Pedernales Electric Cooperative faces rules that could raise costs
In 1776, 13 colonies declared their independence from the British Empire. Last year, more than twice this number — 28 states in total — joined together to oppose the federal government’s carbon dioxide emission regulations, known as the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan. Less than 100 years ago, most of the rural Texas Hill Country lived in the dark. Although 50 years had passed since the first commercial electric station opened in San Francisco, much of the area west of Austin remained without electric service. Providing electricity to rural areas was simply not profitable for suppliers, leaving farmers and ranchers to use kerosene lamps as the only source of illumination.
This changed in the 1930s when U.S. Rep. Lyndon B. Johnson helped create the Pedernales Electric Cooperative, obtaining $1.3 million in federal loans to build 1,800 miles of electric lines serving the nearly 3,000 families that signed up for service. Today, PEC provides electric service to more than 230,000 members in a territory covering 8,100 square miles, nearly the size of Massachusetts.
PEC is an industry leader in innovation and member responsiveness. PEC members enjoy a diverse, predictable energy portfolio consisting of coal, natural gas, wind and hydroelectric. PEC has incorporated energy solutions including the addition of more cost-beneficial wind to the portfolio, the development of advanced energy inspection programs for its residential and commercial consumers to drive conservation and efficiency, and the launch of its emPower Loan Program, a convenient on-bill financing program for energy storage and PV systems providing support to cooperative members by lowering the lifecycle cost of those member-owned systems. PEC is now deploying 15 megawatts of member and community solar distributed across its large service territory to connect its membership to the value of solar’s peak energy production and to offset PEC’s increasing transmission costs in Texas.
PEC, like many utilities, will face challenges in transitioning under the changing regulations imposed by the Clean Power Plan. The CPP will dramatically disrupt PEC’s balance of diversified power sources and the use of innovative power technology that PEC uses to continually provide reliable and electric power to its members. Under the CPP, PEC arbitrarily will be forced to obtain a much greater percentage of power from natural gas, thus reducing PEC’s current insulation from market fluctuation.
The EPA has not adequately considered the time needed to upgrade both distribution and transmission assets. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the grid operator that serves the majority of the state of Texas, analysis of the CPP estimates that the forced retirement of coal-fired generation units will cause thermal capacities to be exceeded on hundreds miles of transmission lines.
Texas already has experienced the retirement of older, less-efficient coal plants because these less-efficient plants are unable to compete and earn sufficient revenue from low market power prices driven by natural gas prices and low-cost wind power. The CPP, in its current form, will further decrease ERCOT’s ability to rely on coal-generated power by forcing a portion of existing coal capacity to prematurely be retired and replaced with alternate forms of power generation — with the most likely alternative being natural gas.
The growth and dependency of natural gas generation in ERCOT will increase as capacity is required for both new demand growth and to meet loss of supply from coal-plant retirements. Under such a scenario, ERCOT and Texas are overexposed to natural gas, pipeline infrastructure becomes a single point of congestion and vulnerability, and PEC and will lose the predictability and security of a diverse generation mix.
When the cost of power was forecast considering the potential impact of the CPP, the estimated cost of power in 2034 is estimated to be $570 million ($71.25/MWh) — a 43.9 percent jump from PEC’s 2016 cost estimates. Within the 43.9 percent increase, 30.3 percent of the increase is directly attributable to the CPP’s impact.
To accommodate additional new generation within the state’s high voltage transmission system, ERCOT will likely have to construct additional transmission. This new transmission investment may result in a Texas State Cost of Transmission rate increase that would result in a total cost increase to PEC members from $63 million in 2016 to over $220 million in 2034. Without the CPP, PEC’s likely TCOS would increase only to $131 million in 2034. Therefore, the CPP impact to transmission cost is an $89 million cost impact in 2034, which equals a 68 percent increase.
The impacts at the consumer level threaten the ability of PEC customers — most rural and many poor — to continue to afford electricity. Hopefully, these members will not have to dust off their ancient kerosene lamps to keep the lights on at home.
Re: Oct. 12 article, “Study calls for legalizing drugs for personal use.”
The Statesman’s Chuck Lindell hit the nail squarely on the head with his article.
The drug war empowers our terrorist enemies brave enough to grow the flowers we forbid. This prohibition enriches barbarous cartels that have killed well over 100,000 individuals. Our war on drugs gives reason for existence to thousands of violent U.S. gangs who prowl our neighborhoods with high-powered weapons enticing our children to lives of crime and addiction.
Despite the expenditure of well over a trillion U.S. taxpayer dollars and the arrest
Even though Donald Trump has done everything possible that would alienate him from true believers and people of faith, they just can’t quit him. Now, the far right and prominent religious leaders know they cannot link their name with Trump’s and mustn’t officially endorse him, so they cloak their endorsement of him with threats about the dire consequences of the Supreme Court nominations to come in the future.
One very well-known religious leader says he can’t endorse Trump, nor can he endorse his opponent because of the “godless direction” President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are taking this country. Then he warns his followers to think of the Supreme Court nominations the next president will make.
It is endorsement by innuendo, but endorsement nonetheless.