PJM’s New Renewable Certificates

PJM is rolling out new 24/7 renewable energy certificates with hourly timestamps.

Buyers within PJM’s market have been angling for a way to secure carbon free energy. “Next month, the ISO’s registry will also offer certificates with time stamps verifying hourly generation data for interested customers in response to demand. The standard hourly certificates will remain available alongside the new offering,” reports Utility Dive.

According to Ken Schuyler, president of PJM Environmental Information Services, PJM has already been tracking and collecting hourly generation since 2005. “But up to this point,” he told Utility Dive, “there was little to no demand for the hourly data. Customers needed monthly or annual data to meet corporate goals or satisfy statutory mandates, so PJM bundled the data into month-by-month certificates.”

The success of this new voluntary offering will depend on what counts as renewable. Will hydro and nuclear count? If so, then it could be a boon for clean energy and PJM. If not, then it relies on solar (physically impossible for it to be available at night) and wind (higher capacity factor than solar, but more unpredictable) to hit the 24/7 mark.

The latter definition of renewable is the norm and thus RECs have historically underdelivered on their promise of helping out carbon free electricity generation. RECs were pioneered by Enron in the 1990s and have often allowed corporations to overstate their emissions reductions.

For its part, retail energy supplier Constellation said that PJM’s entry into the clean credit space will provide “transparent, independent, auditable, and traceable way to certify that the energy they are using is carbon free every hour of every day.”

Bangladeshi Utilities: $1 Billion or Blackouts

Bangladesh’s private utilities are asking for $1 billion in foreign currency from the central bank to buy fuel oil to stave off blackouts this summer.

“The companies are seeking the greenback supply to banks to allow opening letters of credit for purchasing the fuel from overseas, the Bangladesh Independent Power Producers’ Association, the industry lobbying group, said in a letter to the central bank Monday,” reports Bloomberg. “The private generators would need about $250 million a month from March to June to pay for the shipments.”

The country's second-largest source of power is heavy fuel oil, which accounts for a quarter of its electricity output.

The demand for cash comes as several parts of the region experience an early onset of summer weather, which could trigger blackouts when temperatures peak. Haste is necessary when placing orders because the cargoes would take 40-45 days to arrive.

“Bangladesh Bank is injecting dollars into the market almost every day as needed. The central bank will review the power producers’ letter and assess if their demand is in line with the government’s priority at this moment,” the central bank spokesman Mezbaul Haque told Bloomberg.

Wind Blacks Out California Bay Area

High powered wind storms pummeled the northern California coast, announcing a winter storm that could blanket parts of the state in snow. With the wind came blackouts.

“More than 135,000 PG&E Corp. homes and businesses were without power, with most of the outages reported in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties,” reports Bloomberg. "PG&E’s outage map showed blackouts striking rural stretches of the Santa Cruz Mountains and densely populated Silicon Valley neighborhoods alike.”

PG&E wasn’t the only utility that saw blackouts—the total number of consumers without power on Tuesday was around 151,000.

This week will bring rare snow to California’s coastal hills, white capping mountain peaks all the way down to the southern border. PG&E, whose service area covers the bulk of the northern and central parts of the state, has warned its customers that winds and snow could break tree limbs and hit power lines.

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Conversation Starters

1. Hungary doesn’t want to sanction Russian nuclear energy. “Sanctions against Russia over nuclear energy would harm Hungary's interests and should not be brought forward by the European Union, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Wednesday. Hungary, which buys most of its energy from Russia, plans to expand its nuclear power plant in Paks, with Russia's Rosatom building two VVER reactors with capacity of 1.2 gigawatts each, in addition to the currently working four reactors,” reports Reuters. “It has opposed including nuclear power in EU sanctions against Russia.”

2. Freeport’s coming back, baby. “Freeport LNG has received regulatory approval to resume commercial operations of its natural gas liquefaction and export facility, the operator of the second-largest U.S. LNG export facility said on Tuesday,” reports Oilprice.com. “The Freeport LNG export facility in Texas has been shut down since June last year when a fire broke out and damaged the plant. The authorization received on Tuesday provides for the immediate full return to service of one liquefaction train that has already restarted and the incremental restart and full return to service of a second train, Freeport LNG said in a statement.”

3. Labor issues at America’s western ports have shippers worried. “Uncertainty caused by almost eight months without a labor contract on the U.S. West Coast is resulting in investment decisions that could alter supply chains and end up costing the ocean carriers customers, according to a shipper lobbyist. ‘We’re seeing some investments being made at East and Gulf Coast ports due to one factor — the uncertainty of what’s going to happen’ with [West Coast labor], said Peter Friedmann, executive director of the Agriculture Transportation Coalition (AgTC),” reports Freight Waves. “Speaking at FreightWaves’ Global Supply Chain Week, Friedmann said a strike by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union or a lockout by the employers is always a possibility given that provisions preventing those events do not exist without a contract in place.”

Crom’s Blessing