West Virginians experienced an average of nearly three interruptions a year in 2022, and an average duration of more than 15 hours. The U.S. average was 1.4 outages and 5.6 hours.
Most of those interruptions were not during major weather events, such as December 2022’s Winter Storm Elliott, when temperatures plunged into the single digits and below zero.
Only Florida, with two major hurricanes in 2022, had outages with a longer average duration. Alaska, Tennessee and Maine had more annual power interruptions.
The $30 million project will use Form’s batteries to store and discharge power for 100 hours, according to the California Energy Commission.
Weirton’s Form Energy will build storage batteries for a project in California.
Form Energy will supply iron oxide batteries for a Pacific Gas & Electric energy storage project in Mendocino County.
The $30 million project will use Form’s batteries to store and discharge power for 100 hours, according to the California Energy Commission.
That fills a gap between solar generation during the day and wind generation at night. The energy captured at off-peak times can be discharged to the grid when demand is the highest.
The batteries will be built in Weirton. The plant is under construction and will begin producing batteries next year.
Iron oxide batteries use rust to store electricity and cost less than lithium ion technology. California has set a goal for 100 percent clean energy by 2045.
“A multiday battery system is transformational for California’s energy mix,” said David Hochschild, chairman of the California Energy Commission. “This project will enhance our ability to harness excess renewables during nonpeak hours for use during peak demand, especially as we work toward a goal of 100 percent clean electricity.”
According to the commission, California had 6,600 megawatts of battery storage in August, with four to six hours of discharge. Long-duration discharge is considered eight to 100 hours.
Form Energy is building its plant on the former site of Weirton Steel and could employ 750 workers or more.
PJM is the grid operator that includes West Virginia and 12 other mostly eastern states. PJM struggled to meet the demand for electricity as temperatures plummeted ahead of Christmas Eve.
A large portion of West Virginia’s coal-fired generation was not available during that critical time, including Harrison’s Unit 2.
According to the PSC testimony, Unit 2 was offline for 17 days in December. It was brought back into operation on Dec. 24 at 7 p.m, during the height of the crisis.
Hannah Catlett, a spokeswoman for Mon Power, said the company’s plants “performed very well with some units performing better than others.”
She said Mon Power will receive a net of $10 million in performance payments that exceed charges from PJM and that that money will be credited back to customers.
In total, PJM lost 7,600 megawatts of coal capacity and 32,500 megawatts of natural gas during the peak of the crisis.
Unit 2 is capable of generating 684 megawatts of the plant’s total output of 2,052 megawatts.
Mon Power is before the PSC seeking a rate increase that would add $10 a month to the average residential bill.
Currently solar customers can sell any excess solar energy they have back to the power companies for the same price that the company sells the energy. However, the power companies are proposing that they pay solar customers a lower “wholesale” price.
Mon Power and Potomac Edison filed a proposal with the Public Service Commission to change the cost of energy for solar panel owners, changing the net metering system as it is now.
Currently solar customers can sell any excess solar energy they have back to the power companies for the same price that the company sells the energy. However, the power companies are proposing that they pay solar customers a lower “wholesale” price.
They said this adjustment would make the cost of energy more equitable for non-solar customers because solar customers do not pay to store electricity, maintain the grid, or distribute the electricity that they sell. They said then those costs are passed onto other customers who do not have solar panels.
However, Leah Barbor, from West Virginians for Energy Freedom, said the idea that non solar customers will end up paying more because of solar customers is a myth.
“Ultimately, this myth serves utility interests,” Barbor said. “So, they will use it to push for policies that unfairly target solar owners. Either by raising fixed costs and demanding charges on utility bills, which will then lengthen the time it takes for solar investment to pay off, or they’ll weaken or eliminate net metering policies — which is the case here in West Virginia.”
She said that solar can make the cost of energy cheaper, especially during natural disasters, extreme weather events, and high energy demand. She also said that because solar users do not use the grid as often, they do not put much wear and tear on it, making it last longer.
“Rooftop solar really benefits everyone. And this is true for whether people have solar or not,” Barbor said.
State lawmakers got more information Thursday about the electric power grid problems during Christmas weekend. The regional transmission operator that includes West Virginia, 12 other states and the District of Columbia experienced high demand and high generation failures from Dec. 23-25.
State lawmakers got more information Thursday about the electric power grid problems during Christmas weekend.
The regional transmission operator that includes West Virginia, 12 other states and the District of Columbia experienced high demand and high generation failures from Dec. 23-25.
That’s what Asim Haque, vice president of state policy and member services for PJM Interconnection, told members of the Senate Energy, Industry and Mining Committee.
About 70 percent of the generation failures in PJM were at natural gas plants, and 16 percent at coal plants, he said.
“Various reasons are being reported,” Haque said. “We don’t have them in full. Fuel supply, frozen equipment and frozen facilities.”
No rotating or rolling outages occurred in PJM, Haque said, but electric utilities did ask their customers to conserve power.
The sharp drop in temperatures last month did cause Tennessee Valley Authority and Duke Energy customers in North Carolina to lose power.
PJM will release a more detailed report on the December event in April.
Ohio-based utility FirstEnergy Solutions made waves last month when it asked the Department of Energy to grant it an emergency order to help keep coal and nuclear plants operating across the Ohio Valley.
The request even hit the president’s radar. Speaking earlier this month at a roundtable event in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, Donald Trump said the administration was examining the utility’s request.
“We’ll be looking at that 202, you know what a 202 is, we’ll be looking at that, we’re trying,” he said.
The president was referring to a little-used provision of the Federal Power Act, section 202(C). The section of the law allows the Department of Energy to intervene if the electricity grid is in jeopardy. Typically, the provision has been used during times of war or during natural disasters.
Ohio-based FirstEnergy, which serves 6 million customers, wants an emergency order to help keep struggling nuclear and coal plants in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia from closing. In a letter sent to the federal government, the utility said the power grid faces grave threats if coal and nuclear plants are allowed to close.
The company argues coal and nuclear power deserve extra compensation because they deliver baseload power, or electricity that can be generated at all times of day and can be always relied upon. Without that,the utility says, the power grid is in danger if a major storm hits.
FirstEnergy cited a recent report by DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory that found the East Coast would have experienced widespread power outages from the recent “Bomb Cyclone” winter storm without electricity generated by coal-fired power plants. It found that coal was the most resilient form of power generation during the 12-day storm. It also said removing coal from the energy mix could worsen threats to the electrical grid’s dependability during future severe weather events.
Regional grid operator PJM Interconnection operates across a 13-state region. PJM strongly rebuked claims the grid’s reliability is threatened by closing coal and nuclear plants. If the 202(C) order is granted, PJM would negotiate a contract to provide compensation to coal and nuclear plants across its service area.
Other opponents, which include environmental groups and oil and gas industry trade group the American Petroleum Institute, say FirstEnergy’s request is really an economic “Hail Mary.” Days after asking for the order, the company filed for bankruptcy.
“Even if [Energy Secretary] Rick Perry approves this request, there’s still a long way to go before any money exchanges hands,” he said. “There would be contested proceedings at [the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission]. There’s going to be litigation in federal court. There is a lot of obstacles before this actually becomes reality.”
Credit Alexandra Kanik / Ohio Valley ReSource
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The order may also set a bad precedent, said Sonia Aggarwal, vice president of the energy policy think tank Energy Innovation. She said there are many companies in the United States with coal and nuclear plants in their portfolios that are no longer profitable due to the nature of running an aging fleet, cheap natural gas and to a lesser extent the added cost of complying with environmental regulations.
She said if DOE approves the use of the 202(C) to help power producers, that could harm competitive electricity markets.
“If at any moment the government can kind of come in and say — not under any sort of real emergency situation, but just come in and say — ‘Look, we want to bail out these particular units,’ I don’t know any investors that would want to get involved in a market like that” she said.
Federal Limits
Pressure is mounting on the federal government to follow through on Trump’s pledge to help coal-fired power plants. Data collected by the Energy Information Administration through January 2018 shows that 533 coal plants and six nuclear plants have closed in the past decade.
Proponents of federal intervention for coal plants are adamant DOE can and should use its emergency authority. Speaking at the Bloomberg New Energy Finance Future of Energy Summit in New York last week, coal magnate Robert Murray said the federal government’s only option to help coal plants is to grant the emergency request.
Credit Glynis Board / Ohio Valley ReSource
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Ohio Valley ReSource
Murray Energy CEO Bob Murray, right, greets miners
“It’s absolutely needed,” Murray told the crowd. “It can be for a specific time frame to stop these nuclear and coal closures until we get our house in order to ensure the resilience, reliability and security of the grid. It doesn’t have to be permanent. It must be done.”
Murray’s company, Ohio-based Murray Energy Corp., is the largest supplier of coal to the plants FirstEnergy would shutter. According to an analysis by S&P Global Market Intelligence, in 2017, the company shipped 6.7 million tons of coal to FirstEnergy Solutions, nearly 12 percent of Murray’s entire coal output.
Last year, Murray also asked DOE to intervene because of impending fears FirstEnergy would file for bankruptcy. The company warned the White House that if the utility went out of business, Murray Energy would follow. That request was denied.
Rick’s Pick
Energy Secretary Perry has so far been tight-lipped on the agency’s thinking.
Last year, the agency proposed a rule under another part of the Federal Power Act that would have provided additional compensation to coal and nuclear plants, but that was shot down by FERC as illegal.
At a recent federal budget hearing, West Virginia Republican Representative David McKinley pressed Perry on what else the federal government can do.
“There may be other options, which we need to look at as well,” Perry said. “Expedition is of importance.”
Multiple analysts said they aren’t sure what else the federal government can do under existing law. States have so far been largely reluctant to pass legislation bailing out coal and nuclear plants.
Aggarwal, with Energy Innovation, said the government might be better served helping communities with coal-fired power plants make a transition to a more diverse economic base.
“There are not a ton of options left for the federal government to intervene,” she said. “In fact, I think if the federal government were truly concerned about the well-being of the communities that are in transition right now they would not be looking to bail out the companies that are running these power plants.”
DOE has set up an email address to take comments on 202(C) requests broadly. A spokesperson did not respond for a request for comment, but said last week the agency is still deliberating.
