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TRUMP ADMINISTRATION SEES ENERGY STORAGE AS A NATIONAL SECURITY TOOL: The Trump administration is pushing energy storage technology not just for boosting renewable energy, but also for protecting national security because of its ability to provide backup power enabling the grid to recover faster after power outages.
“It’s more strategic than that [being just about renewables],” Bruce Walker, the Energy Department’s assistant secretary for the Office of Electricity, told Josh. “Not only do you get the benefit of further integrating renewables, but we get to add resiliency into the electric grid in a way that is much more durable during hazards whether it’s hurricanes or tornadoes, and additionally it has the benefit from cyber and physical threats against the nation to provide a layer of resiliency into the system for survivability.”
Josh spoke with Walker on the sidelines of the Edison Electric Institute’s annual convention in Philadelphia.
What else storage can do: While clean energy advocates tout storage as key to meeting 100% clean electricity goals to allow for more use of wind and solar, the Trump administration, eager to invoke invoke national security whenever it can, is speaking about storage for its other attributes.
For example, Walker said, storage benefits the entire grid by balancing supply and demand instantaneously, lowering costs for consumers by helping to avoid problems during “peak demand.” When demand is greater than supply, storage can discharge the stored energy to the grid quickly.
“We don’t put a number on penetration of green and renewable energy,” Walker said. “You’ve heard the secretary [Rick Perry] reference storage as the ‘holy grail,’ and we believe that. It’s about having storage capability during times of emergency, during times of crisis, even during normal course of business when you are running peak load. It’s really just to provide another tool in the toolbox that improves our capacity as an industry to operate during blue sky days and black sky days.”
DOE budget guns for storage: The Trump administration cites proof of its passion for storage with its recent fiscal 2020 budget request that contains surprising provisions to advance new storage technologies, despite proposals to dial back funding for renewable and energy efficiency programs.
The Energy Department’s budget proposal calls for creating an “Advanced Energy Storage Initiative (AESI),” a coordinated effort to spend research, development, and demonstration dollars on “grid-scale” long-duration storage that can carry large amounts of excess energy for months at a time.
Utilities across the country are deploying lithium ion batteries to meet some storage needs, but that technology has limitations because most have limited durations, requiring the development of other storage types that have not been commercialized yet.
The new initiative, if funded by Congress, would focus on advancing different types of technologies. But it also contains a “launchpad” grid-scale storage partnership to be hosted at the Pacific Northwest National Lab that would be focused on testing and developing battery technologies for grid-scale use.
Last year, the Energy Department announced a $30 million funding research program to develop battery storage systems that can provide power to the grid for up to 100 hours.
Congress likes storage too: The Energy Department’s efforts jibe with a recent bipartisan bill introduced by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, directing the agency to establish a research, development, and demonstration program for grid-scale energy storage.
There are other bipartisan initiatives in Congress to help energy storage, including bills in the House and Senate to make storage eligible for the investment tax credit — incentives that have helped lower the cost of wind and solar.
Walker would not weigh in on specific bills proposed in Congress, but he said he’s confident Congress will agree to fund the Energy Department’s storage initiative because of a shared interest in protecting national security.
“The importance our grid plays in our national economy and national security, I don’t think it’s a partisan issue at all,” Walker said. “It’s about really ensuring the lifeblood of this country — the electric grid — is available during times of crisis, as well as during peak demand.”
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TOP DHS INFRASTRUCTURE SECURITY OFFICIAL WARNS: ‘WE WILL BE ATTACKED:’ A top official at the Department of Homeland Security focused on protecting critical infrastructure says concerns about grid security are justified.
Brian Harrell, DHS’ assistant secretary for infrastructure protection, told Josh in an interview at the EEI conference that although the grid is “not necessarily vulnerable,” he is on guard against attacks from countries like China and Russia, as well as domestic lone-wolf attacks.
The Trump administration last year for the first time publicly accused Russia of targeting the U.S. power grid with cyberattacks.
“What is crystal clear to me is: At some point we will be attacked,” Harrell said. “Whether it’s from a nation state or criminal element within the country. So when it does it happen, do we have the ability to get back on our feet relatively quick? Have we put investment and resilience at the forefront of the conversation to where we don’t have those single types of failure so we can come back to normalcy relatively quickly?”
How government helps: Harrell helps lead DHS’ newly renamed U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which he said is charged with providing expertise and sharing information to critical infrastructure operators in the private sector on identifying and protecting against risks.
“We fancy ourselves as the nation’s risk advisers,” he said.
Industry gets passing grade: Harrell said he’s impressed with the utility industry’s voluntary efforts to make “the right capital investments” to protect itself, without mandatory regulations forcing them to.
“This industry is in the business of keeping the lights on,” he said. “Their business model is to ensure there is reliably electricity every day, so it is in their best interest to have security in place and have redundancy and resilience built into their system.”
There’s that other risk: However, Harrell warned against discounting the threats of extreme weather to critical infrastructure, although he would not say if climate change has heightened that risk.
“We also have to realize there is a real threat off the coast every single year with hurricanes and being able to respond to those,” he said. “We should be mindful that cybersecurity is critically important and so is physical security as well, and I don’t want to lose sight of that.”
GOP POLLSTER FRANK LUNTZ WARNS REPUBLICANS RISK LOSING YOUNG VOTERS OVER CLIMATE CHANGE: GOP consultant Frank Luntz is warning Republicans that climate change is a political vulnerability with Republican voters under 40.
A memo being distributed to all Republican congressional offices Wednesday details results of a recent survey Luntz’s firm conducted about a carbon tax plan proposed by the Climate Leadership Council, a Republican-backed group. Almost all Republicans in Congress oppose carbon pricing.
Luntz’s memo, obtained by Josh, says, “Climate Change is a GOP VULNERABILITY and a GOP OPPORTUNITY.”
PERRY OVERSEES NEW NATURAL GAS DEAL, NUCLEAR AGREEMENT WITH POLAND: Rick Perry presided Wednesday over a deal with Poland to more than double annual U.S. liquefied natural gas exports to the European country by 2023.
The White House ceremony for the signing of the agreement between Poland and Virginia-based Venture Global LNG began a day-long series of meetings between the Trump administration and the Polish government.
Polish officials told John at the White House event that the deal will mean a total of 7 million tons of LNG will be flowing annually from the U.S. to Poland by 2023, with half of that total coming from Venture Global. The country is looking to completely eliminate its dependence on Russian imports within that time frame, which fits into Trump’s “energy dominance” agenda.
Venture Global officials said the deal is worth tens of billions of dollars over the life of the 20-year agreement. The company had previously secured a deal to ship 1 million tons of LNG to Poland annually from one of its export facilities. Wednesday’s deal signing adds another 1.5 million tons per year, more than double the initial commitment.
By the time the shipments arrive in four years, the total supply from all the company’s terminals will total 3.5 million tons per year, a Polish statement read.
Perry said the deal secures a “mutually beneficial” relationship between the two countries.
He said 35 countries are now the recipients of U.S. natural gas. Perry will be traveling to the Gulf Coast on Friday with Polish President Andrzej Duda to tour the Cheniere Energy LNG facility at Sabine Pass. Polish officials say the first shipment from Sabine Pass is expected to arrive in Poland by mid-July.
New agreement on nuclear energy: The LNG deal was followed by the signing of an agreement between the two countries to increase cooperation on building nuclear power plants, while underscoring the work the two countries are doing to defend against cyberattacks targeting the grid. The U.S.-Poland nuclear memorandum of understanding will be released later on Wednesday.
Read more on Perry’s plans for nuclear cooperation with Poland in this week’s Washington Examiner magazine.
PERRY SAYS HE HAS NO LEGAL AUTHORITY TO SUBSIDIZE COAL: Perry said Tuesday the Trump administration does not have the legal authority to subsidize uneconomic coal and nuclear plants, his firmest comment to-date putting the kibosh on the long-debated idea.
“I don’t think the DOE has any regulatory or statutory ability to do that,” Perry told reporters at the EEI conference, according to reporting by Politico. “FERC would be where I would direct your attention.”
Perry had been looking at whether he could take executive action invoking national security law to help coal and nuclear, after FERC last year rejected providing special payments to plants based on how much fuel they could store on-site.
In testimony before Congress Wednesday, FERC Chairman Neil Chatterjee, a Republican, assured the commission has no plans “to put our thumb on the scale for one fuel source or the other.”
UTILITIES HAVE NO INTEREST IN REVIVING COAL PLANTS: The leaders of large utilities Dominion and Exelon are reiterating that they’re not interested in reviving coal even though the Trump administration has tried to help the industry.
Dominion CEO Thomas Farrell and Exelon CEO Chris Crane told Josh in separate interviews at the EEI conference that EPA’s effort to encourage efficiency upgrades at coal plants would not inspire them to alter plans to transition to cleaner energy.
“We are on our path,” Farrell said. “We are going to stay on our path.” Coal has fallen from 55% of power produced by Dominion to 11%, he said, helping the company stay on track for its goal of reducing emissions 50% by 2030 and 80% by 2050. Dominion still has four operating coal units, he said, which he called “highly efficient and highly controlled.”
The company in March announced the closure of two coal-burning units at the Chesterfield Power Station, the largest coal plant in Virginia, as well as the Mecklenburg Power Station and the Yorktown Power Station.
It’s a similar story for Exelon: Crane told Josh that it’s been seven or eight years since Exelon, the largest U.S. nuclear plant operator, operated a large coal plant, and he does not foresee a path for coal to reach financial viability, no matter what EPA does.
EPA’s final replacement of the Obama-era Clean Power Plan — due this month — is expected to encourage states to allow utilities to make heat rate improvements in power plants, enabling them to run more efficiently by burning less coal to produce the same amount of electricity.
“We are out [on coal],” Crane said. “The [wholesale power] markets are not awarding for new assets to come in, surely not for coal.”
EIA PROJECTS COAL CONSUMPTION TO CONTINUE TO DROP: The Energy Information Administration projected Tuesday that U.S. coal consumption will continue its decline into 2020 after reaching a 39-year low in 2018.
EIA forecasted in its short-term energy outlook that U.S. coal consumption will fall from 687 million metric tons last year to 602 million metric tons in 2019 and to 567 million metric tons in 2020. EIA attributes the fall to lower demand for coal in the power sector.
The agency also projects that U.S. carbon emissions across all energy sectors will decline by 2.0% in 2019 and by 0.9% in 2020 after rising last year by nearly 3%. That’s assuming temperatures are less extreme, and natural gas and renewables continue to replace coal in the power sector.
TWO COAL UNITS TO RETIRE EARLY IN MONTANA: Independent power producer Talen Energy announced Tuesday it plans to prematurely retire two units at one of the largest coal plants in the West, the Montana Colstrip plant.
Talen plans to close the coal units by the end of the year due to “financial challenges”, after previously planning to keep them operating them until mid-2022.
“We have been unsuccessful in making the units economically viable,” Dale Lebsack, Talen Montana president, said in a press release.
TRUMP UPS ATTACK ON BIDEN BY GOING AFTER ETHANOL RECORD IN IOWA: Trump accused Joe Biden Tuesday in Iowa of restricting the sale of corn ethanol during his time as vice president, saying that he harmed farmers and made the nation less energy secure.
“Americans may never again be held hostage to foreign suppliers of energy as we were under the Obama-Biden — ‘Sleepy Joe’ — group,” Trump said.
Trump was in Iowa to tout the Environmental Protection Agency’s May 31 action to remove restrictions on the sale of 15% ethanol blends put in place under the previous president, allowing the fuel to be blended all year.
Biden has been struggling to overcome the Obama administration’s shaky relationship with ethanol in trying to gain favor in Iowa. Although the administration did support a market for ethanol in its first term, it later gave into the oil lobby in cutting the amount of ethanol refiners are required by law to blend each year.
The Rundown
New York Times Climate change poses major risks to financial markets, regulator warns
Washington Post Schiff demands intelligence agencies provide documents on White House’s suppression of climate testimony
Reuters Iran to ask Japan’s Abe to mediate over US oil sanctions
Bloomberg OPEC still gridlocked on meeting date amid Iran-Saudi schism
BBC UK government to commit to 2050 climate change target
Calendar
THURSDAY | June 13
10:00 a.m., 2322 Rayburn. The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Environment and Climate Change will hold a legislative hearing entitled, “Cleaning Up Communities: Ensuring Safe Storage and Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel.”
10 a.m., 366 Dirksen. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee holds a hearing to examine the outlook for wildland fire and management programs for 2019.
