gathering lines New conservative repair criteria and response timelines would increase the number of anomalies that…...
Key Takeaways: Royal Dutch Shell will close its Arctic drilling activities, demonstrating the increasing complexity of Arctic operational conditions Declining oil prices create unfavorable environment for capital-intensive offshore drilling projects Finalized regulations and revised timelines that reflect challenging Arctic conditions are needed to foster Arctic oil and gas development in the future Insight for…...
Key Takeaways: The New England Independent System Operator will extend its winter reliability program to address reliability challenges created by increased reliance on natural gas-fired generation until its Pay-for-Performance market design takes effect in 2018 Coordination with natural gas pipeline operators is becoming increasingly important for ISOs/RTOs in addressing gas supply constraints Natural gas transportation…...
Key Takeaways: California Senate Bill 350 requires 50% of utility power to come from renewable sources and 50% increase in energy efficiency in existing buildings by 2030 Requirement to halve statewide petroleum use by 2030 was dropped after intense lobbying by the oil and gas sector Implementation will require enhanced transmission, energy storage, and demand…...
Key Takeaways: The Department of Energy’s (DOE) $1B loan guarantee for distributed energy projects addresses market barriers to deploy innovative solar, storage, and flexible demand technologies The loan program aims to aggregate distributed energy projects that would be too small to be financed individually due to high transaction costs Large-scale distributed energy providers and aggregators…...
Key Takeaways: The Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal to reduce methane emissions from the oil and gas sector would impose millions of dollars in annualized regulatory burdens despite substantial methane reductions driven by current market incentives The proposed regulations would add to the existing burden on oil and gas companies, which are currently suffering from low…...
Key Takeaways: Power generators will benefit from higher clearing prices in PJM’s 2018/2019 capacity market auction while facing higher penalties in case of non-performance Share of natural gas will remain significant through either new generation or uprates to existing generation Demand response, energy efficiency and renewables potentially have a larger role in subsequent auctions and…...
Key Takeaways: Light tight oil production from unconventional resources has prompted industry to seek export avenues Approval of U.S.-Mexico crude oil swaps provides an additional market for light crude and increases its value given the current limitations in U.S. refinery capability Oil exchange transactions will potentially enhance refinery utilization in the United States and Mexico…...
Key Takeaways: Proposed ratemaking and utility model reforms under the Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) seek to align the earning opportunities of utilities with customer value by incentivizing near-term activities that support full-scale markets A shift from traditional regulatory incentives to market-based earnings would align utility profits with market activities The utility industry will increasingly…...
