Arkansas Electric Energy Law : Arkansas Electric Energy Lawyer & Attorney : Eric Hughes Law Firm : Wind & Solar Power, Distributed Generation : Arkadelphia, Little Rock, Pine Bluff

Bloomenergy unveiled its long-awaited fuel cell technology today.  This is a story we have been following for some time, and have reported on extensively:

Will Bloom Boxes Make Your Electric Utility Obsolete

Bloom Energy to Unveil Bloom Boxes Wednesday

Bloom Boxes Could Promote Economic Development in Arkansas

According to the Bloomenergy data sheet a Bloom Box, which it now calls an Energy Server, uses either natural gas or directed biogas as fuel.  The fuel required at rated power is 0.661 MMBtu/hr of natural gas.  Its rated power is 100kw (the claim is that is enough to power 100 homes for base load -- this may actually be too low).

As for emissions, the data sheet states:

In addition, the fuel cells act not only as an electricity generator, but also as a storage device.  So electric power generated by solar or wind, for example, will be integrated with the "Energy Server" to further reduce the carbon footprint.

Moreover, the benefits of distributed generation are a reduction in the cost and complexity of transmission and distribution, the company asserts.

eBay CEO John Donahoe was quoted by Josh Lowenshon as saying that his company installed 65,000 feet os solar panels and powered 18% of its campus.  Then, it installed five Bloom Boxes and powers 15% of its campus.  Brian Kelly of Coke says the fuel cells are powering 1/3 of ifs Odwall plant; Brian Kelly of Cox indicates that they are powering 70% of its facility in San Francisco; and Bill Simon of Wal Mart says Bloom Boxes are carrying 60-80% of its energy needs at peak in the buildings where they are installed.

Now that we know more details about Bloom Boxes, tell us what you think.

A November 19 ruling by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will allow Entergy Arkansas to withdraw from a System Agreement with the other Entergy companies.  In December 2005 Entergy Arkansas notified the System Agreement participants that it intended to withdraw from the agreement as of December 2013.

Entergy Arkansas's withdrawal was prompted by the action of Louisiana regulators, which had caused some of the cost of Entergy Louisiana's more expensive natural gas fueled generating plants to be shifted to Arkansas rate payers.  Entergy Arkansas generates electric power primarily through nuclear and coal fired plants.

According to the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, FERC's ruling will save Entergy's Arkansas customers about $218 per year.

Other Important Points:

• If FERC does not permit a rehearing, the Louisiana regulators can appeal to the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia
• As FERC Chairman John Wellinghof points out, the ruling "will allow Entergy and any interested party to engage in meaningful negotiations for a successor arrangement to the System Agreement to be in effect prior to the withdrawal of Entergy Arkansas. . . ."

An interesting article in the December 2009 issue of The Atlantic magazine, Who Needs the Grid, reports on an old technology newly adapted to produce electricity cleanly and inexpensively:  fuel cells.  Bloom Energy has a power producing device -- called a Bloom box and about the size of a coffee table -- capable of powering a 5,000 square foot house.  The article, by Lane Wallace, reports that a five-kilowatt Bloom box has been used in an ongoing trial at the University of Tennessee, and,

has proved twice as efficient as a traditional gas-burning system and produced 60 percent fewer emissions.

Some of the article highlights are:

• The Bloom box has been in development for eight years with the support of a reported $250 million in venture capital.
• It is "fuel agnostic," meaning the boxes can be run on existing propane, natural gas, or ethanol sources, but can also be run on plant waste (biomass) or almost anything containing hyrdogen and carbon.
• The boxes operate independent of the power grid, critical for developing countries lacking infrastructure -- and nice for any consumer that wants to be free of its utility.

What Does It Mean?  One thing it means is that your local generating and distribution utility better get good at innovation.  If the ideas the utilities have expressed in the Arkansas PSC dockets on Sustainable Energy Resources, Ratemaking, and Energy Efficiency are any indication, they will be obsolete before they know it.

UPDATES:

Bloom Energy to Unveil Bloom Boxes Wednesday

Bloom Boxes Could Promote Economic Development in Arkansas

Bloom Boxes Unveiled by Bloomenergy

Electric energy efficiency, conservation, demand response, innovative ratemaking, and transmission are hot topics throughout the United States, and the Arkansas Public Service Commission is actively addressing these issues.

• ENERGY EFFICIENCY.  Beginning in 2006, the Commission led an inquiry into the potential for utility led energy efficiency and conservation programs (06-004-R).  The result was the Commission's Rules for Conservation and Energy Efficiency Programs, under which the state's electric utilities implemented Quick Start C&EE programs for 2008 and 2009, and have filed plans for a Comprehensive C&EE Plans for 2010 and beyond.
  

• TRANSMISSION.  The Commission's Electric Transmission Docket, (08-136-U) was initiated in September 2008 to consider the state of the existing transmission network and to gather "information on new technologies related to the efficient transmission of electricity."  Not is the Commission examining new technologies that will "lead to greater optimization of the electric transmission grid" but is also considering "the adoption of 'Smart Grid' technologies" to increase energy efficiencies for consumers.
  

• RATEMAKING.  The implementation of Smart Grid and other technologies leading to energy efficiency and conservation pose issues of cost recovery and other revenue issues for utilities.  Therefore, the Commission initiated a docket expressly to consider innovative ratemaking rules (08-137-U).  In its Order establishing the docket, the Commission noted that while increased energy efficiency and demand response opportunities may decrease usage by consumers of electricity, but acknowledged "that revenue recovery by the utilities could be compromised absent possible implementation of decoupling mechanisms."
  

• SUSTAINABLE ENERGY.  Finally, the Commission is also considering the "expanded development of Sustainable Energy Resources ("SER")" (08-144-U).  The Commission defined SER to include energy efficiency, demand response, automatic metering (including the "Smart Grid"), and renewable resources.  Moreover, the Commission pointed to a number of regulatory models implemented across the country that include cost recovery for utilities implementing SER programs and lost revenue allowances (decoupling of utility profits from sales volume) to remove disincentives fro utilities to help customers save energy.

In light of the overlap between these four dockets, the Commission might consider consolidating them into a single docket for developing a regulatory framework that addresses:

1. Current and future generating capacity requirements;
2. Rules for siting and transmission for utilities and Independent Power Producers;
3. Integration of electricity produced by renewable resources;
4. Standards for the implementation of demand response, including automatic metering and "Smart Grid" technologies for consumers; and
5. Rules for cost recovery and decoupling.

Energy law and policy are important issues in our time.  On the one hand, energy needs are projected to grow at an accelerating rate, taxing the supply of available energy resources and increasing our dependence on foreign sources of energy.   On the other hand, energy generation, transmission, distribution, and consumption contribute to climate change and have other adverse environmental consequences.  Supplying our energy needs now and in the future --at a reasonable cost and with the least possible negative impact on the environment -- is a challenge that confronts us all.

However, there are opportunities in these challenges, particularly in the field of electric energy.  While still small, the share of utility scale electric generating capacity taken by wind, solar, geothermal, biomass and other renewable and alternative sources of energy will only grow.  Even so, those sources of electricity generation currently have their own limitations, such as reliability for base load, along with siting and transmission issues.  While those alternative sources of energy hold out promise for the future, the current reality is that older and cheaper technologies for producing electricity, like coal and natural gas fired power plants and nuclear power, will be the primary sources of electric energy for the foreseeable future.  But some argue advances in clean coal technology and carbon capture and sequestration will reduce the environmental impact of those sources of electric energy.  Although, cap-and-trade legislation such as the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (Waxman-Markey), which attempts to impose the true costs of those dirtier technologies, could put renewable energy resources on an equal economic footing.

Moreover, new technologies in demand side management hold out the promise of increasing energy efficiency in ways that are both observable and measurable by the average electric energy consumer.  Advanced metering and smart grid technologies, coupled with appliances equipped with computer chips to communicate with the meter, and software to measure and report electric usage, will empower consumers to take more control over their own energy usage.  Those same technologies, including net metering, will increase the effectiveness of distributed generation systems like residential solar and small wind installations.   All these advances will change the consumer's relationship with their electric power supplier.  Thus, new regulatory and rate-making mechanisms must be studied, including decoupling of the rates electricity distributors charge from the amount of electricity supplied.

These are interesting times for electric energy law and policy, and Arkansas is at the forefront of confronting the challenges and capitalizing on the opportunities.  For example, the continuing fight over the location of SWEPCO's John W. Turk coal-fired generating plant in Hempstead County has implications for electric generation and transmission in Arkansas and across the nation.  And, with the location of LM Glasfiber and Nordex wind turbine blade manufacturing facilities in Arkansas, the alternative and renewable energy sector is contributing to economic development and job creation.

At the Hughes & Hughes Law Firm we have been following these issues with interest.  We want to be a participant with you in meeting the challenges of our time.  Therefore, this blog is designed to be a source for news and commentary about electric energy law and policy that effects Arkansas business, industry, municipalities, landowners, consumers, and others.  We hope you will join our conversation.