Federal

At the start of July, the Department of Energy opened its application window for distributing $2.3 billion of federal funding to support resilience efforts under the Formula Grant Program. The department will accept applications annually and make $459 million available each year from 2022 to 2026. Recipients must use the funding on initiatives to prevent outages and improve grid resilience. The 2022 deadline for receiving applications closed on September 30. This represents only one part of the investment package made available under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), with further funding available for enhancing grid resilience and for reliability and resilience research.

In addition, Congress passed further legislation in August that provides expenditure on clean energy and climate change. The Inflation Reduction Act represents the largest investment in climate change in U.S. history, with $370 billion committed through a range of components that include clean-energy and manufacturing tax credits, provisions to support electrified transportation, and loans and grants for developing transmission infrastructure.

In July, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation published its 2022 State of Reliability Report, which provides a full overview of 2021 Bulk Electricity System reliability performance. Among the key conclusions was that severe weather events presented ongoing grid-resilience challenges. In 2021, the number of days identified as “extreme transmission days” rose to 17 from 14 in 2020.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration published a report in September that identified renewables as the fastest-growing electricity generation source. The Electric Power Monthly report showed 24% of U.S. electricity generation sources came from renewables in the first half of 2022. This reflected both a record amount of new solar capacity installed in 2021 and a 10% rise in wind capacity between June 2021 and June 2022.

California

Illinois

ComEd has submitted its “Beneficial Electrification Plan” to the Illinois Commerce Commission. The plan supports the adoption of beneficial electrification technologies, including the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs), the deployment of charging infrastructure, and other electrification technologies. ComEd is proposing to commit $100 million annually over the next three years.

Massachusetts

Michigan

Minnesota

Ohio

Texas

Virginia

Wisconsin

OEB published performance scorecards for 2021

The Ontario Energy Board (OEB) has published scorecards detailing performance information for each of Ontario’s electricity utilities. Besides updated information for 2021, the scorecards provide details of performance over a five-year period for a range of specific measures covering customer focus, operational effectiveness, public policy, and financial performance.

Among the key points to note from 2021 are that the vast majority of utilities met service-quality targets for the year, and all met customer-satisfaction targets. Regarding system reliability, most utilities experienced improvement in both the frequency and duration of interruptions, although approximately 20 of the 58 utilities experienced a decline in both components of interruptions performance since 2020.

More detailed reports for each utility also were published, providing further context for each company’s individual performance.

OEB Framework for Energy Innovation Working Group – In its work on developing the Framework for Energy Innovation, the OEB is seeking to increase regulatory clarity on the treatment of innovative energy-service technologies and support the deployment of novel, cost-effective utility solutions. Its working group has made several recommendations for the OEB, including that it should:

• Provide guidance on the changing role of local distribution companies and its expectations of them, including their relationships with DER providers and customers and the planning and operation of their systems
• Establish an initial framework and common template for benefit-cost analyses
• Remove DER disincentives, including cost-recovery uncertainties
• Establish an initial DER incentives policy that includes testing incentive structures to determine their impacts
• Establish an initial policy for the sharing information among distribution utilities, DER providers, and customers to support distribution planning and operations

British energy regulator announces innovation funding awards

Ofgem has published its decision to award £8 million to support 18 innovation projects. The funding provided as part of Ofgem’s Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF) will support a range of projects covering whole system integration, digitalization, zero-emissions transport projects, and the electrification of heat.

Ofgem’s announcement is the first of a series of innovation funding decisions expected during the present regulatory period (RIIO-2). The five-year SIF program has made up to £450 million available for projects aimed at supporting the energy transition and helping to meet the UK’s net-zero targets. The next funding phase will open for applications in November 2022.

Responses to Ofgem’s Draft Determinations for RIIO-ED2 – The British electricity distribution utilities and other interested stakeholders have submitted their responses to Ofgem’s draft determination for the RIIO-ED2 performance-based 2023 to 2028 price controls for electricity distribution. Various issues have been raised, including concerns Ofgem has adopted the least ambitious of the forecast scenarios still consistent with achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 and has not placed enough weight on environmental issues.

The utilities have also raised issues concerning the scale of Ofgem’s reduction of proposed investment and the approach used for comparative cost assessment. Consumer advocacy Citizens Advice has raised concerns Ofgem’s proposed returns for the distribution utilities are too high and that incentives are not challenging enough. It also has recommended additional work be undertaken to understand the consumer detriment from momentary interruptions.

Regulator introduces new information- disclosure requirements for distribution utilities

The Commerce Commission, New Zealand’s competition, consumer, and regulatory agency, published draft decisions on the information 29 electricity distribution businesses will be required to disclose to the public.

The commission divided the review into two parts. Part 1 involves a number of areas identified as “priority issues,” many of which were linked to changes required to prepare for decarbonization. These included enhanced interruption reporting, qualitative information on both power quality and asset management practices, and reporting on the location and capacity of installed DER. In these areas, revised reporting takes effect in April 2023. Part 2 is not required to kick off until later in 2023.