🧵
I’m not sticker-shocked at the $1.5B price tag of @EversourceMA’s GCEP project, considering the miles of work in public roadways & the drilling under the river to submerge the cable, build & retrofit substations, etc.

No, what galls me & should gall everyone…

#mapoli

https://twitter.com/xiaowang1984/status/1778138809663709473

…is that in its MA DPU dockets seeking approval of their two proposed LNG supply contracts with Everett Marine Terminal (EMT) Eversource said that alternatives to the contracts —physical upgrades to its gas distribution system to enhance system safety and reliability would,…

🧵
In 4 dockets @Mass_DPU, Eversource, National Grid & Unitil are seeking approval of contracts w/ @ConstellationEG, owner of Everett Marine LNG Terminal (EMT). The contracts would allow the threatened EMT to remain open.

The utilities have unsheathed their long knives.

#mapoli The 4 contracts would provide Constellation’s EMT with a source of fixed revenue that would replace its current source of fixed revenue, Mystic Generating Station (MGS), which is scheduled to close for good in 66 days, on May 31.

EMT needs a source of *fixed* revenue…

🧵

There it is folks, Everett LNG Marine Terminal (EMT) WON’T be closing, at least not for 6 more years.

No, it’s not dead yet, but now it will be up to gas ratepayers to pay to keep it on life support.

Is it worth postponing the inevitable?

#mapoli

commonwealthbeacon.org/energy/utiliti… Before answering that question it’s worth taking a quick trip in the WABAC machine to remind ourselves about the circumstances that placed EMT in peril in the first place. Then we’ll talk about LNG tank congestion charges, and Project Maple too.

I can already see your eyes…

In a very real sense VPPs are not just a “thing,” they *are* the thing: they are the consummation of the transition to a clean energy electric grid.

Whereas before—and for the most part still—electricity customers are passive recipients of power delivered by a wire tethered…

https://twitter.com/billmckibben/status/1726760915532480830

…to their homes and businesses, VPPs make it possible for those customers to transact to give services back to the grid. What was formerly a one-way street is now, via VPPs, a two way street, with thousands, and soon millions, of individual customers helping to …

.@Enbridge is planning an expansion of its Algonquin Gas Transmission Pipeline (AGTP): Project Maple. On 9/12 Enbridge announced an "open season" for the expansion project. infopost.enbridge.com/GotoLINK/GetLI… FERC has jurisdiction over interstate natural gas pipelines. For existing pipelines like AGTP to be expanded, or for new pipelines to be built, FERC must find that there is a need for the project and that it will serve the public interest. The “open season” process is part of...

On August 15th the Massachusetts DPU issued an Order opening an Investigation into municipal aggregation (docket no. 23-67). The docket will no doubt be enormously significant for the 177 Mass. cities/towns that have implemented…



#mapolifileservice.eea.comacloud.net/FileService.Ap… …aggregations, as well as most of the remaining 174 Mass. cities/towns that have yet to implement aggregations, but that may do so in the future. (Exception: cities/towns w/municipal light departments may *not* form aggregations.)

🧵 It’s disheartening to continue reading stories like today’s @BostonGlobe piece by @andrewnbrinkman that include false statements like this: “Because of supply constraints tied to pipeline capacity into New England, frigid temperatures caused natural gas prices to surge, []… …making oil a ‘more economical’ choice when conditions are poor.”

We know the statement is false because of a decision @isonewengland made way back in the spring-summer while preparing for this winter. In years past ISO-NE implemented a Winter Reliability Program (WRP) that…

For those of you keeping score at home… #mapoli

There are 3 MA DPU commissioners, including the Chair. All 3 are appointed by the @MassEEA Secretary. Two have terms coterminous with the Governor. The third is appointed to a term of 4 years. The Chair is designated as such… 1/4 …by the EEA Sect’y for two year periods & may be removed as Chair w/the Gov.’s approval. See bit.ly/3CFTqrB

So, what does this mean w/re to the current DPU Commissioners?

Matt Nelson was designated Chair in Feb. 2019. His current two-year stint as Chair would… 2/4

Worth noting that on X-mas Eve—mid-Winter Storm Elliott—@isonewengland lost 2,150 MW of generating capacity. That loss was not due to inadequate gas supply, but faults of various sorts. Apparently, New Englanders will never know which units failed to perform b/c as a matter of…

https://twitter.com/Crosby_Matthew_/status/1612612961574748160

…policy ISO-NE won’t ID scheduled but non-performing units. So, a question: is it unreasonable to expect ISO-NE, if it is de-rating gas capacity that can’t guarantee firm fuel supply, to also derate other units that fail to perform in exigent conditions, access to fuel …

Xiao, this isn’t a comment, it’s a drive-by shooting.

How about some perspective on LNG in NE, since it’s now routinely used as shorthand to say “if NE had *only* built more gas pipelines, we wouldn’t need to rely on expensive foreign supplies of LNG!”

#mapoli

https://twitter.com/xiaowang1984/status/1581507961654214657

First, I’d like to recommend some Sunday reading for you : bit.ly/2H073Y6. It will provide you w/some history about the use of LNG to support electricity generation in NE, and how and when it first came to be delivered to the region.

Tell me you don’t ride the T without telling me you don’t ride the T.

“[DPU Chairman Matthew] Nelson said the DPU was alerted to problems at the MBTA through a 2019 audit conducted by the Federal Transit Administration…”

bit.ly/3rYDhYt Asleep at the switch.

The safety watchdogs at the DPU failed to take notice of the fact that there’d been no fewer than *43* @MBTA derailments in the 5 years before the release of the 2019 @FTA_DOT audit—the 2nd-highest total of any U.S. transit system.

bit.ly/3MyexzM

“That’s thanks to opposition both in New England itself and in neighboring states, especially New York, to building new pipelines.”

In the 80s and 90s their was a *significant* build out of gas pipeline capacity and gas generation. But then it became clear that building…

https://twitter.com/MattZeitlin/status/1571953953176457216

…out still more gas pipeline capacity and gas gen ran counter to the GHG reduction goals set by the six NE states, and so no more pipelines will be built.

This piece suggests then that NE is responsible for its own undoing—a grid that is more expensive and less reliable.

🧵 #mapoli

Who will speak for the bees, for the bees have no tongues?

🌸🌾🍃💐🌸 🌺 🌷🌼🌹🌿
——————-
At the south end of town where the Grickle-grass grows between tracks, & the wind smells sour after trains disgorge commuters & belch the stench of diesel-kvetch, and no birds… …ever sing excepting pustulating pigeons...is the Street of the Ex Parte’d Non-Parties.

And deep in the Grickle-grass, some people say, if you look deep enough you can see, today, where the Non-Parties once stood just as long as they could before somebody Ex Parte’d them away.

Fasten your seatbelts New England, it’s going to be a bumpy ride this winter.

https://twitter.com/RichGlickFERC/status/1451200418936094721

Some Key Findings from @FERC’s 2021-22 Winter Energy Market & Reliability Assessment Presentation & Report:

• Increased dependency on natural gas for electric generation and high global LNG demand may increase vulnerability of the Northeast regions to high natural gas prices.

1. MA DPU’s filed its 1st set of Information Requests (IRs) in the @ColumbiaGasMA-@EversourceCorp asset sale docket (20-59; bit.ly/2BPqUaN). B/c the IRs re the Settlement Agreement, not the asset sale per se, their adjudicatory purpose reqs clarification.

# mapoli

https://twitter.com/jglarusso/status/1288059262950952960

2. After all, the DPU appointed Richard Enright & Janine Vargas of its Pipeline Safety Division as “Settlement Intervention Staff” (SIS) in docket 19-140. (bit.ly/2Xgurqj). They were appointed to settle 19-140: a condition of the CMA-Eversource Asset Purchase Agreement.

1. If you think that the @ColumbiaGasMa (CMA) Settlement Agreement announced 7/2 is solely about settling the score for the 2018 Merrimack Valley gas explosions, you’re mistaken.

You’re off by $1.1 billion.

#mapoli

https://twitter.com/massago/status/1278837258926338048

2. This will require a trip in the WABAC machine. First stop? 9/13/18; 4:15 p.m.

Catastrophe.

CMA workers over-pressurize low pressure gas distribution lines in S. Lawrence causing multiple fires & explosions in Lawrence, Andover, & N. Andover. The toll is horrific.

At 3:40 p.m. yesterday afternoon @DominionEnergy’s Millstone Unit 3 unexpectedly went offline *again*, little more than 72 hours after returning to service from its previous unscheduled outage on April 1.

What is going on at Millstone Unit 3? There’s cause for concern, I’d say.

1. Last Friday & Saturday @CommonWealthMag published dueling opinion pieces on natural gas infrastructure—one by BU Prof. @nathanpboston, and the other by Marcy Reed, President of @nationalgridus here in MA.

The two pieces could not have been more starkly different.

#mapoli 2. Prof. Phillips summed up what he accomplished and failed to accomplish during his recent two-week(!) hunger strike to compel @MassGovernor and @MassDEP to satisfy the Commonwealth’s obligation to enforce environmental & safety standards at...

bit.ly/2HrcUTS

1. Point by @TommyVitolo re the Day-Ahead (DA) market v. the Real-Time (RT) market taken: despite the difference in pricing in the RT market from 1/17 to 1/18, prices in the DA market remained consistent.

It might be worth taking the time to ...

https://twitter.com/tommyvitolo/status/1218660141756833795

2. ...talk though about the DA & RT markets for the benefit of those who aren’t familiar with them, and to talk about what occasional dramatic variations in RT market pricing day-to-day (See 👇🏻) reveal about the variability of renewable resources.

Here we go...

https://twitter.com/jglarusso/status/1218623106920648707

Overnight New England’s 1.3 GW of on-shore wind is supplying ~8% of the region’s current electricity load.

These long winter nights would yield optimal production from offshore wind (OSW).

Imagine the contribution the planned 5.94 GW of OSW will make to the region’s fuel mix. Recall NE OSW is expected to have a capacity factor (its actual production relative to its max theoretical output) of 45%. On-shore wind has a capacity factor in the mid-30%s. So an estimate of OSW production isn’t merely a straight-line projection based on-shore wind production.

1. Interesting @EversourceCorp take. Their subsidiaries supply electricity *and* gas in Cambridge, so you’d think that if they were selling fewer therms but more kWhs they’d be indifferent about a gas ban. But it’s evident that Eversource Electric & ...

bit.ly/2Sl1TtV 2. ... Eversource Natural Gas are two different business units, and that their corporate parent perceives a genuine threat to the latter. The answer?

Pose as alarmed emissions hawks!

To paraphrase their spox, “If you use electricity to heat your individual homes more ...