A court battle over whether to build a natural gas pipeline in north-central Pennsylvania could have wider effects on gas industry regulation, attorneys for both sides said.
Central New York Oil and Gas wants to build the 39-mile MARC1 pipeline to connect three interstate pipelines carrying gas from the Gulf Coast, and to take locally produced gas to Northeastern markets. Keep reading →
The best way to get $6 natural gas is to have everyone plan on $3 gas.
That was a sentiment heard repeatedly last week, during the winter meeting of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) and the Department of Energy’s National Electricity Forum in Washington, DC earlier this month. Keep reading →
New England’s policies supporting building increased renewable generation is underpinning pressure to invest in new transmission infrastructure in the region, with advocates for new power lines saying the projects will boost employment and alleviate existing high regional electricity costs.
Each of the six states in the New England region has “some form” of renewable energy portfolio standard, the organizers of the New England Clean Energy Transmission Summit held this week in Boston, said. Those state policies align with federal policies that enable strategic planning and cost-allocation of new transmission ensuring renewable generation access to power markets. Keep reading →
Efforts to build new transmission and expand natural gas production in the US have been a qualified success because of “studious” efforts to craft the right price signals and break down traditional monopolies on power generation and sales, a former state and federal energy commissioner says.
There has been more transmission built “in the last ten years than in the previous ten,” former Federal Energy Regulatory Commissioner Marc Spitzer told Breaking Energy in a recent discussion about his priorities as he reenters the private sector. Spitzer is currently a partner in the Electric Power Group at law firm Steptoe & Johnson, following his original indication he would leave FERC last summer and a final voluntary departure from the Commission in mid-December. Keep reading →
FERC, NARUC Launch Forum on Reliability, Environment http://naruc.org/?pr=291 NARUC
Innovations in electricity storage are needed if the US is to take advantage of clean energy resources, and two Senators have proposed an investment tax credit to accelerate storage solutions.
Senators Jeff Bingaman (Democrat for New Mexico) and Ron Wyden (Democrat for Oregon), the two ranking Democrats on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, told an Energy Storage Association forum they are sponsoring a bill, S.1845, with Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins, for a storage investment tax credit (ITC). It would be similar to credits now available for solar installations. Keep reading →
Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz had it right about Kansas when she said, “There’s no place like home.”
As we saw during the Heartland Transmission Conference in Hutchinson recently, there’s no place like Kansas for high-voltage transmission. That’s because Kansas realized early on the benefits of developing its wind energy potential; it understood that new transmission will be critical to moving wind energy to market; and it figured out how to get it done. Keep reading →
The battleground between federal and state regulators over energy and environmental policy has moved into the arena of mergers and acquisitions, sharpening pain for the industry as it seeks to extend consolidation and wring efficiency out of existing power plants and transmission assets.
Regulators at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and various state level agencies are charged with reviewing large transactions among regional power companies to guarantee a variety of standards are met. The federal agency’s ruling on the issue is usually questioned over price and fairness of access, not environmental standards. Keep reading →
