New Media
As Oregon faces more extreme weather, what can the state do to keep the lights on?
Hundreds of thousands of Oregonians were left without power last week due to ice, snow and fallen trees. As severe weather becomes more common, experts say that these types of power outages will too. We hear from Robert McCullough, an energy consultant in Portland, about what needs to change to make Oregon’s power grid more resilient.
‘I can’t afford this’ – Variable rate electricity customers in disbelief at massive power bills after winter storm
“We regulate safety,” McCullough said. “We don’t say you can take a cheaper airplane, but it may fall out of the sky. The right answer is we need a mandated reliability level for the state like all of the surrounding states. In order to meet that, you have to guarantee your equipment is fit to operate.”
After 45 Hours Without Electricity, Some Top Takeaways From The Texas Blackouts
Larry Kellerman, a managing director of I Squared Capital, and Robert McCullough of McCullough Research, published a report which said, “the origins of this disaster included the lowest reserve margins in North America, ignoring basic maxims of preparing for bad winter weather, and a market design that rewards shortages (rather than the resolution of shortages) at the cost of consumers.”
New Articles
FERC’s MOPR Dissected
Public Utilities Fortnightly, Robert McCullough
The two leading renewable technologies are non-dispatchable intermittent resources. The unsubstantiated assumption that they will lower the value of capacity needs to be examined closely.
Why have PJM capacity markets decoupled from actual capacity bids?
The Electricity Journal, Robert McCullough
We analyze PJM’s Reliability Pricing Model auction in the context of ongoing reform proposals that seek to address the perception that state subsidies for carbon free generation are depressing capacity prices.
Oregon natural gas facility could be fuelled by Canadian sources
The Lawyer’s Daily, Robert McCullough
Jordan Cove is planned for Coos Bay. In order to procure natural gas, a pipeline is planned to connect to supplies at Malin, Ore. Malin connects to Kingsgate, Alta., and Opal, Wyo. Overall, Coos Bay is over 909 miles from sources of supply in the east and 841 miles from Alberta.
New Reports
ERCOT Reliability: Systematic Unpreparedness
The unfortunate state of the ERCOT power system can be summarized in two words: systematic unpreparedness. The origins of this disaster included the lowest reserve margins in North America, ignoring basic maxims of preparing for bad winter weather, and a market design that rewards shortages (rather than the resolution of shortages) at the cost of consumers.
Blaming the Innocent; Praising the Uninvolved
It is difficult to read the October 6, 2020 report “Preliminary Root Cause Analysis: Mid-August 2020 Heat Storm” from the California ISO, CPUC, and CEC without a sense of humor. The report blames the innocent (global warming) and rewards the uninvolved (Governor Newsom). However, it does shed light on why the best funded balancing authority on the West Coast was the only organization that required rolling blackouts during hot weather on August 14th and 15th.
Reassessment of Site C Financial Viability
After ten months of study, British Columbia Hydro has not addressed a number of seismic and design concerns first reported to management in December, 2019… A careful review indicates that correction of the current problems will delay the in-service date by one year and raise costs by an additional C$2.1 billion dollars.