West Virginia electric utilities offer discount for new or expanding businesses

Two electric utilities serving customers in West Virginia have announced a new discounted "incentive rate" to attract new businesses and grow existing businesses.

Appalachian Power Company and Wheeling Power Company announced on February 14, 2019, that they are are offering discounted rates for electric service to new or expanding businesses meeting defined standards. The discount reduces qualifying customers' incremental billing demand by 40% for a 5-year term. The utilities are offering this new rate to new or existing customers who establish at least 500 kilowatts of new demand for electricity and meet criteria including creating at least 10 jobs or investing at least $2.5 million in an expansion in West Virginia.

The announcement follows a January 29, 2019 decision by the Public Service Commission of West Virginia to approve the companies' "Economic Development Rider" tariff proposed by the utilities in a November 28, 2018 filing. According to the Commission, the discounted rate is "experimental in nature" and is limited in size to an aggregate of 250 megawatts for the companies. As approved by the Commission, the rate will impose no incremental rate burden on any of the companies' West Virginia retail customers, and should result in a net contribution to defray the companies' fixed costs.

According to the Commission's order, the discounted rate will not be available in instances where there is "simply a change in ownership of existing customer operations", where operations are merely relocated within the companies' services territories, or where increases in demand result from the resumption of normal operations following abnormal operating conditions. The rate is also unavailable to "business facilities engaged in the retail sale to the average customer of consumer or final goods" due to concerns that adding new customers engaged in competitive retail sales of consumer goods would increase the "likelihood that the new load will displace an existing load with the net result being zero benefits."

The Commission noted the companies' expectation that the rate "will serve as an inducement for economic development in the West Virginia service territories of the Companies" and that "the resulting economic development will be beneficial to the West Virginia retail ratepayers of the Companies and to the economy of West Virginia."

Appalachian Power and Wheeling Power are subsidiaries of American Electric Power. AEP Appalachian Power has 1 million customers in Virginia, West Virginia and Tennessee.

Can challenges or prize competitions solve water supply problems?

How can challenges or prize competitions help society address barriers that may prevent long-term access to low-cost water supplies?

The U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) has published a Request for Information, seeking information from the public to understand the key technical and other barriers that may prevent long-term access to low-cost water supplies that could be best addressed through challenges and prize competitions.

Water is essential for human health, economic growth, and agricultural productivity, and plays significant roles in the U.S. energy sector. The Department of Energy uses the term "energy-water nexus" to describe the interconnected nature of energy and water systems. While the U.S. has generally benefited from access to low-cost water supplies, according to the Energy Department, "new challenges are emerging that, if left unaddressed, could threaten this paradigm" including competing uses and water quality problems.

The Energy Department operates a variety of programs to advance domestic energy policy, including programs focused on research and development and grant funding. But could the Department of Energy be more effective by offering challenges or prize competitions? Unlike traditional R&D funding in which participants are selected up front with funding provided at the beginning in order to pursue a target or goal, challenges and prize competitions typically define a problem and offer a reward to anyone finding a solution.

Challenges and prize competitions have been adopted by the federal government as well as private actors. Since 2010, federal entities have awarded millions of dollars in prize money and other incentives through over 740 challenges and prize competitions, and nonprofits and private companies have launched many more.

In a Request for Information published in the Federal Register on March 19, 2018, the Energy Department identified challenges and prize competitions as "tools and approaches the Federal government and others can use to engage a broad range of stakeholders, including the general public, to develop solutions to difficult problems. Challenges and prize competitions rely on competitive structures to drive innovation among participants and usually offer rewards (financial and/or other) to winners and/or finalists."

Through the request, the Energy Department asks for public feedback on a variety of issues relating to using prizes and challenges to solve problems around the energy-water nexus, including an identification of challenges whose solution would allow for a significant increase in the volume of available water produced from non-traditional sources, significant improvements in industrial and power-sector water efficiency, or reductions in the cost to treat and deliver drinking water and wastewater to consumers without harming water quality.

Responses to the Request for Information are due no later than 5:00 p.m. (ET) on May 14, 2018.

US warns of Russian Government Cyber Activity Targeting Energy and Other Critical Infrastructure

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has warned that for at least two years, Russian government cyber actors have targeted government entities and multiple U.S. critical infrastructure sectors, including the energy, nuclear, commercial facilities, water, aviation, and critical manufacturing sectors.

In a joint Technical Alert issued March 15, 2018 by the Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the agencies warned of a "multi-stage intrusion campaign by Russian government cyber actors." The report follows an October 2017 alert by computer security firm Symantec of a re-emergence of a sophisticated cyber espionage group known as "Dragonfly."

According to the government agencies' report, the Russian cyber threat actors seem to have deliberately targeted specific organizations, as opposed to pursuing targets of opportunity. In an initial "staging" phase, the campaign used tools like malware, watering holes, and spear phishing to gain access to small commercial facilities' networks -- typically peripheral organizations like trusted third-party suppliers whose networks may be less secure. For example, the threat actors sent emails with malicious attachments appearing to be personnel resumes or contract documents. Clicking on links in the attachments exposed the victims to malware or data harvesting. In a subsequent phase, the threat actors made further use of the staging targets' networks as "pivot points and malware repositories" for use in targeting their final intended victims.

The report says that these Russian government cyber actors used this hacked access for network reconnaissance and collection of information pertaining to Industrial Control Systems (ICS). It describes multiple instances of threat actors accessing workstations and servers on corporate networks that contained data output from control systems within energy generation facilities.

Cyber security is now a significant concern, both domestically and abroad. A February 2018 report by the U.S. intelligence community described the targeting of national security information and proprietary information from US companies and research institutions involved with defense, energy, finance, dual-use technology, and other areas as "a persistent threat to US interests." Last month, U.S. electric grid reliability regulators imposed a $2.7 million penalty on an unidentified utility for its violations of mandatory reliability standards in connection with a data security breach -- the largest fine to date associated with U.S. utility cybersecurity regulation. In that case, a third-party contractor hired by the utility allegedly copied protected data from the utility's network to the contractor's unsecured network -- where it was accessible online without the need to enter a user ID or password, and where it was in fact accessed by one or more unknown outside entities.

In 2014, reports emerged that Russian hackers had found flaws in solar panel monitoring software that, if left unfixed, could allow malicious actors to damage the electric grid. Foreign state-sponsored cyber attacks in 2016 and 2017 against Ukraine and Saudi Arabia targeted multiple sectors across critical infrastructure, government, and commercial networks, causing disruption to Ukrainian energy distribution networks.

Brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev sets global renewable electricity goal by 2025

World’s largest brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev SA – parent to brands including Budweiser, Corona, Rolling Rock, Michelob, and Stella Artois – has committed to sourcing its electricity entirely from renewable sources by 2025.  The move would make AB InBev the largest corporate direct purchaser of renewable electricity in the global consumer goods sector.

AB InBev makes 30% of the world’s beer, operating breweries in 50 countries. Collectively, these facilities consume 6 terawatt-hours of electricity a year, of which 7% is currently renewable-sourced.  According to a March 28 press release, changing to 100% renewable electricity will reduce the company's carbon footprint by 30%, an estimated reduction of about 2 million tons of carbon dioxide a year.

While many multinational companies “invest” in renewables by buying renewable energy credits or certificates known as "RECs", AB InBev’s plan involves no REC-buying. The company reportedly intends to obtain 75 to 85 percent of its electricity through direct power purchases under a power purchase agreement or similar commercial arrangement, with remaining 15 to 25 percent coming from on-site distributed generation installations at its facilities, like solar panels. The company has committed to producing the energy in the country in which it is to be consumed.

Sourcing renewable energy is relatively easier in some countries, like Mexico. AB InBev announced that its largest facility, a Grupo Modelo brewery, had signed contracts to get all its electricity from wind power, including 220 MW to be built by Iberdrola SA in Puebla. Those new wind projects alone, destined to supply the brewery, represent a 5% increase to Mexico's renewable energy capacity. But in other countries, most notably in Africa, a lack of markets and infrastructure to connect industrial consumers with renewable energy may prove challenging. Also worth noting is that the company's commitment relates to electricity, and not directly to fuels or heat required for beer production and distribution. 

Nevertheless, Anheuser-Busch InBev's commitment to sourcing 100% renewable electricity by 2025 across its global portfolio of facilities represents another data point in the trend of corporate direct investment in renewable energy.  Corporations including Apple, Google, and Amazon have made a variety of commitments relating to renewable electricity, citing benefits ranging from environmental sustainability to locking in power pricing.

Flow chart of 2011 US energy use

A flow chart released by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory illustrates the sources and uses of energy in the United States.  It depicts information about all the energy sources used to power society, as well as the breakdown of how that energy is used - or wasted - in electricity generation, transportation, residential, commercial, and industrial contexts.

On the energy source side, petroleum - oil, gasoline, and similar products - provides the largest share of the energy we consume, slightly more than a third of total energy.  Natural gas comes in second, providing about a quarter of total energy, with coal coming in at another 20%.  Altogether, these fossil fuels provided about 82% of the energy consumed in the U.S. in 2011.  Nuclear power provided about 8% of the energy used.  The remainder came from renewable resources including biomass, hydropower, wind, geothermal, and solar.

About 40% of the energy from these sources was used to generate electricity.  The remainder was used directly for other purposes such as transportation, heating, and industrial processes.

On the use side, transportation consumed the largest share of energy, about 28%.  The industrial sector consumed another 24% of the energy.  Households consumed about 11%, and commercial businesses consumed about 9%.

This analysis of energy use leaves about 27% of the energy unaccounted for.  This energy was consumed in the generation of electricity, but was "rejected", meaning that it could not be captured for a useful purpose.  Waste heat being emitted from a generator is a classic example of this rejected energy.  End users from industry to residences also waste or reject energy; in fact, according to the chart, 57% of the total energy consumed in the U.S. in 2011 was rejected, while only 43% was put to a useful purpose.