Coal

Natural gas continues to expand the power generation stack in the South, where the fuel accounted for 42% of electricity generation last year and far exceeded the national average of 34%, the Energy Information Administration said Tuesday in a Today in Energy post.

PJM Interconnection this week unveiled a proposal to reform wholesale electricity pricing that it claims would better reflect the “true costs” of producing power and keep its system more reliable by solidifying revenues for faltering baseload nuclear and coal generators that have been undermined by low natural gas prices.

The Department of Energy’s (DOE) proposed rulemaking to implement reforms on the reliability and resiliency of the electricity grid opened an overdue debate, but the proposal itself isn’t of much value, according to a quintet of former FERC commissioners, including three former chairmen.

Subsidies included in the Department of Energy’s (DOE) recent notice of proposed rulemaking (NOPR) would cost as much as $10.6 billion a year, with the vast majority of the money going to a handful of coal and nuclear companies, according to a cost analysis by Climate Policy Initiative and Energy Innovation.

The floodgates opened wide as the public comment period for the Department of Energy’s (DOE) notice of proposed rulemaking (NOPR) to implement reforms on the reliability and resiliency of the electricity grid came to an end on Monday, with hundreds of filings submitted by states, cities, corporations, environmental groups, labor unions and individuals.

Sides were predictably drawn in the early debate over Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt’s announcement that the Trump administration will issue a proposed rule to end the controversial Clean Power Plan (CPP), but what practical impact the move will have is less clear.

FERC Commissioner Cheryl LaFleur said this week she hopes the Commission receives many public comments over a Department of Energy (DOE) proposal to provide reliability and resiliency compensation to coal and nuclear baseload generators, on the grounds that “a lot of people will be affected by this.”

FERC began accepting comments Monday on the Department of Energy’s (DOE) proposal to provide reliability and resiliency compensation to coal and nuclear baseload generators, with the Commission targeting a much quicker turnaround than opponents had wanted.

The notice of proposed rulemaking (NOPR) that the Department of Energy (DOE) submitted to FERC on Friday — a first of its kind proposal to implement reforms on the reliability and resiliency of the electricity grid — may not be completed in the timeline requested, nor exactly as DOE prescribed, analysts said Monday.