"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you,
then they fight you, then you win."
-- Mohandas Gandhi
WV Legislature Conducting Its Own Investigation into FirstEnergy’s “Deceptive Practices”
The WV Legislature appears to be fed up with the lenient WV PSC. Legislators will be conducting their own investigation into what Sen. John Unger called FirstEnergy’s “deceptive practices” in WV.
If you are a customer of FirstEnergy’s two WV utilities Mon Power or Potomac Edison, you might want to contact Sen. Herb Snyder, chairman of the Joint Standing Committee on Government Organization, and tell him your electric bill horror story. The Committee will meet monthly throughout the year. You may want to ask Sen. Snyder if the public will be allowed to testify at a committee meeting in the coming months.
The disruption of centralized power companies and grid technologies is now the hot topic among power company executives. The larges industry organization in the US has issued a report warning of the impacts of this disruption.
The most recent issue of Fortnightly Magazine, an industry publication, has a lead article titled “Utility CEOs Face Disruptive Trends.” The article consists of interviews with power company CEOs, including AEP’s Nick Akins. Fortnightly is subscription only, but the article’s initial paragraphs are available for free at the link above. Here is how Mr. Akins starts off:
For our company and the industry in general, there are some major challenges. One is obviously how we deal with capital deployment, particularly given the denominator of kilowatt-hours of sales that are stagnant or maybe even decreasing in the future. That drives us to focus on optimizing [our operations], versus determining where the next central generating station will get built.
Big growth in residential solar demand, bucking broader market volatility and seasonal trends, set the pace for yet another record quarterly performance for U.S. solar installations during the first three months of 2013, according to just-released analysis from the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and GTM Research.
U.S. solar energy installations totaled 723 megawatts (MW) from January through March, a 33 percent increase from a year ago and the solar sector’s best-ever first-quarter performance. That’s a big dropoff from the whopping 1300 MW of installed PV in the fourth quarter of 2012, but it’s typical for this sector to see a late-year boom and subsequent early-year pause. (Similarly, a year ago U.S. solar installations surged in the final quarter of 2011 and then fell back in 1Q12.) The nation now exceeds 8.5 GW of cumulative installed solar electric capacity, of which 7.9 GW is PV. Solar nearly made up half (48 percent) of all new electric capacity installed in the U.S in 1Q13.
In other words, former electricity consumers are voting with their feet, leaving the grip of stagnating power companies to produce their own electricity.
Stop thinking like a consumer, start thinking like a disrupter, more and more Americans are.
New Expose of Salazar S-R Shakedown
You haven’t seen much coverage recently of the continuing story of the Susquehanna-Roseland line in PA and NJ here at The Power Line. Keryn just dug up an interesting story in the New Jersey Herald about how Interior Secretary Ken Salazar shook down transmission line owner PSEG to ramrod the S-R project through the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area after the National Park Service advocated that the line be re-routed around the park.
President Obama and Salazar came up with a scheme to ramrod favored projects, including S-R, through federally mandated Environmental Impact Statement processes. Citizens of New Jersey, and all PJM rate payers were in the crosshairs.
Salazar demanded $60 million in fake “mitigation” to make up for driving a new transmission line through the middle of DWGNRA. And we, all the rate payers in PJM, will pay this bribe as well as a 12.9% return on equity guaranteed by FERC for the S-R project. The minutes of the meeting between Salazar and NPS officials revealed in the Herald article show that the Park Service wanted two alternate routes, one of which would have gone through a small remote area of the NRA. Not good enough for Salazar. He wanted PSEG’s preferred route right through the middle of the park.
What power company wouldn’t pay that kind of bribe with someone else’s money?
And New Jersey citizens are fighting for your interests. They have challenged the whole sleazy deal in federal court.
The WV PSC has opened a general investigation into the collapse of the billing system of FirstEnergy subsidiaries Mon Power and Potomac Edison in WV. The case number at the PSC is 13-0830-E-GI. You can see all activity in the case on the PSC Web site by plugging this case number into the blank on this page, and then choosing “Activity” from the resulting case information page. You can also create an account with the PSC and receive email notices of all filings in the case at this page, using the same case number.
In its initial procedural order, the PSC has stated that it is not interested in hearing individual horror stories from rate payers:
The purpose of this general investigation is not to address individual customer bills directly. We recognize that considering the high level of formal and informal filings by individual customers to date, there may be a tendency for individuals to want to address their grievances in this proceeding. Each customer is entitled to specific evaluation of the particulars of individual billing and payment issues and such evaluation is best accomplished through the formal and informal review processes available for individual complaints. Customer-specific, formal and informal matters will continue to be resolved individually. This proceeding will focus on the practices, policies and procedures in place at Mon Power and PE and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses at a structural level.
So the investigation is an investigation of power company practices, not customer complaints. Here is how the PSC will proceed with the investigation:
While the existing formal complaint and informal assistance mechanisms provided by the Commission are better suited to resolving individual billing disputes, the Commission believes that this number of similar complaints may indicate a wider underlying problem that must be identified and resolved. It also demonstrates a need for investigation of the meter reading, billing and customer service practices of FirstEnergy, particularly related to estimated and average billing. Therefore, the Commission will open a general investigation into these practices and will name both Mon Power and PE as respondents. , The Commission believes that the following issues are relevant to this general investigation:
1. Following the acquisition ofMon Power and PE in 2010, what changes, if any, to meter reading and customer billing has FirstEnergy implemented?
2. What data does FirstEnergy use to derive estimated or average bills?
3. To what extent has FirstEnergy reviewed or analyzed each current method of calculating estimated or averaged monthly bills of West Virginia customers after the acquisition of Mon Power and PE?
4. What was the effect of the severe storms in 2012 on how FirstEnergy calculated bills or its meter reading practices?
5. What is the total number of complaints received by First Energy from West Virginia customers about meter reading, estimated bills or average billing. Please provide a breakdown by complaint category.
6. What percentage of FirstEnergy customers in West Virginia had actual company employee meter readings (i) from one to five times per consecutive twelve month period, (ii) six times per consecutive twelve month period, (iii) more than six times per consecutive twelve month period over the last twenty-four consecutive months?
7. Did FirstEnergy maintain and incorporate historical billing data that pre-dated the merger into its calculation of estimated bills or average payment plans?
8. Describe in detail the manpower and equipment currently used to provide meter reading to Mon Power and PE customers and provide the same information for that activity prior to the FirstEnergy acquisition.
9. Describe in detail the manpower and equipment currently used to provide billing and customer service to Mon Power and PE customers and provide the same information for that activity prior to the FirstEnergy acquisition and after the FirstEnergy acquisition.
10. Describe the meter reading scheduling for Mon Power and PE, and describe the alternatives and options that are available to Mon Power and PE to reschedule or otherwise handle unexpected interruptions to normal meter reading schedules such as weather related incidents, unscheduled employee leave, transportation equipment failures or other such disruptive incidents.
11. Does FirstEnergy collect metrics regarding its customer service call center or other customer service contacts with ratepayers for any purpose including internal evaluations, planning and budgeting, or external reporting to other regulatory agencies? Provide a twenty-four month summary of each available customer service metric for all customers and separately for West Virginia customers along with a brief description of each metric.
12. What assistance does FirstEnergy provide to customers that receive large actual bills following a period of estimated bills?
Mon Power and PE will file a written response to the items listed above along with any other information that they deem relevant to the general investigation on or before the close of business on July l, 2013. After Mon Power and PE respond to this Order, Commission Staff will also file a response addressing the points listed above and the responses filed by FirstEnergy. Staff should also note any need for formal discovery as part of its investigation. Staff will file its response within fourteen days of the initial filing from FirstEnergy. After the Commission receives the initial filings from FirstEnergy and Staff, it will formulate a further procedural schedule.
Here is my suggestion to individual customers who want to file public comments. Wait until the FirstEnergy companies and PSC staff file their responses to the Commission’s 12 questions. Look at all the responses and determine from your own experience, and the experience of your neighbors whether you think those responses are accurate and truthful. If you do not believe the answers are adequate, base your public comments on a specific criticism of why you think these responses are not accurate.
In other words, focus on rebutting the companies’ excuses rather than telling your own personal story. The PSC Commissioners will be much more interested in your comments if they fit within the framework of the investigation they have created.
And my hat is off to all the citizens in the Eastern Panhandle who forced the PSC to open this investigation. The PSC didn’t really listen to the little people until you got your legislators mobilized. But you lit a fire under Del. Skinner, and he got the job done.
San Onofre Nuke Plant to Close Permanently
I don’t usually cover the California power system or nuclear generation on The Power Line, but I have been writing a lot about generation capacity lately. We have seen just what a disaster nuclear power generation has been for Japan. It took one earthquake to essentially wipe out nuke generation there.
Southern California Edison has now decided to permanently close its San Onofre plant on the California coast. The plant is only forty years old. Over the years, the plant has been plagued with leaks and breakdowns. Citizens protested it heavily before the plant was built. Turns out, they were right.
Nuclear power is heavily subsidized in the US. US tax payers stand behind power companies in the event of a nuclear plant disaster, limiting the amount of damages power plant owners would have to pay.
But I wanted to write about the capacity issue here.
Power companies tell us that nuclear power is extremely reliable, because once nuke plants are running, it is relatively in expensive (when you factor in all the subsidies) to keep them running. Except nuclear power generation has one terrible problem – it is extremely dangerous. Despite lax regulation for decades, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission must draw the line somewhere, and most nukes, particularly when they pass the age of 30, begin to have problems that even the NRC can’t ignore.
So what happens? A nuke plant is running full bore, until it isn’t. Once a plant is shut down, it leaves a huge whole in regional generating capacity.
Nuke plants are so expensive to build that most of them are very, very big. Individual generating units at big coal burning plants can have a maximum output rating of 700 or 800 MW. The two remaining units at San Onofre are each rated at over 1100 MW. Unit 1 was forced to close in the 1990s.
So when the two units at San Onofre dropped off Southern California’s grid in January 2012, never to restart, that left a hole of over 2200 MW in one of the most energy hungry areas of the US. And it happened all at once. Grid managers had no time to adjust, they way they would to a planned shut down.
This Reuters story from last summer provides a clear illustration of how power companies have tried to confuse the impacts of the San Onofre collapse with expansion of renewable power. Here are different sections of the same article:
CAISO is bracing for the heat wave and struggling to compensate for the loss of the 2,150-megawatt (MW) San Onofre nuclear power plant. That plant will be offline at least through the end of the summer, following a small radiation leak.
And:
The electric alert may serve as a reality check for state leaders and grid officials who are struggling to deal with increasing demands for more carbon-free electricity over the next few years.
California’s plan to dramatically increase reliance on renewable power sources, such as solar and wind, while shutting a number of ocean-side plants that supply power around the clock will challenge power grid operators to keep the lights on.
The electric alert may serve as a reality check for state leaders and grid officials who are struggling to deal with increasing demands for more carbon-free electricity over the next few years.
California’s plan to dramatically increase reliance on renewable power sources, such as solar and wind, while shutting a number of ocean-side plants that supply power around the clock will challenge power grid operators to keep the lights on.
But, of course, California’s plans for expanding renewable power have nothing to do with the shortage of capacity in Southern California. The problem was that power companies and grid developers had bet the operation of the whole system on a technology that could disappear almost overnight, leaving the region dangerously short of capacity.
Renewable power sources can easily meet generation needs of Southern California. That isn’t the problem. The problem is that regulators and power companies made a big mistake relying so heavily on an uncertain and dangerous technology.
The Japanese learned that lesson in a very hard way following the Fukushima disaster, which remains a continuing disaster today. Now it is Southern California’s turn.
The “challenge” to “power grid operators to keep the lights on” is not whether solar and wind power can do the job. The real challenge facing grid operators is how and when they are going to end their dependence on big base load generators and transition their system to a much more reliable and stable system of renewables-based micro grids.
Update:
Here is an excellent account from US EIA about how CA ISO has responded to the hole in CA capacity left by the San Onofre shutdown. Note that the EIA article has not be updated to reflect the final closure decision on the plant.
Note that much of the replacement capacity comes from renewable power sources, including geothermal. Unfortunately, unwise reliance on the concentrated capacity of the San Onofre plant has also required new modifications to the transmission grid to increase transfer capacity and voltage support.
First Offshore Wind Turbine Deployed in US Waters
Researchers from the University of Maine have made history. They are the first people to deploy wind turbines to produce electricity in US territorial waters.
Here’s the story at this link.
Yes, it’s tiny.
But, it is the first, and it is connected to the ISO NE grid.
And, it is a prototype of floating platform turbines that could make offshore wind development much less expensive.
FirstEnergy PR guy Todd Meyers was set to debate the company’s billing chaos with Keryn Newman of the Coalition for Reliable Power when FirstEnergy lawyers pulled the plug. The company wouldn’t let Todd appear on the same radio program as Keryn, because Keryn was too scary.
So Keryn gracefully withdrew. Let’s hope the radio station interviews Keryn separately so she can explain rate payers’ experiences with FirstEnergy’s crazy billing schemes.
