Energy NewsData

California grid officials were forced to call upon the state’s Strategic Reliability Reserve as unseasonably high temperatures in early October pushed up electricity demand—but some are questioning what will happen when the reserve goes away. An unexpected heat wave in early October was the reason for the reserve to be called upon. kAmr2=:7@C?:2 x?56A6?56?E $JDE6> ~A6C2E@C 56>2?5 :?4C62D65 3J b[ead |( 36EH66? ~4E] c 2?5 ~4E] d[ H96?

Pacific Gas & Electric plans to spend more than $11 billion over 10 years to underground 5,000 miles of power lines, having scaled back an earlier plan to underground twice as many miles of lines. In its electric-undergrounding plan filed Sept. 30 to the California Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety (OEIS), PG&E says the benefits of undergrounding the lines far outweigh the cost. kAm~?46 !vU2>Ajt C646:G6D 2AAC@G2= 7C@> E96 ~tx$[ :E H:== DF3>:E E96 ?6H A=2?

Since the May 1 launch of the California Independent System Operator’s Extended Day-Ahead Market, those embedded in the market have wanted more information to better understand how it is working. During its latest EDAM update meeting covering August operations, held Sept.

The West’s largest resource-adequacy program has three new participants, a new subregion and several new policy changes following a Sept. 30 meeting of the Western Power Pool Board of Directors. The Phoenix-based international mining company Freeport-McMoRan will be part of the Western Resource Adequacy Program’s Southwest subregion, while two Colorado load-serving entities will be part of a new Rockies subregion. The new subregion will complement WRAP’s existing Northwest and Southwest subregions.

The West’s largest resource-adequacy program has three new participants, a new subregion and several new policy changes following a Sept. 30 meeting of the Western Power Pool Board of Directors. The Phoenix-based international mining company Freeport-McMoRan will be part of the Western Resource Adequacy Program’s Southwest subregion, while two Colorado load-serving entities will be part of a new Rockies subregion. The new subregion will complement WRAP’s existing Northwest and Southwest subregions.

Puget Sound Energy has been awarded $40.2 million by the U.S. Department of Energy to help modernize its grid in Western Washington, the utility announced Oct. 7. The Bellevue, Washington-based utility will match the grant, bringing a total investment of $80.4 million to strengthen and modernize the region's electric transmission system through the utility’s Puget Upgrades for Line Capacity, System Flexibility, and Energy Resilience (PULSE) project.

As record-breaking heat rolls across southern California, the grid is holding stable in part due to the Extended Day-Ahead Market, according to Southern California Edison CEO Steven Powell. During a panel discussion about EDAM experiences at the California Independent System Operator’s Stakeholder Symposium on Oct. 6 , Powell said that since EDAM launched there have been times with high temperatures and loads. kAm!@H6== ?@E65 E92E =@25D 5FC:?8 E96 7:CDE H66< @7 ~4E@36C H96?

Proponents of California’s Electric Program Investment Charge (EPIC) program say it is not only helping the state meet its clean-energy goals, but is also setting California up as a role model for the rest of the country even as federal funding for such efforts has been cut. The California Energy Commission hosted the EPIC Symposium on Sept. 29 in Sacramento, where state officials laid out the benefits of the program.

An executive order to boost U.S. fishing has produced 34 priorities that NOAA Fisheries will use as an “operational roadmap for regulatory, scientific, and administrative reform” to aid the country’s fishing industry, the agency announced.

The Southwest Power Pool’s Market Monitoring Unit on Sept. 25 protested SPP’s proposal to impose real-time balancing requirements on market participants in SPP’s west balancing authority area until June 1. The MMU said the proposal would impose “substantial new obligations to market participants without correcting the underlying incentive problems” that lead to reliability issues during periods of scarcity. kAm“pD 72C 2D E96 ||& :D 2H2C6[ ?@ @C82?:K65 ,C68:@?2= EC2?D>:DD:@? @C82?:K2E:@?.