The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority is due to receive proposals for community distributed generation projects to participate in the Expanded Solar for All, or E-SFA, program jointly run by the authority and National Grid. The initiative aims to provide community solar and associated bill savings to customers participating in National Grid’s Energy Affordability Program. The first phase of the solicitation procured 120.5 megawatts of projects to participate in the E-SFA program. This solicitation will competitively select up to 179.5 megawatts of projects to participate in the program, targeting a bill saving rate of $5 per month for each participating customer.

The Maine Public Utilities Commission is due to receive comments on potential legislative action to ensure that low-income customers receive stable and affordable electricity rates while still being able to engage in the competitive electricity market. The commission opened a proceeding to explore issues related to recent legislation that was proposed, but not enacted, to prohibit a competitive electricity provider from selling energy to a customer participating in a low-income assistance program unless the rate for the energy is lower than the rate for standard offer service. The commission seeks responses to a series of questions including what method could be used for obtaining consent from a customer for sharing their low-income assistance program status and whether the comparison between the competitive supplier’s rate and standard-offer rate must be conducted only at the time of sign up or on an ongoing basis.

The New York Public Service Commission will conduct a technical conference to discuss a long-term gas system plan filed by New York Electric and Gas Corporation and Rochester Gas and Electric Corporation. The company filed the plan in response to the commission’s May 2022 order creating a long-term gas system planning process for local gas distribution companies. The order also directed commission staff to facilitate meetings between a gas utility and stakeholders interested in its long-term plan. The primary focus of the conference will be the companies’ initial long-term plan filing and the process for incorporating stakeholder input.

The California Public Utilities Commission is due to receive input on a package of materials proposed to be a part of its 2023 preferred system plan and transmission planning process portfolios. The proposal would be sent to the California Independent System Operator for analysis in the 2024-2025 transmission planning process and to give direction to load serving entities regarding procurement activities and for their next round of individual integrated resource plans, or IRPs. The commission issued an administrative law judge’s ruling presenting the results of the aggregation of the individual IRPs of each load serving entity filed around November 2022, analyzing the resulting electricity portfolio to construct additional scenarios and better characterize the reliability and emissions performance of the scenarios. The ruling recommends adoption of the aggregated portfolio that is based on planning a greenhouse gas target for the electricity sector of 25 million metric tons by 2035. READ MORE

The California Energy Commission is due to receive comments on the analytical framework for the SB 100 joint report for 2021. Enacted in 2018, the legislation increased California’s renewable portfolio standard to 60 percent, and set a goal of procuring 100 percent of the state’s retail electricity supply from renewable and zero-carbon resources by 2045. The commission recently held a joint workshop with the Public Utilities Commission and the Air Resources Board, which included an overview of the 2021 report highlighting developments that occurred in the last two years, and presentations and panels to provide stakeholder input on the state’s path towards the goal established by the law. SB 100 requires the agencies to address the findings and recommendations as the 2025 joint agency report is developed.

The California Air Resources Board and Québec’s Ministry of the Environment and the Fight against Climate Change will hold their 37th joint quarterly carbon auction, which will offer allowances for current and future years. The current auction will offer 2013, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023 vintage allowances totaling about 57.6 million, and the advance auction will offer 2026 future allowances totaling about 7.6 million. The previous auction held in August sold all of the nearly 55.8 million current allowances at a price of $35.20 per allowance and 7.6 million future allowances at $34.16 per allowance. California’s cap-and trade program places an economy-wide cap on major emitting sources.

The California Independent System Operator Corp. will hold a working group meeting to discuss specific issues ahead of issuing a draft final proposal for the 2023 Interconnection Process Enhancements Track 2 initiative. The grid operator recently issued a straw proposal aimed to address the unprecedented interconnection request volumes that are unsustainable in current processes and intends to enable rapid deployment of new generation, in order to increase reliability, affordability, and decarbonization. The operator aims to re-imagine the grid interconnection, prioritization, and coordination processes to ensure that resource procurement and queuing are effectively oriented toward planned and existing transmission and interconnection capacity and align with transmission development required for longer-term resource development.