The Maryland Public Service Commission is due to receive comments on the Maryland Office of People’s Counsel’s petition seeking near term priority actions and comprehensive long-term planning for the state’s gas companies. The petition seeks a two-track proceeding to address the planning, practices, and future operations of gas utilities. The first track, called Transition Track, would establish an investigation to make findings on gas usage reductions, potential rate impacts, and related operational and financial matters caused by the transition to electrification, and issue guidance on regulatory strategies to reduce the costs and risks for gas customers. This would lead to the adoption of regulations governing gas utility transition plans and the commission’s oversight of those plans. The other track, called “Priority Track,” would address priority near-term actions based on the widely accepted fact that gas sales will decline because of electrification technologies that are more cost-effective than continued gas use, and the need to meet the state’s emissions reduction goals. READ MORE

The District of Columbia Public Service Commission is due to receive briefs regarding Washington Gas Light Company’s application for approval of the third phase of its PROJECTpipes Plan. The project is a pipeline replacement program to modernize the 1,200-mile natural gas distribution system in the state, in order to enhance system reliability, resiliency, and safety. The first phase of the program ran from June 2014 through December 2020 with a total budget of $141.25 million, and the second phase started in January 2021 and will run until the end of 2023 with a budget of $150 million.

The California Energy Commission will discuss capacity expansion modeling results from a long-duration energy storage, or LDES, project awarded to the Regents of the University of California, Merced under the Electric Program Investment Charge program. The project team will present their analysis including a summary of recent advancements in available LDES technologies, a presentation of how cost targets for LDES depend on efficiency, and storage durations that would be most beneficial for the state. Previous studies have indicated that greenhouse gas reductions of 90 percent or more in the electricity sector are achievable with current technology, which includes a mix of solar photovoltaics, wind resources – both in-state and out-of-state – and existing energy storage technologies such as lithium-ion batteries and pumped hydro or compressed air. However, reaching a 100 percent emissions reduction goal may require newer technologies, including different types of long-duration energy storage. Legislation enacted in 2018 requires all retail electricity in the state to be supplied by zero-carbon resources by 2045.

The California Energy Commission is due to receive comments on proposed amendments to regulations governing its Power Source Disclosure Program. The program was initially authorized by Senate Bill 1305 in 1997. Pursuant to subsequent legislation, the commission adopted modifications in 2019, including a requirement that retail suppliers disclose greenhouse gas emissions intensity for the electricity portfolios they offer. In 2021, the commission initiated pre-rulemaking activities pursuant to legislation that established deadlines for power content label distribution and other regulatory clarifications. Legislation enacted in 2022 requires retail suppliers to report hourly loss-adjusted load and emissions data from 2028 onwards, and the commission must adopt requisite rules by July 2024. The proposed draft regulations aim to implement an hourly accounting methodology and update the annual accounting methodology to calculate emissions of a supplier’s total load, including losses and end uses other than retail sales and display the data on power content labels. 21-OIR-01

The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission will consider Minnesota Energy Resources Corporation’s application for adjustments of retail rates and charges applicable to natural gas services. The WEC Energy Group subsidiary filed a settlement this April, proposing a net incremental revenue increase of $21.242 million, a substantially smaller general revenue increase than the $40.322 million requested in the initial application. The proposed settlement would also reduce the requested return on equity from the original 10.30 percent to 9.65 percent. GR-22-504