Tag: American Electric Power

Marshall Co. Sheriff: One Killed, One Injured In Electrical Accident

Editor’s Note: In the original version of this story, the Associated Press reported American Electric Power owns the McElroy Mine. That information was incorrect and the story now reflects that change.

 Authorities say one worker was killed and another seriously injured in an electrical accident near a Marshall County coal mine.

Marshall County Sheriff’s Office received a call about the accident Monday afternoon. American Electric Power spokesman Jeri Matheney says the linemen were working for Virginia-based Davis H. Elliot. Murray Energy owns the McElroy Mine near Cameron. Matheney says the workers were replacing copper wire that had been stolen from an electrical line.

Sheriff Kevin Cecil says the neutral wire somehow came into contact with energized lines. Cecil says one worker died at the scene and another was in serious condition at a Morgantown hospital. Their names were not immediately released.

The West Virginia Office of Miners’ Health, Safety and Training is investigating.

Power Companies Ask for Rate Increase

Customers of American Electric Power in West Virginia would pay more for electricity if the power company’s request for a rate increase is granted.

Appalachian Power and Wheeling Power filed a request Monday with the West Virginia Public Service Commission for a $226 million revenue increase. Both are subsidiaries of AEP, which says in a news release that if approved, West Virginia customers would see a 17 percent increase in electric rates depending on usage and how they’re classified.

The company said in a news release the rate increase is needed for several reasons:

  • To recover the cost of restoring power and making repairs after two major storms that hit West Virginia in 2012, the Derecho and Hurricane Sandy.  
  • Implementation of a right of way maintenance program which to help prevent outages and reduce restoration times when storm damage occurs.
  • Rising maintenance costs and the need to improve transmission lines and generating plants.

American Electric Power officials said rates in West Virginia have not increased since 2011 and during that period customers in Virginia and Tennessee have seen increases.
If approved, the company estimates a typical residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt-hours a month would pay $21.77 more each month and customers using 2,000 kilowatt-hours would see an increase of about $44.59 a month.

AEP Subsidiary Seeks Approval to Build Line in Southern W.Va.

  An American Electric Power subsidiary is asking state regulators to approve a transmission line that the company wants to build in Boone and Raleigh counties.

AEP West Virginia Transmission Company, Inc. filed an application for the Bim Tap Project on Tuesday with the West Virginia Public Service Commission.

The company’s filing says the proposed 5.5-mile 138-kilovolt line would replace an existing line located on property where Independence Coal Company has mining operations. Independence has asked the company to move the line because it plans to conduct operations in the immediate vicinity.

The new line would be located primarily on reclaimed and previously mined land.

The project would cost about $6.6 million.

Will West Virginia Ever See A New Coal-Fired Power Plant?

There’s been much deliberation over the last week regarding new Environmental Protection Agency proposals for regulating coal fired power plant carbon emissions. State officials are very discouraged by the ideas. But as Ben Adducchio reports, there are also proposals on the table for how to regulate future power plants, and some are asking whether any will be built again in West Virginia.

The EPA has issued new ideas on how to regulate existing power plants, which would call for a 30 percent national reduction on carbon emissions by 2030, from 2005 levels. Congressmen David McKinley and Nick Rahall  co-introduced  legislation to essentially strike down not only emissions standards  concerning current power plants, but additional proposals that would apply to  future power plants.

Those proposals came out last year, and would require new plants to use cleaner methods—like carbon capture and storage, and natural gas technologies, to ensure fewer carbon emissions. Jamie Van Nostrand with the West Virginia University Center for Energy and Sustainable Development says these new technologies will present many challenges for anyone wanting to build a new plant.

“It’s very difficult given the rules under 111 b, which really restrict the greenhouse gas emissions associated with new power plants, and pretty much require carbon capture and sequestration, either through a gasification process before you generate electricity, or capturing it and sequestering it afterwards, and those are very very expensive, particularly in the absence of having oil recovery nearby,” said Van Nostrand.

American Electric Power attempted this type of technology at a plant in southern West Virginia. That didn’t  completely succeed, due to funding issues. Jeffrey La Fleur with AEP says the technology needs more research and funding.

“I think we would be a lot further down the road now if we had a little more foresight on the government’s part to develop the technology. For new coal units, the EPA proposed rule is that you will have to have carbon capture to build a new plant and because of all of this has stopped, that technology is not commercially available,” he said.

But Jamie Van Nostrand believes with the new power plant proposals, it can be done.

“The CCS technology is continuing to improve, there’s a lot of money being spent on clean coal technology, and I think the expectation is down the road, the regulation under 111 b would allow the technological advances that would allow a coal plant to be constructed in the future,” he said.

With New Regulations Coming, What's the Future for Coal?

The Environmental Protection Agency is going to be releasing new rules on carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants in the next few weeks. It’s an issue of great concern for many who rely on coal for work. But some also see it as an opportunity.

About 84 percent of the nation’s total greenhouse gas emissions into Earth’s atmosphere are from carbon dioxide, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, and much of that carbon dioxide comes from burning fossil fuels like coal. The EPA is taking action as, under the Clean Air Act, to enforce cuts in carbon emissions for cleaner air.

In September of last year, the agency put proposed new rules on how much carbon dioxide future power plants may release into the air. This includes capping carbon dioxide emissions to about 1,100 pounds of CO2 per megawatt hour, depending on the size of the turbines in those new plants.

New Rules on the Horizon

While at this point, everything is conjecture in terms of what the agency will seek in its newest regulations, pertaining to existing power plants  it is expected that states will have to figure out ways to reduce carbon emissions from their plants substantially in the next 15 years.

There are several ideas over how this can be done, but it certainly won’t be easy for many utilities to reduce emissions right away. One strategy is to do something known as fuel switching. This essentially means instead of burning coal at power plants, technical adjustments would be made to the plant so the facility would essentially burn natural gas instead, or co-fire coal with natural gas, to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

“Some coal plants depending on the technology and the vintage can be switched to burn natural gas. A lot of utilities are looking at this,” said James Van Nostrand, director of the Center for Energy and Sustainable Development at WVU.

“That’s going on now with the wide availability of natural gas, utilities are doing that for economic reasons. That would also presumably will be a compliance option under these regulations. Or you could co-fire some natural gas with the coal, or biomass with the coal.”

Another proposal the EPA is pursuing is for utilities to use carbon capture and storage technologies. This is a method that involves taking the carbon emissions and storing them underground, instead of releasing them into the atmosphere. It’s something American Electric Power tried at a Southern West Virginia plant a few years back: essentially storing the carbon right there at the site, and the whole project took eight years simply to get  up and running. But it didn’t work out in the end. Jeffrey La Fleur is a vice president of generating assets at AEP.

“The debate in Congress ended, and they decided not to take up the carbon issue. That debate stopped. We got the stagnation in public policy; the carbon issue got stuck in the mud. Nothing was moving,” said La Fleur.

“When we go to our commissions to get recovery of any cost, we are a public utility, to recover any cost; they are not interested in paying for any technology that’s not required.”

Despite the carbon capture project not working, La Fleur says there are no regrets about that project.

“I think we were successful in doing out with what we set to do. I think it was a great project, I don’t necessarily think we would have done anything differently. I think we would be a lot further down the road now if we had a little more foresight on the government’s part to develop the technology,” said La Fleur.

“That technology is not commercially available. It’s not commercially viable. It’s got to be further developed.”

Needing Resources

That means funding. La Fleur says public utilities that are interested in CCS need the help of the U.S. Department of Energy to get more money to do it. But even with funding, La Fleur says utilities, policy makers, and the general public needs to have patience…because change won’t be coming fast enough for some.

“The EPA is going to come out with a proposed rule in June. Are they going to give the states enough time to get with the companies, to come up with a plan. That I think has been the issue,” said La Fleur.

“We need to have the proper funding to develop the technology going forward.”

Whatever rules the EPA comes out with- some in the coal industry are expected to file lawsuits opposing them.

W.Va. Regulators OK Power Company's Vegetation Trimming Plan

West Virginia regulators have approved American Electric Power's plan to trim vegetation along distribution and transmission lines in the state. The…

West Virginia regulators have approved American Electric Power’s plan to trim vegetation along distribution and transmission lines in the state.
 
The Public Service Commission had ordered electric companies in January 2013 to submit vegetation management plans. The order was in response to Superstorm Sandy and other severe weather in recent years that left thousands of customers without power.
 
The commission approved AEP’s plan for subsidiaries Appalachian Power and Wheeling Power on Tuesday.
 
According to the order, the commission will implement a cost recovery mechanism in the companies’ upcoming base rate case. The commission will review these costs annually.
 
A vegetation management plan submitted by FirstEnergy subsidiaries Mon Power and Potomac Edison is pending before the commission.
 
Plans submitted by four smaller electric companies were approved earlier.
 
 

Exit mobile version