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Agreement on the power plant strategy

Energy News Beat

In addition to the consistent expansion of renewable energies and electricity networks, the decarbonization and security of supply of our electricity system requires modern, highly flexible and climate-friendly power plants. Therefore, Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Economics Minister Robert Habeck and Finance Minister Christian Lindner have agreed on the essential elements of a power plant strategy as well as specifications for further projects.

It was agreed that work on the future electricity market design will be advanced immediately and, in particular, concepts for a market-based, technology-neutral capacity mechanism will be developed, which should be operational by 2028 at the latest. A political agreement on this should be reached within the federal government by summer 2024 at the latest. In addition, the BMWK will also present an options paper for a political agreement involving the parliamentary groups on the future electricity market design in the summer of 2024, taking into account the climate-neutral electricity system platform. Security of supply is examined through electricity security analyses, which also include scenarios with conservative and crisis-related assumptions.

The power plant strategy creates the framework for investments in modern, highly flexible and climate-friendly power plants that are able to use hydrogen in the future. It also ensures that the supply of electricity is guaranteed in a climate-friendly manner even in times with little sun and wind. This will make an important contribution to system stability.

In order to quickly implement a no-regret number of power plants, the power plant strategy immediately incentivizes the early construction of power plants. The tenders as part of the power plant strategy are designed in such a way that the new power plants are fully integrated into the future capacity mechanism.

Specifically, the Federal Chancellor, the Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection and the Federal Minister of Finance have agreed that new power plant capacities of up to 4 times 2.5 GW will be put out to tender at short notice as H2 – ready gas power plants as part of the power plant strategy, to be determined from 2032 The transition date should be to switch completely to hydrogen between 2035 and 2040. These power plants should be located at locations that serve the system. The funding is financed from the Climate and Transformation Fund.

To support the development of new technologies ( e.g. nuclear fusion) and testing the operation of power plants, these are supported with suitable instruments. Power plants that run exclusively on hydrogen are supported up to 500 MW as part of energy research. CO₂ capture and storage for power generation plants using gaseous energy sources is taken up as part of the carbon management strategy.

It was also decided that existing obstacles to the construction and operation of electrolysers should be dismantled without restrictions and that all possibilities should be used, in particular to accelerate the construction of electrolyzers that are to be operated in a way that benefits the system. In addition, there must be no double burden of taxes and fees on electricity for storage and electrolysis, so that there are market and system-serving incentives to produce hydrogen. The use of excess electricity is permitted without restrictions; All existing regulatory hurdles will be reduced as much as possible.

The planning and approval procedures for the power plants included in the power plant strategy will be substantially accelerated.

The agreement reached on the power plant strategy will be discussed with the EU Commission in Brussels and then consulted with the public. With the EU Commission we can build on the constructive discussions from last summer.

Source: Bmwk.de

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Momentary Fusion Breakthroughs Face Hard Reality

Energy News Beat

The dream of fusion power inched closer to reality in December 2022, when researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) revealed that a fusion reaction had produced more energy than what was required to kick-start it. According to new research, the momentary fusion feat required exquisite choreography and extensive preparations, whose high degree of difficulty reveals a long road ahead before anyone dares hope a practicable power source could be at hand.

The groundbreaking result was achieved at the California lab’s National Ignition Facility (NIF), which uses an array of 192 high-power lasers to blast tiny pellets of deuterium and tritium fuel in a process known as inertial confinement fusion. This causes the fuel to implode, smashing its atoms together and generating higher temperatures and pressures than are found at the center of the sun. The atoms then fuse together, releasing huge amounts of energy.

“It showed there’s nothing fundamentally limiting us from being able to harness fusion in the laboratory.”—ANNIE KRITCHER, LAWRENCE LIVERMORE NATIONAL LABORATORY

The facility has been running since 2011, and for a long time the amount of energy produced by these reactions was significantly less than the amount of laser energy pumped into the fuel. But on 5 December 2022, researchers at NIF announced that they had finally achieved breakeven by generating 1.5 times more energy than was required to start the fusion reaction.

A new paper published yesterday in Physical Review Letters confirms the team’s claims and details the complex engineering required to make it possible. While the results underscore the considerable work ahead, Annie Kritcher, a physicist at LLNL who led design of the experiment, says it still signals a major milestone in fusion science. “It showed there’s nothing fundamentally limiting us from being able to harness fusion in the laboratory,” she says.

While the experiment was characterized as a breakthrough, Kritcher says it was actually the result of painstaking incremental improvements to the facility’s equipment and processes. In particular, the team has spent years perfecting the design of the fuel pellet and the cylindrical gold container that houses it, known as a “hohlraum”.

Why is fusion so hard?

When lasers hit the outside of this capsule, their energy is converted into X-rays that then blast the fuel pellet, which consists of a diamond outer shell coated on the inside with deuterium and tritium fuel. It’s crucial that the hohlraum is as symmetrical as possible, says Kritcher, so it distributes X-rays evenly across the pellet. This ensures the fuel is compressed equally from all sides, allowing it to reach the temperatures and pressures required for fusion. “If you don’t do that, you can basically imagine your plasmas squirting out in one direction, and you can’t squeeze it and heat it enough,” she says.

The team has since carried out six more experiments—two that have generated roughly the same amount of energy as was put in and four that significantly exceeded it.

Carefully tailoring the laser beams is also important, Kritcher says, because laser light can scatter off the hohlraum, reducing efficiency and potentially damaging laser optics. In addition, as soon as the laser starts to hit the capsule, it starts giving off a plume of plasma that interferes with the beam. “It’s a race against time,” says Kritcher. “We’re trying to get the laser pulse in there before this happens, because then you can’t get the laser energy to go where you want it to go.”

The design process is slowgoing, because the facility is capable of carrying out only a few shots a year, limiting the team’s ability to iterate. And predicting how those changes will pan out ahead of time is challenging because of our poor understanding of the extreme physics at play. “We’re blasting a tiny target with the biggest laser in the world, and a whole lot of crap is flying all over the place,” says Kritcher. “And we’re trying to control that to very, very precise levels.”

Nonetheless, by analyzing the results of previous experiments and using computer modeling, the team was able to crack the problem. They worked out that using a slightly higher power laser coupled with a thicker diamond shell around the fuel pellet could overcome the destabilizing effects of imperfections on the pellet’s surface. Moreover, they found these modifications could also help confine the fusion reaction for long enough for it to become self-sustaining. The resulting experiment ended up producing 3.15 megajoules, considerably more than the 2.05 MJ produced by the lasers.

Since then, the team has carried out six more experiments—two that have generated roughly the same amount of energy as was put in and four that significantly exceeded it. Consistently achieving breakeven is a significant feat, says Kritcher. However, she adds that the significant variability in the amount of energy produced remains something the researchers need to address.

This kind of inconsistency is unsurprising, though, says Saskia Mordijck, an associate professor of physics at the College of William & Mary in Virginia. The amount of energy generated is strongly linked to how self-sustaining the reactions are, which can be impacted by very small changes in the setup, she says. She compares the challenge to landing on the moon—we know how to do it, but it’s such an enormous technical challenge that there’s no guarantee you’ll stick the landing.

Relatedly, researchers from the University of Rochester’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics today reported in the journal Nature Physics that they have developed an inertial confinement fusion system that’s one-hundredth the size of NIF’s. Their 28 kilojoule laser system, the team noted, can at least yield more fusion energy than what is contained in the central plasma—an accomplishment that’s on the road toward NIF’s success, but still a distance away. They’re calling what they’ve developed a “spark plug“ toward more energetic reactions.

Both NIF’s and LLE’s newly reported results represent steps along a development path—where in both cases that path remains long and challenging if inertial confinement fusion is to ever become more than a research curiosity, though.

Plenty of other obstacles remain than those noted above, too. Current calculations compare energy generated against the NIF laser’s output, but that brushes over the fact that the lasers draw more than 100 times the power from the grid than any fusion reaction yields. That means either energy gains or laser efficiency would need to improve by two orders of magnitude to break even in any practical sense. The NIF’s fuel pellets are also extremely expensive, says Kritcher, each one pricing in at an estimated $100,000. Then, producing a reasonable amount of power would mean dramatically increasing the frequency of NIF’s shots—a feat barely on the horizon for a reactor that requires months to load up the next nanosecond-long burst.

“Those are the biggest challenges,” Mordijck says. “But I think if we overcome those, it’s really not that hard at that point.”

Source: Spectrum.ieee.org

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Nuclear power officially labelled as ‘strategic’ for EU’s decarbonisation

Energy News Beat

The Council of EU member states and the European Parliament agreed on Tuesday (6 February) to label nuclear power as a strategic technology for the EU’s decarbonisation, following months of intense negotiations in Brussels over the Net-Zero Industry Act (NZIA).

Presented by the European Commission in March 2023, the NZIA aims to speed up the deployment of technologies that can contribute to meeting the EU’s net-zero emissions target.

It came in response to the massive US green subsidy programme, the Inflation Reduction Act, as well as long-standing Chinese efforts to become global leaders in the manufacturing of clean technologies like batteries, heat pumps and solar panels.

To this end, the NZIA aims to accelerate permitting procedures for industrial production sites involved in the manufacturing of components needed for renewable energy technologies, but also for nuclear power.

Meeting in “trilogues”, negotiators from the Parliament, the Council, and the European Commission confirmed on Tuesday the “strategic” nature of projects relating to nuclear energy, which are included in a single list of net-zero technologies that will benefit from the NZIA.

The text is “a mix of the two mandates [adopted by the Council and Parliament], with a more comprehensive list than what was proposed by the member states”, explained French MEP Christophe Grudler who took part in the talks for the centrist Renew Europe group in Parliament.

The agreement encompasses tried and tested nuclear technologies as well as future third and fourth generation ones, i.e. small modular reactors (SMRs) and advanced nuclear reactors (AMRs). Their fuel cycles are also included in the text.

“The message is clear: the EU recognises that we need nuclear power to achieve the objectives of the Green Deal,” the French MEP told Euractiv.

Simplified procedures

Concretely, this means that factories producing components for these technologies will benefit from simplified permitting procedures, with deadlines ranging from 18 to 12 months for bigger projects and 12 to nine months for smaller ones.

The development of the infrastructure needed to expand nuclear energy in Europe will also be facilitated by criteria for prioritising these projects in public procurements.

Each EU country will be sovereign in defining the projects that will be considered strategic on its territory, and benefit from faster permitting and simplified administrative rules.

As a result, “the two types of energy [renewable and nuclear] are finally being treated equally as part of the reindustrialisation process,” Grudler rejoiced.

This was not a foregone conclusion. In its March proposal, the European Commission presented two lists of “green” technologies – one called “strategic” and a “net-zero” list with fewer advantages.

But nuclear technologies only appeared in the “net zero” list, denying them the “strategic” status. Moreover, only third- and fourth-generation nuclear reactors were included, but not existing ones.

The situation caused uproar among advocates of nuclear power after European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen publicly insisted that nuclear power was not strategic. In Paris, these were dismissed as “unfortunate” comments.

“The main thing is for nuclear power to be in the text. And it is,” Grudler told Euractiv at the time, saying he was “confident” about future developments in the parliamentary debates.

Rollercoaster ride

The inclusion of nuclear power in Parliament was not a done deal either.

After much back and forth, nuclear power was finally included in the single list of 17 technologies proposed in November by the text’s rapporteur, German MEP Christian Ehler (European People’s Party – EPP).

In addition, all nuclear technologies were covered: existing and future ones, fission, fusion as well as the fuel cycle.

The Council, for its part, stuck with the two lists approach, placing fission and the fuel cycle in the “strategic” list, while other nuclear technologies were placed in the “net zero” list.

France welcomed this approach, contrary to Germany, Austria and Luxembourg.

Ultimately, after the final interinstitutional negotiations (trilogues), the logic of the single list was retained.

Unsurprisingly, environmental groups were not happy with the outcome. German NGO Deutsche Umwelthilfe called the agreement “a dubious compromise in favour of expensive, high-risk technologies”.

With the inclusion of nuclear power and carbon capture and storage (CCS), technologies such as wind and solar power “are under threat”, it said.

Source: Euractiv.com

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NDP bill would prescribe jail terms for speaking well of fossil fuels

Energy News Beat

An NDP bill is seeking to criminalize the “promotion” of fossil fuels, and prescribe jail time even for Canadians who say scientifically true things such as how burning natural gas is cleaner than burning coal.

C-372, also known as the Fossil Fuel Advertising Act, was tabled Monday as a private member’s bill by Charlie Angus, the MP for Timmins-James Bay and a longtime member of the NDP caucus.

“Today, I am proud to rise and introduce a bill that would make illegal false advertising by the oil and gas industry,” Angus announced in the House of Commons.

He added that the oil and gas sector was trafficking in “disinformation” and “killing people.” Angus also twice framed his bill as the dawn of the industry’s “big tobacco moment” — an apparent reference to Canada’s blanket federal ban on tobacco advertising.

But C-372 goes well beyond merely banning advertising by oil and gas companies.

As a private member’s bill introduced by the member of a party with only 25 seats in the House of Commons, Bill C-372 has almost zero chance of passing. But as written, the act would technically apply to any Canadian who is found to be speaking well of the oil industry, or of oil generally.

“It is prohibited for a person to promote a fossil fuel, a fossil fuel-related brand element or the production of a fossil fuel,” reads the act.

Violate this as a regular citizen, and the act prescribes summary conviction and a fine of up to $500,000. Violate it as an oil company, and the punishment could be as strict as two years in jail or a fine of $1,000,000.

Angus defines “promotion” so broadly that it could technically apply to something as simple as a Facebook post or even an “I Love Canadian Oil and Gas” bumper sticker.

Promotion, according to Bill C-372, means “‍a representation about a product or service by any means … that is likely to influence and shape attitudes, beliefs and behaviours about the product or service.‍”

The act also criminalizes a laundry list of common pro-oil and gas arguments, even ones that have a reliable basis in fact.

Section 8 of the act makes it a crime for “a person” to argue that a fossil fuel is “less harmful than other fossil fuels.”

Natural gas, for instance, generates energy with far fewer emissions or pollutants than diesel, coal, bunker fuel or any number of “dirtier” fuels. This is why the federal government taxes natural gas at a lower benchmark than higher-emission fuels.

Nevertheless, according to C-372, anybody making such an argument should face a jail term of up to two years or a “fine not exceeding $500,000.”

Section 8 also criminalizes any “promotion” which argues that fossil fuels are beneficial to “the health of Canadians, reconciliation with Indigenous peoples or the Canadian or global economy.”

As such, the section could conceivably prescribe jail terms for anybody arguing that the oil and gas sector is a key funder of the Canadian health-care system, or even that oil and gas is needed to operate ambulances and MedEvac flights.

Similarly, Canadians would face sanction for saying that the extraction and selling of oil is a net contributor to the country’s economy — a claim that is actually made quite often by the federal government itself. “Oil and gas extraction is an important contributor to the Canadian economy,” reads a recent report by Statistics Canada.

The bill would also bring the hammer down on the ability of Canadian gas stations to hold contests or issue loyalty cards.

Bill C-372 would make it illegal for a retailer to “provide or offer to provide any consideration for the purchase of a fossil fuel.”

Any contest offering “free gas” would also be criminalized, under the bill’s prohibition on offers to “furnish or offer to furnish a fossil fuel without monetary consideration.”

Although the Trudeau government often uses catastrophic language to refer to the unchecked effects of climate change, Angus’s bill goes beyond the federal government’s usual messaging by claiming in a preamble that warming temperatures are an “existential threat” and that “protection of the environment is a valid use of the federal criminal law power.”

Nevertheless, there are exceptions.

Angus allows that movies, plays and musical performances would be allowed to “use or depict fossil fuels” or even show “the production of fossil fuels” — provided that the creator can prove that they have no links to an entity that “has as one of its purposes to promote fossil fuels.”

Source: Nationalpost.com

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Nine states pledge to boost heat pumps to 90% of home equipment sales by 2040

Energy News Beat

 

Environmental agencies in nine states will work together to reduce planet-warming carbon emissions by making electric heat pumps the norm for most new home HVAC equipment sales by 2040.

The memorandum of understanding, spearheaded by the inter-agency nonprofit Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management, or NESCAUM, was released today and signed by officials in California, Colorado, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon and Rhode Island.

While it is not legally binding and does not commit particular funding, the agreement calls for heat pumps to make up 90% of residential heating, air conditioning and water heating sales in these states by 2040.

An interim goal of 65% by 2030 is based on last fall’s target from the U.S. Climate Alliance, a group of 25 governors, to quadruple their states’ heat pump installations to 20 million in the same timeframe.

The residential sector is one of the top two or three contributors to greenhouse gas emissions in most of the East Coast states signing on to the agreement, driven in part by cold climates and a heavy reliance on oil and gas for home heating. Residential emissions rank far lower in the Western states participating.

In a press release, NESCAUM emphasized the harmful smog, haze and ozone driven by nitrogen oxide and particulate emissions from fossil fuel combustion, calling buildings “a hidden source of air pollution.”

Senior policy advisor Emily Levin said states must move quickly to help residents replace these fossil-fired HVAC and water heating systems with heat pumps in time to limit the harms of global warming.

“You may only have one more crack at these buildings between now and 2050, because these are long-lived pieces of equipment — they can last 10 or 20 years,” she said. “So we really can’t miss our opportunity.”

Matt Casale, senior manager of market transformation with the Building Decarbonization Coalition, said the new agreement’s market-share approach adds specificity to how states will meet existing, number-based goals for heat pump installations.

“The idea is to send a clear signal to the market that heat pumps are the future of home heating and cooling, while reflecting the urgency with which we need to act to meet GHG emissions reduction targets,” he said.

Manufacturers have called for this kind of “long-term signal,” said Levin — “they need to plan, they need to make significant investments.” She said agreements like this show companies that “this is the direction we need to go in” and that state governments are committed to helping make the transition happen.

“Greater demand for heat pumps will also put pressure on installers,” Casale added. “We will need policies that both grow and further develop the workforce. The MOU is a great opportunity to bring them in more directly, learn from them, and talk about their needs.”

Under the new agreement, participating states will “collaborate to collect market data, track progress, and develop an action plan within a year to support the widespread electrification of residential buildings,” according to NESCAUM.

Afton Vigue, a spokesperson for the Maine Governor’s Energy Office, said taking advantage of consolidated industry data will help prevent another new reporting requirement for participating states and will help align with varying state metrics.

The states’ forthcoming action plan is expected to include emphasis on workforce development and supply chain constraints, which have tempered otherwise strong heat pump progress in states like Maine.

“It really does focus on that element of driving the market and collaborating with manufacturers,” Levin said. “Right now, states don’t really necessarily know … how their heat pump market is developing. Creating systems to bring visibility to that, provide insights into that … it’s a really important element.”

The agreement tees up annual reports on each state’s progress toward the 2030 and 2040 goals, and schedules a 2028 check-in about any necessary adjustments.

“A greater focus on consumer education, workforce development, and affordability will be critical to the success of the transition,” said Casale. “This means getting the most out of the Inflation Reduction Act and other incentive programs, but we also need to answer the questions of how this solution best serves multi-family buildings, renters and others for whom purchasing a new system isn’t entirely within their control.”

In the agreement, the states pledge to put at least 40% of energy efficiency and electrification investments toward disadvantaged communities — those facing high energy cost burdens or disproportionate pollution — in line with the federal Justice40 program, which underlies similar rules for the IRA.

Working through NESCAUM and other existing groups, the participating states will brainstorm tools for reaching these goals, potentially including funding for whole-home retrofits, building code enforcement and other uniform standards, data collection, research projects, use of federal resources and more.

“It’s going to look a little different in every state,” Levin said. “But they’re committing to collaborate and to advance a set of policies and programs that work for their state to accomplish those broader goals.”

This could include adapting or building on each other’s approaches. Levin highlighted Maine and California as having successful models for consumer outreach and heat pump market coordination, and said Maryland has shown strong impact and ambition around clean building performance standards.

Maine, which relies more on heating oil than any other state, is among the participants with existing heat pump goals in their climate plans. The state surpassed an initial target — 100,000 installations by 2025 — last year, and now aims to install 175,000 more heat pumps by 2027.

Officials in Maine have said that heating oil use appears to be slowly falling in concert with increasing use of electricity for home heat. Vigue said the new agreement lines up with existing state goals and will help Maine “bolster our ongoing collaboration with other states, share experiences, and see where gaps may exist.”

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North Carolina court hears challenge to Duke Energy’s reduced credits for rooftop solar

Energy News Beat

​[[{“value”:”

The debate over rooftop solar in North Carolina entered the courtroom on Wednesday, when a three-judge Court of Appeals panel heard a challenge to Duke Energy’s reduced payments for home solar arrays.

“We are here this morning because a terrible injury has been inflicted on the rooftop solar industry in our state,” said Matthew Quinn, the lawyer for seven climate justice groups appealing the rates approved last year by the Utilities Commission.

The lowered credits are part of a complicated truce between Duke, some of the state’s oldest rooftop installers, and multiple clean energy groups, all of whom sought to avoid the bruising battles over net metering seen in other states.

But the new payments have undoubtedly tamped interest in homes going solar since they took effect last fall, with one installer reporting residential sales falling by as much as 50%. 

Since the entities who compromised with Duke don’t represent all of those who engaged in the commission’s net metering docket, their agreement should be given “little to no weight,” the challengers, including NC WARN and Environmental Working Group, say in their legal appeal.

What’s more, they argue, the new rates are illegal because they were promulgated after internal Duke studies and stakeholder discussions regarding rooftop solar — not the independent investigation they believe is required by law.

“A 2017 state law mandates the Utilities Commission conduct its own solar net metering cost-benefit analysis,” said Jim Warren, the executive director of NC WARN, in a note to reporters before the oral arguments. “The commission flouted the law, choosing instead to lean on Duke Energy’s deeply flawed and one-sided calculations.”

The reasoning rests in part on an Energy News Network article that quotes one of the 2017 law’s authors, John Szoka, a Fayetteville Republican who served in the state House of Representatives for a decade. The story describes Szoka as “adamant” that the commission should conduct the study. 

“It’s not up to the utility to determine whether net metering is good or bad,” Szoka told the Energy News Network at the time. “We know what that answer will be. We’re not putting the fox in charge of the hen house here. That is not the intent.”

After quoting the piece in their brief, the plaintiffs write: “Clearly, the General Assembly did not intend for [Duke] to satisfy [the law] by performing an internal study. Indeed, such a study would be akin to ‘the fox in charge of the hen house.’”

Duke and other defenders of the new credits say Szoka’s comments don’t override the “plain meaning” of the language in the law, which says simply that the rates, “shall be nondiscriminatory and established only after an investigation of the costs and benefits of customer-sited generation.” 

“Legislative intent,” lawyers for Duke note dryly in one footnote in a legal filing, “is not derived from news articles from Energy News Network.”

The appellants also claim the commission erred by failing to consider all of the benefits of rooftop solar and by forcing solar owners to migrate to time-variable rates instead of allowing flat rates to stand.

The solution, they say in their brief: “The Court of Appeals should reverse the Commission’s… Order and remand this matter for a Commission-led investigation of the costs and benefits for [net metered] solar.”

A dogged Duke foe, NC WARN and its partners aren’t just trying to prevail on an obscure technical point of process. Examinations of distributed solar in other states have shown a clear trend: when utilities conduct the analyses, the benefits of rooftop solar come in lower than when commissions or independent groups are in charge.

Indeed, both Duke and Public Staff, the state-sanctioned customer advocate which sided against the appeal, maintained in court Wednesday that rooftop solar unfairly burdens non-solar customers and the company itself, a point few clean energy advocates or solar industry representatives concede.

Duke also isn’t alone among investor-owned utilities in its years-long quest to lower the one-to-one net metering credit rooftop solar owners have long enjoyed. After all, the fewer electrons the company sells at a markup, the lower its profits.

But Duke has also found compromise with at least some of its critics in ways many of its peers have not, helping to explain why it was groups like NC WARN —  and not the rooftop industry itself — that appeared formally in court on Wednesday.

The crux of the grand bargain is a move toward “time of use” rates, in which diligent solar owners can conceivably squeeze out the same benefits they enjoyed under the old rates, so long as they time their energy use to account for peak demand hours. 

A “bridge rate,” negotiated by long-time installers Southern Energy Management, Sundance Power Systems, and Yes Solar will be available for new customers until 2027, and many in the industry say it’s preferred for its simplicity and its relative low risk.

A final piece of the deal was greenlit last month: financial incentives for home batteries paired with rooftop solar, part of a pilot program to be rolled out in May called PowerPair.

While many veteran installers acknowledged fewer customer inquiries last year after the new rates took effect, they also suggested the harder-to-negotiate terms could weed out “bad actors” in the industry. 

And all say they’re focused long term on maximizing their key business advantage: Fossil fuels are becoming more expensive, while the materials designed to harness and store forever-free sunlight are getting cheaper.

Still, Bryce Bruncati, director of residential sales at 8M Solar and one of the industry’s most outspoken critics of the time-of-use rates, hopes the lawsuit argued today will lay the groundwork for a better long-term solution for installers.

“We’ve got these interim patches,” he told Energy News Network, referring to the bridge rate and the Power Pair program. “But starting in 2027, we’re going to see this massive contraction of the solar industry —  and fewer people going solar in general — if we don’t do something.”

There’s no firm deadline for the judges who heard Wednesday’s argument to issue a decision, but many observers were expecting an outcome within 90 days.

“}]] 

The post North Carolina court hears challenge to Duke Energy’s reduced credits for rooftop solar appeared first on Energy News Beat.

 

North Carolina court hears challenge to Duke Energy’s reduced credits for rooftop solar

Energy News Beat

​[[{“value”:”

The debate over rooftop solar in North Carolina entered the courtroom on Wednesday, when a three-judge Court of Appeals panel heard a challenge to Duke Energy’s reduced payments for home solar arrays.

“We are here this morning because a terrible injury has been inflicted on the rooftop solar industry in our state,” said Matthew Quinn, the lawyer for seven climate justice groups appealing the rates approved last year by the Utilities Commission.

The lowered credits are part of a complicated truce between Duke, some of the state’s oldest rooftop installers, and multiple clean energy groups, all of whom sought to avoid the bruising battles over net metering seen in other states.

But the new payments have undoubtedly tamped interest in homes going solar since they took effect last fall, with one installer reporting residential sales falling by as much as 50%. 

Since the entities who compromised with Duke don’t represent all of those who engaged in the commission’s net metering docket, their agreement should be given “little to no weight,” the challengers, including NC WARN and Environmental Working Group, say in their legal appeal.

What’s more, they argue, the new rates are illegal because they were promulgated after internal Duke studies and stakeholder discussions regarding rooftop solar — not the independent investigation they believe is required by law.

“A 2017 state law mandates the Utilities Commission conduct its own solar net metering cost-benefit analysis,” said Jim Warren, the executive director of NC WARN, in a note to reporters before the oral arguments. “The commission flouted the law, choosing instead to lean on Duke Energy’s deeply flawed and one-sided calculations.”

The reasoning rests in part on an Energy News Network article that quotes one of the 2017 law’s authors, John Szoka, a Fayetteville Republican who served in the state House of Representatives for a decade. The story describes Szoka as “adamant” that the commission should conduct the study. 

“It’s not up to the utility to determine whether net metering is good or bad,” Szoka told the Energy News Network at the time. “We know what that answer will be. We’re not putting the fox in charge of the hen house here. That is not the intent.”

After quoting the piece in their brief, the plaintiffs write: “Clearly, the General Assembly did not intend for [Duke] to satisfy [the law] by performing an internal study. Indeed, such a study would be akin to ‘the fox in charge of the hen house.’”

Duke and other defenders of the new credits say Szoka’s comments don’t override the “plain meaning” of the language in the law, which says simply that the rates, “shall be nondiscriminatory and established only after an investigation of the costs and benefits of customer-sited generation.” 

“Legislative intent,” lawyers for Duke note dryly in one footnote in a legal filing, “is not derived from news articles from Energy News Network.”

The appellants also claim the commission erred by failing to consider all of the benefits of rooftop solar and by forcing solar owners to migrate to time-variable rates instead of allowing flat rates to stand.

The solution, they say in their brief: “The Court of Appeals should reverse the Commission’s… Order and remand this matter for a Commission-led investigation of the costs and benefits for [net metered] solar.”

A dogged Duke foe, NC WARN and its partners aren’t just trying to prevail on an obscure technical point of process. Examinations of distributed solar in other states have shown a clear trend: when utilities conduct the analyses, the benefits of rooftop solar come in lower than when commissions or independent groups are in charge.

Indeed, both Duke and Public Staff, the state-sanctioned customer advocate which sided against the appeal, maintained in court Wednesday that rooftop solar unfairly burdens non-solar customers and the company itself, a point few clean energy advocates or solar industry representatives concede.

Duke also isn’t alone among investor-owned utilities in its years-long quest to lower the one-to-one net metering credit rooftop solar owners have long enjoyed. After all, the fewer electrons the company sells at a markup, the lower its profits.

But Duke has also found compromise with at least some of its critics in ways many of its peers have not, helping to explain why it was groups like NC WARN —  and not the rooftop industry itself — that appeared formally in court on Wednesday.

The crux of the grand bargain is a move toward “time of use” rates, in which diligent solar owners can conceivably squeeze out the same benefits they enjoyed under the old rates, so long as they time their energy use to account for peak demand hours. 

A “bridge rate,” negotiated by long-time installers Southern Energy Management, Sundance Power Systems, and Yes Solar will be available for new customers until 2027, and many in the industry say it’s preferred for its simplicity and its relative low risk.

A final piece of the deal was greenlit last month: financial incentives for home batteries paired with rooftop solar, part of a pilot program to be rolled out in May called PowerPair.

While many veteran installers acknowledged fewer customer inquiries last year after the new rates took effect, they also suggested the harder-to-negotiate terms could weed out “bad actors” in the industry. 

And all say they’re focused long term on maximizing their key business advantage: Fossil fuels are becoming more expensive, while the materials designed to harness and store forever-free sunlight are getting cheaper.

Still, Bryce Bruncati, director of residential sales at 8M Solar and one of the industry’s most outspoken critics of the time-of-use rates, hopes the lawsuit argued today will lay the groundwork for a better long-term solution for installers.

“We’ve got these interim patches,” he told Energy News Network, referring to the bridge rate and the Power Pair program. “But starting in 2027, we’re going to see this massive contraction of the solar industry —  and fewer people going solar in general — if we don’t do something.”

There’s no firm deadline for the judges who heard Wednesday’s argument to issue a decision, but many observers were expecting an outcome within 90 days.

“}]] 

The post North Carolina court hears challenge to Duke Energy’s reduced credits for rooftop solar appeared first on Energy News Beat.

 

North Carolina court hears challenge to Duke Energy’s reduced credits for rooftop solar

Energy News Beat

​[[{“value”:”

The debate over rooftop solar in North Carolina entered the courtroom on Wednesday, when a three-judge Court of Appeals panel heard a challenge to Duke Energy’s reduced payments for home solar arrays.

“We are here this morning because a terrible injury has been inflicted on the rooftop solar industry in our state,” said Matthew Quinn, the lawyer for seven climate justice groups appealing the rates approved last year by the Utilities Commission.

The lowered credits are part of a complicated truce between Duke, some of the state’s oldest rooftop installers, and multiple clean energy groups, all of whom sought to avoid the bruising battles over net metering seen in other states.

But the new payments have undoubtedly tamped interest in homes going solar since they took effect last fall, with one installer reporting residential sales falling by as much as 50%. 

Since the entities who compromised with Duke don’t represent all of those who engaged in the commission’s net metering docket, their agreement should be given “little to no weight,” the challengers, including NC WARN and Environmental Working Group, say in their legal appeal.

What’s more, they argue, the new rates are illegal because they were promulgated after internal Duke studies and stakeholder discussions regarding rooftop solar — not the independent investigation they believe is required by law.

“A 2017 state law mandates the Utilities Commission conduct its own solar net metering cost-benefit analysis,” said Jim Warren, the executive director of NC WARN, in a note to reporters before the oral arguments. “The commission flouted the law, choosing instead to lean on Duke Energy’s deeply flawed and one-sided calculations.”

The reasoning rests in part on an Energy News Network article that quotes one of the 2017 law’s authors, John Szoka, a Fayetteville Republican who served in the state House of Representatives for a decade. The story describes Szoka as “adamant” that the commission should conduct the study. 

“It’s not up to the utility to determine whether net metering is good or bad,” Szoka told the Energy News Network at the time. “We know what that answer will be. We’re not putting the fox in charge of the hen house here. That is not the intent.”

After quoting the piece in their brief, the plaintiffs write: “Clearly, the General Assembly did not intend for [Duke] to satisfy [the law] by performing an internal study. Indeed, such a study would be akin to ‘the fox in charge of the hen house.’”

Duke and other defenders of the new credits say Szoka’s comments don’t override the “plain meaning” of the language in the law, which says simply that the rates, “shall be nondiscriminatory and established only after an investigation of the costs and benefits of customer-sited generation.” 

“Legislative intent,” lawyers for Duke note dryly in one footnote in a legal filing, “is not derived from news articles from Energy News Network.”

The appellants also claim the commission erred by failing to consider all of the benefits of rooftop solar and by forcing solar owners to migrate to time-variable rates instead of allowing flat rates to stand.

The solution, they say in their brief: “The Court of Appeals should reverse the Commission’s… Order and remand this matter for a Commission-led investigation of the costs and benefits for [net metered] solar.”

A dogged Duke foe, NC WARN and its partners aren’t just trying to prevail on an obscure technical point of process. Examinations of distributed solar in other states have shown a clear trend: when utilities conduct the analyses, the benefits of rooftop solar come in lower than when commissions or independent groups are in charge.

Indeed, both Duke and Public Staff, the state-sanctioned customer advocate which sided against the appeal, maintained in court Wednesday that rooftop solar unfairly burdens non-solar customers and the company itself, a point few clean energy advocates or solar industry representatives concede.

Duke also isn’t alone among investor-owned utilities in its years-long quest to lower the one-to-one net metering credit rooftop solar owners have long enjoyed. After all, the fewer electrons the company sells at a markup, the lower its profits.

But Duke has also found compromise with at least some of its critics in ways many of its peers have not, helping to explain why it was groups like NC WARN —  and not the rooftop industry itself — that appeared formally in court on Wednesday.

The crux of the grand bargain is a move toward “time of use” rates, in which diligent solar owners can conceivably squeeze out the same benefits they enjoyed under the old rates, so long as they time their energy use to account for peak demand hours. 

A “bridge rate,” negotiated by long-time installers Southern Energy Management, Sundance Power Systems, and Yes Solar will be available for new customers until 2027, and many in the industry say it’s preferred for its simplicity and its relative low risk.

A final piece of the deal was greenlit last month: financial incentives for home batteries paired with rooftop solar, part of a pilot program to be rolled out in May called PowerPair.

While many veteran installers acknowledged fewer customer inquiries last year after the new rates took effect, they also suggested the harder-to-negotiate terms could weed out “bad actors” in the industry. 

And all say they’re focused long term on maximizing their key business advantage: Fossil fuels are becoming more expensive, while the materials designed to harness and store forever-free sunlight are getting cheaper.

Still, Bryce Bruncati, director of residential sales at 8M Solar and one of the industry’s most outspoken critics of the time-of-use rates, hopes the lawsuit argued today will lay the groundwork for a better long-term solution for installers.

“We’ve got these interim patches,” he told Energy News Network, referring to the bridge rate and the Power Pair program. “But starting in 2027, we’re going to see this massive contraction of the solar industry —  and fewer people going solar in general — if we don’t do something.”

There’s no firm deadline for the judges who heard Wednesday’s argument to issue a decision, but many observers were expecting an outcome within 90 days.

“}]] 

The post North Carolina court hears challenge to Duke Energy’s reduced credits for rooftop solar appeared first on Energy News Beat.

 

North Carolina court hears challenge to Duke Energy’s reduced credits for rooftop solar

Energy News Beat

​[[{“value”:”

The debate over rooftop solar in North Carolina entered the courtroom on Wednesday, when a three-judge Court of Appeals panel heard a challenge to Duke Energy’s reduced payments for home solar arrays.

“We are here this morning because a terrible injury has been inflicted on the rooftop solar industry in our state,” said Matthew Quinn, the lawyer for seven climate justice groups appealing the rates approved last year by the Utilities Commission.

The lowered credits are part of a complicated truce between Duke, some of the state’s oldest rooftop installers, and multiple clean energy groups, all of whom sought to avoid the bruising battles over net metering seen in other states.

But the new payments have undoubtedly tamped interest in homes going solar since they took effect last fall, with one installer reporting residential sales falling by as much as 50%. 

Since the entities who compromised with Duke don’t represent all of those who engaged in the commission’s net metering docket, their agreement should be given “little to no weight,” the challengers, including NC WARN and Environmental Working Group, say in their legal appeal.

What’s more, they argue, the new rates are illegal because they were promulgated after internal Duke studies and stakeholder discussions regarding rooftop solar — not the independent investigation they believe is required by law.

“A 2017 state law mandates the Utilities Commission conduct its own solar net metering cost-benefit analysis,” said Jim Warren, the executive director of NC WARN, in a note to reporters before the oral arguments. “The commission flouted the law, choosing instead to lean on Duke Energy’s deeply flawed and one-sided calculations.”

The reasoning rests in part on an Energy News Network article that quotes one of the 2017 law’s authors, John Szoka, a Fayetteville Republican who served in the state House of Representatives for a decade. The story describes Szoka as “adamant” that the commission should conduct the study. 

“It’s not up to the utility to determine whether net metering is good or bad,” Szoka told the Energy News Network at the time. “We know what that answer will be. We’re not putting the fox in charge of the hen house here. That is not the intent.”

After quoting the piece in their brief, the plaintiffs write: “Clearly, the General Assembly did not intend for [Duke] to satisfy [the law] by performing an internal study. Indeed, such a study would be akin to ‘the fox in charge of the hen house.’”

Duke and other defenders of the new credits say Szoka’s comments don’t override the “plain meaning” of the language in the law, which says simply that the rates, “shall be nondiscriminatory and established only after an investigation of the costs and benefits of customer-sited generation.” 

“Legislative intent,” lawyers for Duke note dryly in one footnote in a legal filing, “is not derived from news articles from Energy News Network.”

The appellants also claim the commission erred by failing to consider all of the benefits of rooftop solar and by forcing solar owners to migrate to time-variable rates instead of allowing flat rates to stand.

The solution, they say in their brief: “The Court of Appeals should reverse the Commission’s… Order and remand this matter for a Commission-led investigation of the costs and benefits for [net metered] solar.”

A dogged Duke foe, NC WARN and its partners aren’t just trying to prevail on an obscure technical point of process. Examinations of distributed solar in other states have shown a clear trend: when utilities conduct the analyses, the benefits of rooftop solar come in lower than when commissions or independent groups are in charge.

Indeed, both Duke and Public Staff, the state-sanctioned customer advocate which sided against the appeal, maintained in court Wednesday that rooftop solar unfairly burdens non-solar customers and the company itself, a point few clean energy advocates or solar industry representatives concede.

Duke also isn’t alone among investor-owned utilities in its years-long quest to lower the one-to-one net metering credit rooftop solar owners have long enjoyed. After all, the fewer electrons the company sells at a markup, the lower its profits.

But Duke has also found compromise with at least some of its critics in ways many of its peers have not, helping to explain why it was groups like NC WARN —  and not the rooftop industry itself — that appeared formally in court on Wednesday.

The crux of the grand bargain is a move toward “time of use” rates, in which diligent solar owners can conceivably squeeze out the same benefits they enjoyed under the old rates, so long as they time their energy use to account for peak demand hours. 

A “bridge rate,” negotiated by long-time installers Southern Energy Management, Sundance Power Systems, and Yes Solar will be available for new customers until 2027, and many in the industry say it’s preferred for its simplicity and its relative low risk.

A final piece of the deal was greenlit last month: financial incentives for home batteries paired with rooftop solar, part of a pilot program to be rolled out in May called PowerPair.

While many veteran installers acknowledged fewer customer inquiries last year after the new rates took effect, they also suggested the harder-to-negotiate terms could weed out “bad actors” in the industry. 

And all say they’re focused long term on maximizing their key business advantage: Fossil fuels are becoming more expensive, while the materials designed to harness and store forever-free sunlight are getting cheaper.

Still, Bryce Bruncati, director of residential sales at 8M Solar and one of the industry’s most outspoken critics of the time-of-use rates, hopes the lawsuit argued today will lay the groundwork for a better long-term solution for installers.

“We’ve got these interim patches,” he told Energy News Network, referring to the bridge rate and the Power Pair program. “But starting in 2027, we’re going to see this massive contraction of the solar industry —  and fewer people going solar in general — if we don’t do something.”

There’s no firm deadline for the judges who heard Wednesday’s argument to issue a decision, but many observers were expecting an outcome within 90 days.

“}]] 

The post North Carolina court hears challenge to Duke Energy’s reduced credits for rooftop solar appeared first on Energy News Beat.

 

North Carolina court hears challenge to Duke Energy’s reduced credits for rooftop solar

Energy News Beat

​[[{“value”:”

The debate over rooftop solar in North Carolina entered the courtroom on Wednesday, when a three-judge Court of Appeals panel heard a challenge to Duke Energy’s reduced payments for home solar arrays.

“We are here this morning because a terrible injury has been inflicted on the rooftop solar industry in our state,” said Matthew Quinn, the lawyer for seven climate justice groups appealing the rates approved last year by the Utilities Commission.

The lowered credits are part of a complicated truce between Duke, some of the state’s oldest rooftop installers, and multiple clean energy groups, all of whom sought to avoid the bruising battles over net metering seen in other states.

But the new payments have undoubtedly tamped interest in homes going solar since they took effect last fall, with one installer reporting residential sales falling by as much as 50%. 

Since the entities who compromised with Duke don’t represent all of those who engaged in the commission’s net metering docket, their agreement should be given “little to no weight,” the challengers, including NC WARN and Environmental Working Group, say in their legal appeal.

What’s more, they argue, the new rates are illegal because they were promulgated after internal Duke studies and stakeholder discussions regarding rooftop solar — not the independent investigation they believe is required by law.

“A 2017 state law mandates the Utilities Commission conduct its own solar net metering cost-benefit analysis,” said Jim Warren, the executive director of NC WARN, in a note to reporters before the oral arguments. “The commission flouted the law, choosing instead to lean on Duke Energy’s deeply flawed and one-sided calculations.”

The reasoning rests in part on an Energy News Network article that quotes one of the 2017 law’s authors, John Szoka, a Fayetteville Republican who served in the state House of Representatives for a decade. The story describes Szoka as “adamant” that the commission should conduct the study. 

“It’s not up to the utility to determine whether net metering is good or bad,” Szoka told the Energy News Network at the time. “We know what that answer will be. We’re not putting the fox in charge of the hen house here. That is not the intent.”

After quoting the piece in their brief, the plaintiffs write: “Clearly, the General Assembly did not intend for [Duke] to satisfy [the law] by performing an internal study. Indeed, such a study would be akin to ‘the fox in charge of the hen house.’”

Duke and other defenders of the new credits say Szoka’s comments don’t override the “plain meaning” of the language in the law, which says simply that the rates, “shall be nondiscriminatory and established only after an investigation of the costs and benefits of customer-sited generation.” 

“Legislative intent,” lawyers for Duke note dryly in one footnote in a legal filing, “is not derived from news articles from Energy News Network.”

The appellants also claim the commission erred by failing to consider all of the benefits of rooftop solar and by forcing solar owners to migrate to time-variable rates instead of allowing flat rates to stand.

The solution, they say in their brief: “The Court of Appeals should reverse the Commission’s… Order and remand this matter for a Commission-led investigation of the costs and benefits for [net metered] solar.”

A dogged Duke foe, NC WARN and its partners aren’t just trying to prevail on an obscure technical point of process. Examinations of distributed solar in other states have shown a clear trend: when utilities conduct the analyses, the benefits of rooftop solar come in lower than when commissions or independent groups are in charge.

Indeed, both Duke and Public Staff, the state-sanctioned customer advocate which sided against the appeal, maintained in court Wednesday that rooftop solar unfairly burdens non-solar customers and the company itself, a point few clean energy advocates or solar industry representatives concede.

Duke also isn’t alone among investor-owned utilities in its years-long quest to lower the one-to-one net metering credit rooftop solar owners have long enjoyed. After all, the fewer electrons the company sells at a markup, the lower its profits.

But Duke has also found compromise with at least some of its critics in ways many of its peers have not, helping to explain why it was groups like NC WARN —  and not the rooftop industry itself — that appeared formally in court on Wednesday.

The crux of the grand bargain is a move toward “time of use” rates, in which diligent solar owners can conceivably squeeze out the same benefits they enjoyed under the old rates, so long as they time their energy use to account for peak demand hours. 

A “bridge rate,” negotiated by long-time installers Southern Energy Management, Sundance Power Systems, and Yes Solar will be available for new customers until 2027, and many in the industry say it’s preferred for its simplicity and its relative low risk.

A final piece of the deal was greenlit last month: financial incentives for home batteries paired with rooftop solar, part of a pilot program to be rolled out in May called PowerPair.

While many veteran installers acknowledged fewer customer inquiries last year after the new rates took effect, they also suggested the harder-to-negotiate terms could weed out “bad actors” in the industry. 

And all say they’re focused long term on maximizing their key business advantage: Fossil fuels are becoming more expensive, while the materials designed to harness and store forever-free sunlight are getting cheaper.

Still, Bryce Bruncati, director of residential sales at 8M Solar and one of the industry’s most outspoken critics of the time-of-use rates, hopes the lawsuit argued today will lay the groundwork for a better long-term solution for installers.

“We’ve got these interim patches,” he told Energy News Network, referring to the bridge rate and the Power Pair program. “But starting in 2027, we’re going to see this massive contraction of the solar industry —  and fewer people going solar in general — if we don’t do something.”

There’s no firm deadline for the judges who heard Wednesday’s argument to issue a decision, but many observers were expecting an outcome within 90 days.

“}]] 

The post North Carolina court hears challenge to Duke Energy’s reduced credits for rooftop solar appeared first on Energy News Beat.

 

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