The House Veterans Affairs and Emergency Preparedness Committee Wednesday held a hearing on legislation-- House Bill 1412 (Barrar-R-Delaware)-- that proposes a regulatory framework to encourage energy storage and microgrids to improve electric grid resiliency during disaster emergencies and other circumstances.

The Committee heard from several representatives of PECO, including Mark Haas, Director of Government and Legislative Affairs; Thomas Bonner, Manager of State Government Affairs; and William Patterer, Director of Regulatory Affairs.

Patterer defined a microgrid as a group of interconnected loads and distributed energy generation resources within clearly defined electrical boundaries that acts as a single controllable entity with respect to an electric distribution company's (EDC) distribution system and can connect to and disconnect from the distribution system to enable it to operate either connected to the distribution system or in island mode.

He said microgrids have the potential to deliver transformational levels of energy resilience and reliability, can support job creation and economic development, can bolster the resiliency of utility operations, and will provide test beds for the integration of increasing levels of distributed generation.

Speaking to House Bill 1412, Bonner explained Pennsylvania does not have a statutory framework for dealing with microgrids and said the bill provides an appropriate framework and balanced approach to exploring utility-scale microgrid opportunities.

Bonner said this is not about creating a profit center and anything that results should go back to the ratepayers.

He highlighted a microgrid collaborative hosted by PECO in October to discuss opportunities to advance microgrids in Pennsylvania, adding this included a discussion of the experiences in Puerto Rico and the importance of energy resiliency.

He said the Retail Energy Suppliers Association did raise some concerns at the collaborative and PECO has taken their concerns and other ideas offered at the collaborative to develop some proposed changes to the bill.

Bonner recommended the following modifications to the bill:

-- Clarify intent by adding an explicit limitation of pilot microgrid filings, limiting projects to multi-customer microgrids, projects serving critical government infrastructure and emergency services, and projects to support utility operations

-- Clarify intent of provision that requires all revenues from generation sales to be credited to utility customers to make clear that this does not apply to third party owned generation that is part of the microgrid.

Click Here for a copy of the PECO panel presentation.  Click Here for copies of letters of support for the legislation, including from Penn State University which uses combined heat and power technology, on-site solar energy and battery storage technologies to reduce its energy use costs and carbon footprint.

To watch a video of the hearing, visit the PA House Republican Caucus webpage for the Committee.

This is the second hearing held by the Committee on this topic.  On June 19, Public Utility Commission Chairman Gladys Brown told the Committee microgrid systems offer many potential benefits, especially when combined with other distributed energy resources like solar and combined heat and power systems and potential costs savings for consumers, ratepayers and utilities.  Click Here for more.

Rep. Stephen Barrar (R-Delaware), Majority Chair of the Committee, said the Committee will continue working on the legislation and invited any members interested in amendments to work with Committee staff.  Rep. Barrar can be contacted by sending email to: sbarrar@pahousegop.com.

Rep. Chris Sainato (D-Lawrence) serves as Minority Chair and can be contacted by sending email to: csainato@pahouse.net.

NewsClips:

Pittsburgh’s Microgrids Could Lead The Way For Green Energy

PA Tackles A Big One: Who Pays For Utility Microgrids?

PA Bill Would Allow Utilities to Earn Returns On Microgrids, Energy Storage

PECO Pulls Plug On $35 Million Microgrid Project In Delaware County

(Based in part on reporting by PA Legislative Services.)

[Posted: Nov. 16, 2017]

11/20/2017