An Ignoble Experiment

2. FERC wants to approve Reliability Standard with modifications

In the United States, electric vehicle (EV) sales have roughly doubled every year for the past three years. This has been driven, in part, by electric utilities offering new tariff and rate structures tailored specifically for EV owners -- with 25 utilities across 14 states offering EV tariffs, including 8 of the largest 15 utilities, according to Northeast Group, LLC.

Nissan New Mobility Concept (NMC) electric mini car at the 43rd Tokyo Motor Show 2013. Credit: Rainmaker 47/Wikimedia Commons

"In the currently shifting landscape, utilities are finding it increasingly important to better engage with their customers. A key part of this is new customer offerings such as electric vehicle tariffs. EV owners tend to be more engaged customers and it is critical that utilities are providing them with new rate options for their EVs," said Ben Gardner, president of Northeast Group. "EV owners are an increasingly important focus for utilities. On average, they consume more electricity -- not even counting electricity consumed by the EV -- and are more likely to have solar panels installed at their home. EV tariffs that offer overall lower prices while encouraging off-peak charging are a great way to engage these customers."

Northeast Group found that 95 of the 100 largest U.S. utilities had EV-specific information on their websites for customer engagement purposes.

Utilities that still do not offer special EV rates can make new rate offerings part of broader customer engagement efforts. These broader customer engagement efforts may include social media, mobile apps and new customer offerings.

In total, more than 21 million utility customers across 25 electric utilities in 14 states had access to EV tariffs in the United States, and this is set to grow over the coming years as EV sales grow and regulators begin encouraging EV tariffs, Northeast Group predicts.

For more:
- see this article

Read more about: Electric Vehicles, Northeast Group
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By Barbara Vergetis Lundin

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3. Cloud driving business value

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is moving ahead to enhance the physical security of the most-critical Bulk-Power System facilities and reduce the overall vulnerability of the grid to attacks with a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR) to approve the physical security Reliability Standard (CIP-014-1) submitted by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) -- with two modifications.

The proposed standard enhances NERC's foundational physical security efforts and helps ensure that owners and operators of the bulk power system take the necessary steps to protect the grid from physical attacks.

The NOPR finds that the proposed Reliability Standard largely satisfies the directives in a March 2014 order, which did not specifically require entities to reasonably protect against physical attacks that could have an adverse impact on reliable grid operation but did direct NERC to develop and submit new Reliability Standards that require owners and operators of the Bulk-Power System to perform a system risk assessment to identify critical facilities; evaluate potential threats to, and vulnerabilities of, those facilities; and develop and implement a security plan to protect against attacks on those facilities..

However, FERC's proposal seeks approval to direct NERC to develop a modification that would specifically allow governmental authorities, including FERC or another appropriate federal or provincial authority, to add or subtract facilities from an entity's list of critical facilities -- a procedure FERC says would be exercised only rarely.

In the second proposed modification, the Commission would direct NERC to revise wording that it believes could narrow the scope and number of identified critical facilities. The concern is that NERC's use of the phrase "widespread instability" instead of "instability," could create ambiguity since the term "widespread" is not defined.

If the proposal is approved, NERC would have to submit two informational reports to FERC -- one analyzing whether the physical security Reliability Standard should be applicable to additional types of facilities, consistent with the scope of critical facilities under other Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) standards and the second analyzing grid resiliency, exploring what more can be done to maintain the reliable operation of the Bulk-Power System when faced with the loss or degradation of critical facilities.

NERC says it is "pleased" with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issuance of two notices of proposed rulemaking proposing to approve NERC Reliability Standards addressing physical security, especially FERC's prompt response on CIP-014-01, which NERC sees as deliberately dynamic and adaptable to the constantly changing threat environment.

For more:
- see the NOPR

By Barbara Vergetis Lundin

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4. EDF weighs in on Reforming the Energy Vision

The cloud is having a significant and fast-growing impact on U.S. companies, according to a study of cloud technology, adoption and value -- commissioned by Windstream and conducted by Oxford Economics. The survey revealed some major themes.

How do companies measure cloud success? Credit: Oxford Economics/Windstream

First, it concluded that cloud technology is driving business strategy, as more than half of survey respondents identified that, in two years, cloud will be critical to their business' innovation strategy, and 57 percent said it will enable their company to move into new geographic markets.

Second, the cloud is not only driving business strategy, but business value. According to the survey, roughly two-thirds of respondents expect the cloud to support innovation and customer service delivery within two years. Moreover, 88 percent of large companies said that cloud would enable more collaboration among business units.

Third, those organizations that adopted cloud technology early on have higher profit margins and are more likely to be profitable, believing that cloud is critical for innovation. Only 33 percent of those companies who waited or are waiting to adopt cloud technology report the same.

But there are major concerns -- specifically, security. Seventy-six percent of survey respondents noted cloud security as their primary concern in terms of migration, while platform compatibility and privacy ranked highly with just more 50 percent of respondents.

For more:
- see the results
- see this infographic

Read more about: Windstream
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By Barbara Vergetis Lundin

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5. NARUC passes resolutions on grid security, reliability

The "Reforming the Energy Vision" (REV) proceeding by the Public Service Commission, which will open the door to a new regulatory paradigm and electric utility business model in New York State, is garnering comments from the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). In a filing, EDF's comments focus on both traditional objectives of resource adequacy and reliability of electrical service, as well as clean energy solutions, customer engagement, and openness to innovation.

"New York gave birth to the electric power industry 130 years ago and is now boldly innovating its way toward the clean energy economy we need in the 21st century," said Rory Christian, EDF director, New York Clean Energy. "As advances in telecommunications and information systems create new opportunities for energy services we could not imagine just a few years ago, the outmoded utility business model that rewards monopoly utilities for selling an increasing amount of electricity from a centralized, fossil-fueled power plant to customers is out of sync with what we need now."

EDF believes the commission can achieve its objective of developing a new regulatory model for electric utilities that incorporates new technologies while addressing climate change by:

fully valuing all costs and benefits associated with local on-site power generation, or distributed energy resources
establishing utility rate structures and market incentives to enable customers to realize these benefits
allowing utilities to own distributed energy resources, especially for reliability and demand-side management programs
removing barriers to third-party ownership
ensuring that utility investments in transmission and distribution infrastructure are efficient and cost-effective.

For more:
- see the comments

By Barbara Vergetis Lundin

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