Indiana House Utilities Committee Members

The membership of the Indiana House Utilities, Energy and Telecommunications was finally released this afternoon. More soon.

21st Century Energy Policy Development Task Force Mtg 11/12/2020; Link to Watch Live

US Federal Reserve says climate poses stability risks

In first for Fed, U.S. central bank says climate poses stability risks

By Reuters Staff

(Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Reserve for the first time called out climate change among risks enumerated in its biannual financial stability report, and warned about the potential for abrupt changes in asset values in response to a warming planet.

“Acute hazards, such as storms, floods, or wildfires, may cause investors to update their perceptions of the value of real or financial assets suddenly,” Fed Governor Lael Brainard said in comments attached to the report, released Monday.

“Chronic hazards, such as slow increases in mean temperatures or sea levels, or a gradual change in investor sentiment about those risks, introduce the possibility of abrupt tipping points or significant swings in sentiment,” Brainard said.

Such abrupt price changes from climate-related disasters could also create difficult-to-predict knock-on effects through financial markets, the report said, particularly because not enough is understood, or disclosed, about the true extent of exposures to climate risks.

“Increased transparency through improved measurement and more standardized disclosures will be crucial,” Brainard said. “It is vitally important to move from the recognition that climate change poses significant financial stability risks to the stage where the quantitative implications of those risks are appropriately assessed and addressed.”

Monday’s report comes just days after Joe Biden won the U.S. presidential election against President Donald Trump, who has downplayed the risks of climate change. Biden has promised to put fighting climate change back on the U.S. policy agenda.

Reporting by Ann Saphir; Editing by Alistair Bell

ICC Grants Emergency Relief to Preserve Ameren-IL Net Metering

Illinois regulators grant emergency relief to preserve net metering, order audit of Ameren's bid to end it

ByJohn Funk Oct. 2 2020, 9:57 a.m. EDT

UPDATE: Oct. 2, 2020: The Illinois Commerce Commission on Thursday granted an emergency motion to solar advocacy organizations urging Ameren "to provide full net metering credits to residential solar customers until an audit is completed."

The commission also directed its staff to perform the audit and determine if Ameren has reached the required threshold under state law for ending retail net metering in its service territory. Ameren says it may reach that threshold imminently.

ICC Chairman Carrie Zalewski "expressed concerns that by allowing Ameren to end net metering before the Commission approved the replacement tariff as required by statute, would be a violation of the legislature’s intent to transition smoothly from retail net metering to a successor distributed generation rebate," the commission said in a press release.

Dive Brief:

The continued growth of residential solar is under threat in Illinois, the solar industry said this week, with Ameren asserting a 2016 state law allows it to stop compensating home solar customers at the full retail rate for the power they send back to the grid.
The Future Energy Jobs Act of 2016 allows a utility to work with state regulators to replace the full retail rate, based on net metering, with a negotiated "distributed generation rebate" when the amount of distributed solar generation reaches 5% of the peak demand on the system. Ameren says it will soon reach that threshold.
The Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) has set a public meeting for today, following an emergency request from the solar industry and environmental groups asking it to order Ameren to continue full retail compensation, kilowatt-hour for kilowatt-hour, until a new distributed generation tariff is developed, as required by the 2016 law.

Dive Insight:

The roots of what solar advocates now say is a crisis stretch back to March when Ameren announced that distributed solar generation had reached 3% of its load, a threshold which, by law, required the ICC to open a case and begin developing a replacement for the net metered full retail tariff that home solar owners had expected when financing their projects.

In July, ICC administrative law judge Leslie Haynes ruled that Ameren had not correctly calculated the percentage of customer-based distributed generation, based on her interpretation of the law. In its response asking for reconsideration, Ameren noted that her statutory interpretation meant the solar generation only amounted to 1.67%, not the 3% the utility had figured.

Among the reasons for the difference were issues as to whether the utility had included the output of large community solar arrays and whether it had included demand served by independent power providers when calculating the percentage of distributed solar generation serving the system.

The company's annual net metering report, filed with the ICC on March 31, stated that total system peak demand as of Feb. 10 had been 1,939.86 megawatts and the total generating capacity of 3,177 customers on net metering was 50,725.71 kilowatts.

In a Sept. 10 memo to the ICC, Haynes urged the commission to direct its staff to begin investigating Ameren's claims that it can now abandon its net metering rider even though the ICC and the company have not yet developed a distributed generation tariff. Haynes noted that until that happens, it must "operate in compliance with the [existing] tariff."

Haynes on Sept. 24 issued an order continuing the ongoing hearing on the issue until Oct. 9.

But a coalition of solar installers and environmental groups on Monday filed a request for the immediate emergency order specifically requiring Ameren to continue the existing full retail net metering rider. The coalition says that allowing Ameren to abandon net metering without a rebate tariff in place would cripple further solar development — exactly the opposite of what the Future Energy Jobs Act of 2016 was designed to do.

“This move is contrary to Illinois’ commitment to creating jobs, protecting consumers and expanding clean energy,” said Nakhia Morrissette, central region director and counsel for Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) in a prepared release. “We’re calling on the ICC to fix it urgently before we lose more solar jobs.”

The ICC set an open meeting for today and the administrative law judge set a deadline for written comments by the close of business Wednesday.

In its response to the emergency meeting request, Ameren wrote that there is no emergency, that it would abide by the net metering tariff until the ICC replaces it, and that it would be filing a proposal by the end of the week explaining how residential customers with installed solar can apply for the new distributed generation rebates after "locational rebate values have been calculated."

Unlike the current retail net metering tariff, which credits a residential solar customer for excess power sent into Ameren's delivery system at the same rate that customer pays to buy power, the rebate tariff is expected to include only the cost of the energy, not delivery costs. And the rebate is expected to vary by location.