Notes from the DoubleTree Hilton, the Second New England Winter Gas-Electric Forum, June 20, 2023; live from Portland, Maine
Just before noon, there is another mild kerfuffle between former allies. The Rhode Island Public Utility Commissioner says he is very worried that without the Everett Marine Facility (or EMF to all the folks in the room who want to sound like they are with it. Giving initials to the names of complex facilities seems a bit stuffy, but the panels at the FERC meeting are packed with people who also use initials for concepts as well. It is like saying the Theory of Gravity is TOG. Perhaps everyone on the panels is a bit wobbly on self-image today and needs to impress their colleagues by spouting initials.) Anyway, without the EMF there will be times when there is dangerously low-pressure in the natural gas pipelines.
What? Everyone rants about how solar and wind are not reliable, but the more you listen at these meetings, the more you wonder about natural gas. The pipelines leak, the pipelines lose pressure, the pipelines can’t always get gas from the mid-west, the pipes at the power plants break in cold weather, the valves at the power plants break in cold weather – yeesh.
Putting my concerns aside, something else pops up. The guy who led creation of the new measuring tool and who ran the study saying solar and wind power are covering for gaps in winter natural gas supply, is Vamsi Chadalavada, Chief Operating Officer at ISO-NE. He says that reports that gas companies submit to the states don’t mention anything about there being possible problems with low-pressure. He seems peeved. He says that ISO looked at gas company reports when it did the study, and the gas companies are not being honest with the states! Oops, incoming.
I notice that in these exchanges, the guy from Embridge always mentions “turning out the lights” when he talks. Clearly, he has used this line to win arguments in the past. Not surprisingly, he always mentions how gas plants will keep the lights on.
Commissioner Danley (Republican) finishes his question time by summarizing, “we need unpopular but necessary investments.” (That is, more pipelines.) On the other hand, I notice that the terms “demand-response” and “winter reliability” are getting mentioned in the same sentence at this FERC meeting. Last September, no one at the FERC meeting in Burlington, VT uttered the words “demand-response.” One of the little things that shows we just may be having an impact on this debate.
At last Donald Kreis, the official Consumer Advocate for New Hampshire ratepayers, gets to comment. He introduces himself as the “token” rate payer advocate invited to the panels and points out that NEPOOL (the governing body for ISO-NE) is controlled by the gas industry and NEPOOL is the power inside ISO-NE. He believes NEPOOL promotes “amorphous worries” about “reliability” to justify extra money being spent on reliability “gizmos.” He hails the new ISO study because it is a true risk analysis using data which shows that the risk of winter blackouts is actually very low. He hopes this means we “stop paying for the same thing twice.”
Meanwhile, I finally figured out that PFP means Pay for Performance, even the charts on the TV screen say PFP, but it isn’t a place or an organization, it’s a concept. Really? The initials of a concept as the heading on a chart? Mental osteoporosis in this industry.
In his final comments, Donald Kreis says that there ought to be more public input on the panels FERC picks because “ratepayers are the only wallet in the room.” Wow.
June Tierney, a Commissioner in the Vermont Dept. of Public Service comes out swinging at the end. She thinks “do you not get it?” Every time someone in the room talks about using more gas. A lot of people in the region think “we can’t burn fossil fuels anymore.” As a result, she believes, the public doesn’t trust FERC or ISO-NE. The Commissioner pushes for more data and analysis that allow ISO and FERC to make decisions based on information and make decisions that solve problems as we go through the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy.
At the event, there were also a bunch of men in black suits giving presentations that were sort of “blah, blah, jargon, blah, blah, jargon” but let’s end here, with the words of June Tierney and a note of optimism for the work we have before us.
The Tug of War Between Renewables and Gas, continued…
Notes from the DoubleTree Hilton, the Second New England Winter Gas-Electric Forum, June 20, 2023; live from Portland, Maine
Just before noon, there is another mild kerfuffle between former allies. The Rhode Island Public Utility Commissioner says he is very worried that without the Everett Marine Facility (or EMF to all the folks in the room who want to sound like they are with it. Giving initials to the names of complex facilities seems a bit stuffy, but the panels at the FERC meeting are packed with people who also use initials for concepts as well. It is like saying the Theory of Gravity is TOG. Perhaps everyone on the panels is a bit wobbly on self-image today and needs to impress their colleagues by spouting initials.) Anyway, without the EMF there will be times when there is dangerously low-pressure in the natural gas pipelines.
What? Everyone rants about how solar and wind are not reliable, but the more you listen at these meetings, the more you wonder about natural gas. The pipelines leak, the pipelines lose pressure, the pipelines can’t always get gas from the mid-west, the pipes at the power plants break in cold weather, the valves at the power plants break in cold weather – yeesh.
Putting my concerns aside, something else pops up. The guy who led creation of the new measuring tool and who ran the study saying solar and wind power are covering for gaps in winter natural gas supply, is Vamsi Chadalavada, Chief Operating Officer at ISO-NE. He says that reports that gas companies submit to the states don’t mention anything about there being possible problems with low-pressure. He seems peeved. He says that ISO looked at gas company reports when it did the study, and the gas companies are not being honest with the states! Oops, incoming.
I notice that in these exchanges, the guy from Embridge always mentions “turning out the lights” when he talks. Clearly, he has used this line to win arguments in the past. Not surprisingly, he always mentions how gas plants will keep the lights on.
Commissioner Danley (Republican) finishes his question time by summarizing, “we need unpopular but necessary investments.” (That is, more pipelines.) On the other hand, I notice that the terms “demand-response” and “winter reliability” are getting mentioned in the same sentence at this FERC meeting. Last September, no one at the FERC meeting in Burlington, VT uttered the words “demand-response.” One of the little things that shows we just may be having an impact on this debate.
At last Donald Kreis, the official Consumer Advocate for New Hampshire ratepayers, gets to comment. He introduces himself as the “token” rate payer advocate invited to the panels and points out that NEPOOL (the governing body for ISO-NE) is controlled by the gas industry and NEPOOL is the power inside ISO-NE. He believes NEPOOL promotes “amorphous worries” about “reliability” to justify extra money being spent on reliability “gizmos.” He hails the new ISO study because it is a true risk analysis using data which shows that the risk of winter blackouts is actually very low. He hopes this means we “stop paying for the same thing twice.”
Meanwhile, I finally figured out that PFP means Pay for Performance, even the charts on the TV screen say PFP, but it isn’t a place or an organization, it’s a concept. Really? The initials of a concept as the heading on a chart? Mental osteoporosis in this industry.
In his final comments, Donald Kreis says that there ought to be more public input on the panels FERC picks because “ratepayers are the only wallet in the room.” Wow.
June Tierney, a Commissioner in the Vermont Dept. of Public Service comes out swinging at the end. She thinks “do you not get it?” Every time someone in the room talks about using more gas. A lot of people in the region think “we can’t burn fossil fuels anymore.” As a result, she believes, the public doesn’t trust FERC or ISO-NE. The Commissioner pushes for more data and analysis that allow ISO and FERC to make decisions based on information and make decisions that solve problems as we go through the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy.
At the event, there were also a bunch of men in black suits giving presentations that were sort of “blah, blah, jargon, blah, blah, jargon” but let’s end here, with the words of June Tierney and a note of optimism for the work we have before us.