Public Power Underground (the Power Department)

It’s Cluster of Symbiotic Markets! week on Public Power Underground! Naming for this week’s episode came from a wonderful interview of The Energy Authority’s (TEA) Director of Power Trading - West, Tu Phan. We also got a double-feature interview with Kurt and Austin from Northwest River Partners, and continued our series of interviews by Public Power Underground’s Special Salmon War Correspondent, Matthew Schroettnig, this time touching base with Northern Wasco County PUD’s Roger Kline about the future of the federal system and Public Power Council’s Blue Sky initiative.

01:43 - Arin Reports;
04:40 - TEA’s Tu Phan joins to talk markets (and also talk NFTs and NBA Top Shots);
17:05 - More about NFTs (definitely too much about NFTs);
18:41 - Seattle City Light’s microgrid test bed;
19:22 - Northwest River Partners double-feature where we talk to Kurt Miller and Austin Rohr;
30:02 - Distribution Systems increasingly at risk for cyber attacks;
32:16 - Updated Genesis Forecast for Federal Hydro-generation;
33:56 - A shareable article about snow’s impact on the region that is accessible and fun even for people outside our industry;
34:58 - Matt Schroettnig interviews Roger Kline about the future of the federal system and PPC’s Blue Sky initiative;
52:13 - Correcting the record from last week, w/ some Charging Speed Fee promo

Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch. Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts.

to sign up for the newsletter visit our substack at publicpowerunderground.substack.com.

Elliot Mainzer, the President and Chief Executive Officer of the California Independent System Operator (ISO), joined Crystal Ball, Matt Schroettnig, and Paul Dockery for the second installation of our Electric Market Enthusiasm series. We try to keep it light while discussing governance, transmission, price formation, stakeholder engagement, and CAISO’s new five year strategic plan. To break up the heavy topics we play an intermission game!

05:16 - newly released 5 year Strategic Plan

14:27 - Governance, legislative change, and Concurrent Resolution 188 introduced by Assembly member Chris Holden, also, Elliot’s TEDx1

27:27 - an Intermission Game called “better know an RTO CEO by getting them to reveal a preference of competing energy-interpreted gifs in a championship bracket” 

40:36 - Transmission Planning and Elliot’s “WEIM Transfer Paths” infographic

51:27 - High beams on market evolution and price formation2

1:06:14 - the Duke Silver of Western Power Markets

You can find our merch on shopify. You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember to share this with any friends you have that are electric utility enthusiasts like us!

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

----------------------

1 TEDxPortland 2011 - Elliot Mainzer - The Power Grid

2 Mays, Jacob and Jenkins, Jesse, Electricity Markets under Deep Decarbonization (April 19, 2022). USAEE Working Paper No. 22-550, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4087528 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.408752

Scott Coe, a public power leader who started under the Greatest Generation, rose to leadership amongst boomers, and has led organizations with Boomers, Millenials, and, maybe even, zoomers, joins Matthew Scroettnig (EWEB’s Power Planning & Staff Counsel) and Paul Dockery (Clatskanie PUD’s Power Manager) to talk about all things public power and public-power-leadership. Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts. Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

Public Power Underground successfully pulled off its first-ever-livestream as our Season 3 Premiere! We broadcasted LIVE from across the region, simultaneously. Karen Heim and Humaira Falkenberg joined from remote locations to provide color commentary, insights, and questions.

Joining the Underground on-location at the NWPPA Annual Conference were a series of very special guests who became the newest Friends of the Underground and summarize 3 days of conference content in one hour! We also covered some news stories we missed during our summer break in between guests. It was action-packed!

• 08:01 - Arin Reports with Karen Reporting
•  11:18 - Plug-Pass Promo
•  12:37 - Scott Corwin, Executive Director of NWPPA
•  19:49 - BPA rate case
•  22:09 - Scott Peters, CEO of Columbia Rural Electric Association
•  27:42 - Heat Dome
•  30:10 - Michelle Bertolino - Electric Utility Director for the City of Roseville & NWPPA Board President
•  36:50 - Mutual Aid help for Hurricane Ida
•  38:05 - Brad Janorschke, General Manager of Homer Electric Association
•  46:13 - The WRAP
•  47:27 - Bear Prairie, General Manager of Idaho Falls Power
•  54:28 - The Legislative Path to Increasing BPA Borrowing Authority

The next season of Public Power Underground is coming soon with a new format and new regular hosts. Subscribe to make sure you don't miss the season premiere!

After a short break, Public Power Underground is coming back for its sixth season of energy enthusiasm! This season Paul Dockery and Ahlmahz Negash will be joined by world-renowned energy researchers Conleigh Byers and Farhad Billimoria to investigate energy industry and energy-industry-adjacent topics by bringing together expert insights with practitioner perspectives. 

The episode format for Public Power Underground has evolved for Season 6, which will include a new, season-spanning energy-inspired game. Tune in for the season premiere for more.

Season 6 Contributors
Paul Dockery is a Senior Manager of Energy Resource Strategy & Planning for Seattle City Light and the Creative Director of Public Power Underground. 

Ahlmahz Negash is a Principal Data Analyst for Tacoma Power, an energy system researcher, and Executive Producer of Public Power Underground.

Conleigh Byers is an Environmental Fellow at the Harvard University Center for the Environment based at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. She uses tools from operations research, electrical engineering, and economics to design decarbonized energy systems, with a focus on power systems operations and planning. Her current research focuses on achieving resource adequacy under deep decarbonization, hosted by Professor William Hogan. She holds a doctorate in Electrical Engineering from ETH Zürich and a dual masters in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science and Technology & Policy from MIT.

Farhad Billimoria is the Director, Electricity Markets for S&P Global and a Visiting Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. He has previously served as a Principal in Market Design at the Australian Energy Market Operator and has a background in international infrastructure and energy finance, investment and capital markets.

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Electron
During the Season 5 Finale, friend-of-the-underground Jordan White referenced the buildout of transmission infrastructure as a “Sisterhood of the Traveling Electron”. As an enthusiast of both romantic comedies and electric utilities, the cross-over merch idea was too perfect to pass up. After-all, just like the magical pants from the early-aughts classic The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, transmission keeps us connected across distances during tough transitions.

Public Power Underground doesn’t have a storefront to sell merch anymore, but there is a feature where I can share a design for others to order from Printful. There’s no revenue coming to Public Power Underground from the sale and I provide no warranty or guaranty for the merch. But I did promise that if I ever translated concept to merch, I’d send it to subscribers of the newsletter. For links to Sisterhood of the Traveling Electron merchandise subscribe on substack at publicpowerunderground.substack.com.

Marc Farmer, Clatskanie PUD’s General Manager, joins Humaira Falkenberg, Brian Fawcett, and Paul Dockery on Public Power Underground to participate in our Electric Utility Recruiting video series. Marc also gives a great pitch for joining Clatskanie PUD.

Clatskanie PUD is an Oregon electric utility serving the communities and surrounding areas of Clatskanie, Rainier, and Westport. With Marc’s support, Clatskanie PUD’s Power Department started Public Power Underground while finding ways to cope with remote work during the pandemic. Marc’s enthusiasm and support for the program continues.

Electric Utility Recruiting video series

Attracting a new workforce into electric utility professions is going to be one of the key challenges of the next 20 years, and electric utility enthusiasts need to build up recruiting skills to meet the challenge. So Public Power Underground took the opportunity, while it was recording on location at the opening reception for NWPPA’s Annual Meeting in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, to pull aside executives from across the region and quiz them on their best recruiting pitches to attract new folks to electric utility professions.

We were honored to be joined by John Hairston, Mark Johnson, Sarah Giomi, Scott Corwin, Scott Simms, Scott Coe, Scott Rhees, Sarah Edmonds, Marc Farmer, Crystal Ball, and Bear Prairie. The interviews will be released individually over the coming weeks as special, bonus episodes.

You can find our merch on shopify. You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember to share this with any friends you have that are electric utility enthusiasts like us!

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

A party of special significance to celebrate the eleventy-first and final episode with an energy system analogy world cup championship tournament, celebrity guests, and stump speeches

Friends-of-the-Underground participated in a special, in-person recording of the eleventy-first and final episode of Public Power Underground celebrating our community of electric utility enthusiasts. The episode includes a live performance of Roll On, Enthusiasts with special musical guest Daryl Wayne Dasher joining Arin Guillory and Ian Bledsoe. It also closes the Season 6 Energy System Analogy World Cup with celebrity judges Debra Smith and Daniel Kirschen picking winners in an 8-analogy, single elimination Championship Tournament. And, just like Bilbo Baggins ended his eleventy-first birthday celebration giving a speech on a stump, the season ends with open-mic stump speeches from electric utility enthusiasts. 

07:11 - Short-to-Ground, Analogy Edition

• Top 8 seeds for Energy System Analogy World Cup Championship Tournament
• All 20 Grand Analogies of the Energy System from Season 6

15:51 - Energy System Analogy World Cup Championship Tournament

37:01 - Kurt Miller Stump Speech

40:05 - Crystal Ball Stump Speech

42:42 - Debra Smith Stump Speech

44:02 - Pamela Sporborg Stump Speech

45:50 - Robb Davis Stump Speech

48:54 - Sarah Edmonds Stump Speech

50:34 - Megan Capper Stump Speech

52:16 - Scott Corwin Stump Speech

54:01 - Farhad Billimoria Stump Speech

55:48 - Eric Hiaasen Stump Speech

59:07 - Matt Schroettnig Stump Speech

1:01:44 - Kieran Connelly Stump Speech

1:03:21 - Mary Wiencke Stump Speech

1:05:42 - Doug Marker Stump Speech

1:09:08 - Nicole Hughes Stump Speech

1:10:29 - Conleigh Byers Stump Speech

1:12:00 - Chris Roden Stump Speech

1:15:02 - Ryan Neale Stump Speech

1:16:47 - Humaira Falkenberg Stump Speech

1:20:20 - Closing thoughts from Ian Bledsoe, Arin Guillory, and Ahlmahz Negash

1:24:00 - Closing thoughts from Paul Dockery

If you stay subscribed to Public Power Underground, you may find interesting items in your feed from time to time. Thank you for being a friend of the underground. I hope you have enjoyed the content and feel valued and appreciated.

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

It’s Harquahala Hypothesis! week on Public Power Underground! Northwest power markets are a topic of interest for the Underground, and we dive into a forward market theory on to start the news. After the market hypothesis, we talk to EWEB’s Jon Hart about his philosophy of market fundaments, check-in on transportation electrification with Clark Public Utilities’ Matt Babbitts, learn about public power recruiting from Energy Northwest’s Sarah Giomi, and revisit one of our recurring topics (Resource Adequacy) with PGP’s Lea Fisher.

01:48 - Arin Reports
04:10 - [an unplanned fishing update from celebrity angler, Brian Fawcett]
05:49 - Harquahala Hypothesis
06:47 - a Philosophy of Market Fundamentals w/ EWEB’s Jon Hart
14:49 - Debrief from BPA’s 2nd Quarter QBR Technical Workshop
15:38 - Clark Public Utilities’ Matt Babbitts on Transportation Electrification & APPA’s EV Toolkit
26:46 - CoBank Launched a Power Podcast
28:20 - Talk to Sarah Giomi about Energy Northwest’s public power utility internship program that was highlighted in February’s NWPPA Bulletin (page 16)
34:57 - Lamborghini announces an all-electric-car (and the F-150 Lightning was revealed)
44:28 - PGP’s Lea Fisher talks NWPP’s RA program

PUBLIC (POWER) SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: We’re recording a special after-dark, mailbag episode with Best Friend of the Underground Susan Ackerman on May 26th. It will serve as Public Power Underground’s Season 2 finale. Don’t miss the sappy conclusion to the season, subscribe on YouTube, apple podcast, spotify, and here on substack to make sure you don’t miss the Season 2 finale or the Season 3 premier!

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts. Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch.

to sign up for the newsletter visit our substack at publicpowerunderground.substack.com.

It’s season 3, episode 3 - Into the Metaverse! week for Public Power Underground. We covered a BROAD range of news this week, and caught up with some celebrities including THE Vice President of Origination for Avangrid, Holly Carias, a BLUE CHECK mark, Dan Catchpole, and the curator of #energytwitter, Simon Mahan.

• 04:20 - Arin Reports
•  09:13 - Summary of wildfire impacts on BPA transmission lines
•  11:29 - PPC’s Mike Linn joins to chat about CAISO’s recently announced Extended Day-Ahead Market forum
•  18:21 - Northwest Coming Up Short of Regional Energy Savings Goal
•  19:29 - Dispatches from #EnergyTwitter w/ @dcatchpole & @SimonMahan
•  35:03 - A perfect storm hits UK's natural gas market
•  37:26 - Holly Carias, Avangrid’s VP of Origination, joins to chat about all things renewables including the U.S.'s first offshore wind project securing funding
•  51:06 - Fusion and some powerful magnets
•  52:46 - Oregon didn't meet it's target of 50,000 Zero Emission Vehicles by 2020
•  53:59 - Direct carbon air capture - a vacuum got installed

 Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

learning lessons about deeply decarbonized electricity markets from around the world including optimal prices in non-convex markets, reliability insurance, and system security

Farhad Billimoria, Conleigh Byers, PhD, Ahlmahz Negash, PhD, and Paul Dockery discuss adaptation of market design for the energy transition including fat tails and increased exposure to extremes; batteries and price responsive demand; natural gas fragility and marginal pricing; and inverter-driven resources and system security. Then the team plays a new game where they synthesize expert explanations of convex vs non-convex pricing and reliability insurance. 

You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Share with friends that are electric utility enthusiasts, like us!

05:30 - Lessons Learned on deeply decarbonized electric systems from electricity markets around the world with “Handbook on Electricity Markets” and P.L. Joskow’s “From hierarchies to markets and partially back again in electricity: responding to decarbonization and security of supply goals” as background

07:06 - Lesson 1: natural gas fragility and marginal pricing

17:20 - Lesson 2: batteries and price responsive demand

24:23 - Lesson 3: fat tails and increased exposure to extremes

38:20 - Lesson 4: Inverter based grids and system security (synchronous condensers and grid inertia)

48:15 - Wonky energy game synthesizing expert explanations

• Farhad Billimoria provides a 2 minute 20 second explanation of A reliability insurance overlay on energy-only electricity markets1; followed by the rest of the crew’s interpretation
• Conleigh Byers, PhD, provides a 2 minute 20 second explanation of Long-run optimal pricing in electricity markets with non-convex costs2; followed by the rest of the crew’s interpretation (and discussion of computational time for a solution using the Convex Hull pricing34)

1:27:36 - Ahlmahz’s insightful question of the week

1:32:18 - Conleigh Byers, PhD’s Closing Thoughts

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

1 Farhad Billimoria, Rahmatallah Poudineh, Market design for resource adequacy: A reliability insurance overlay on energy-only electricity markets, Utilities Policy, Volume 60, 2019, 100935, ISSN 0957-1787, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jup.2019.100935.

2 Conleigh Byers, Gabriela Hug, Long-run optimal pricing in electricity markets with non-convex costs, European Journal of Operational Research, Volume 307, Issue 1, 2023, Pages 351-363, ISSN 0377-2217, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2022.07.052.

3 P. Andrianesis, D. Bertsimas, M. C. Caramanis and W. W. Hogan, "Computation of Convex Hull Prices in Electricity Markets With Non-Convexities Using Dantzig-Wolfe Decomposition," in IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, vol. 37, no. 4, pp. 2578-2589, July 2022, doi: 10.1109/TPWRS.2021.3122000.

4 C. Byers and G. Hug, "Flexibility Compensation with Increasing Stochastic Variable Renewable Energy in Non-Convex Markets," 2022 17th International Conference on Probabilistic Methods Applied to Power Systems (PMAPS), Manchester, United Kingdom, 2022, pp. 1-6, doi: 10.1109/PMAPS53380.2022.9810627.

Debra Smith, Randy Hardy, Bill Drummond, and Steve Wright recorded an info-taining conversation live on-stage at NWPPA’s 83rd Annual Conference and Membership Meeting in Anchorage, Alaska. Debra hosts the three former Administrators of the Bonneville Power Administration who continue to engage in energy policy. The discussion ranges from greatest regrets to reasons for optimism, and proudest moments. At the end Paul Dockery joins to facilitate an energy inspired game called Energy Enthusiasm Distilled.

The episode was edited prior to the news of Debra Smith’s surgery. For updates on her recovery you can find updates on Caring Bridge. Her electric utility enthusiast friends wish her a speedy and full recovery!

You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Share with friends that are electric utility enthusiasts, like us!

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

Ben Serrurier returns to Public Power Underground to share some maybe-good-maybe-bad-but-definitely-not-thought-out ideas with Ahlmahz Negash, Paul Dockery, and Farhad Billimoria in a returning segment, Half-Baked Ideas. Then Irina Rasputnis, Madeline Kostic, and Eric Strandberg from the Seattle City Light’s Lighting Design Lab sit down to talk with Paul Dockery about innovation in building electrification. 

13:19 - Half-Baked Ideas

• Inspiration for the segment comes from the Bill Simmons Podcast
• Ben’s prior appearances on the podcast

52:51 - The Lighting Design Lab

1:30:25 - Invitation to the Eleventy-First and Final episode of Public Power Underground

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

We’re Catching up on all-the-news! this week on Public Power Underground! After a restful week hiatus we’re back catching up on all we missed. Joining to get us up to speed were Clearing Up’s Steve Ernst, Forth’s Erin Galiger, and NRU’s Megan Stratman!

01:22 - Arin Reports
06:49 - Colonial Pipeline begins restart of operations after a cyberattack  
09:15 - Clearing Up's Steve Ernst joins to catch me up litigation and arbitration surrounding Colstrip
15:12 - Fitch Ratings issues Rating Action Commentary on Energy Northwest and BPA
16:29 - Debrief from BPA’s Q2 Quarterly Business Review
18:51 - Forth’s Erin Galiger joins the Underground to talk about electric tractors!
26:25 - Ford F-150 Lightning is getting unveiled on a livestream May 19th at 6:30pm  
28:59 - NRU’s Megan Stratman joins to talk about the proposed BP-22 Rate Settlement and BPA’s Provider of Choice process
44:28 - Public Power Underground original reporting of our very own news story about Emerald PUD’s pandemic pet policy: An Ian Bledsoe Special Report

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: We’re recording a special after-dark, mailbag episode with retiring Best Friend of the Underground Susan Ackerman on May 26th. Send us your mailbag questions by May 20th for us to talk about after-hours in a happy-hour-ish version of Public Power Underground!

Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch. Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts.

to sign up for the newsletter visit our substack at publicpowerunderground.substack.com.

It’s Best and Brightest Week! on Public Power Underground! We have two guest co-hosts (NRU’s Megan Stratman and Clatskanie PUD’s own Sarah Johnson) and a special celebrity guest star (Libby Calnon) participate in the show where we debut a brand new public-power-adjacent show on Slummin’ w/ the Underground. I force the guest co-hosts to read ad copy I’ve written to recruit to public power. Don’t miss the great ad copy, great content, and great conversation about hiring, jobs, and recruiting for jobs in public power.

Arin Reports (03:49), Electric rate design news from Tacoma Power (06:35), Guest News from NWPCC’s John Ollis on the 2021 Power Plan (08:42), Status update on BPA’s BP-22 Rate Case (13:51), Hydro-generation update (16:56), 30 second summary of our SPP Market+ episode (18:34), Slummin’ w/ the Underground: Best and Brightest Edition with Hood River Electric Cooperative’s Libby Calnon where we talk about recruiting new people to public power jobs (20:44)

Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch. Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts.

to sign up for the newsletter visit our substack at publicpowerunderground.substack.com.

Apoorv Bhargava discusses his work at WeaveGrid optimizing electric vehicle charging within distribution systems. The interview is wrapped by context and insights from the regular hosts: Ahlmahz Negash, Conleigh Byers, Farhad Billimoria, and Paul Dockery.

You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Share with friends that are energy enthusiasts, like us!

01:21 - 30 seconds of Theory

• Farhad Billimoria on Distribution System Operators (DSOs)
• Conleigh Byers on Transactive Energy
• Ahlmahz Negash on the Energy Equity Gap

10:28 - Apoorv Bhargava on WeaveGrid and the Grid

53:38 - Apoorv Bhargava’s analogy; the electric grid is like a well stocked bar

1:00:27 - Updating our Priors

• Fred Scweppe: Power systems `2000': hierarchical control strategies
• Paul Joskow & Richard Schmalensee: Markets for Power

1:20:24 - Community Planning as Energy Planning

• We Need to Make Cities Less Car-Dependent, Scientific American, 2024
• Car harm: A global review of automobility's harm to people and the environment, Journal of Transport Geography, 2024

1:28:20 - ESA World Cup Standings

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

Public Power Underground is a pandemic diversion written, edited, and published by the Power Department. We cover Northwest public power and public-power-adjacent news with occasional special guest correspondents to talk about regional topics.

In this week’s episodes we stuck to the basics: covering northwest market indicators with Arin Reports and running through public power and public-power-adjacent news on Public Power Desktop.

02:33 - Arin Reports
05:54 - Public Power Desktop
18:58 - Plug-Pass promo

In a special, crossover podcast the host of APPA's Public Power Now, Paul Ciampoli, and Public Power Underground's Paul Dockery interview APPA's Vice President of Strategic Member Engagement & Education, Ursula Schryver, about APPA's upcoming National Conference.

https://www.publicpower.org/public-power-now 

https://www.publicpower.org/event/national-conference 

Public Power Underground, it's work to watch. Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts.  https://publicpowerunderground.substack.com/

Season 3 is the season to ROLL ON ENTHUSTIASTS, ROLL ON! Public Power Underground took the summer off, but with kids headed back to school it's time for the fall season to kick off. We've got some plans. The plans are bound to change.   

The Underground's own Arin Guillory, CPA and Ian Bledsoe combined their talents to make this special Season 3 theme song inspired by Woody Guthrie's Roll On Columbia, but re-imagined for electric utility enthusiasts. We hope you enjoy, and are ready for the next adventure.  

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts. Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch.

It’s Coalition of the Willing week on Public Power Underground! This week we were joined by BPA’s Rachel Dibble to talk about Resource Adequacy and PNGC’s Roger Gray to talk about a investigating a Northwest RTO/ISO.  As always we started by covering northwest market indicators with Arin Reports and cover other public power and public-power-adjacent news on Public Power Desktop.

05:03 - Arin Reports; 09:35 - Public Power Desktop; 10:46 – Roger Gray on Northwest RTO/ISO; 28:16 – Rachel Dibble on Resource Adequacy; 47:04 - Plug-Pass promo

We discuss how utility risk management is a lot like dungeons and dragons: creatively managing risk by leveraging strengths to maximize the likelihood of beneficial outcomes when solving problems.

Kevin Nordt, Paul Dietz, Ahlmahz Negash, PhD, and Paul Dockery talk about managing market risk from utility risk managers perspectives. Including (1) putting uncertainty in perspective, (2) organizational and customer risk tolerance, (3) translating risk tolerance strategies for risk management, and (4) risk based thinking in the context of power supply. Plus the crew answers an insightful question from Ahlmahz and they discuss the set up of an energy inspired dungeons and dragons campaign.

You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Share with friends that are electric utility enthusiasts, like us!

07:59 - Risks as friend or foe

15:18 - Risk tolerance

32:39 - Risk awareness

52:06 - Risk based thinking in the context of power supply

1:02:52 - Ahlmahz’s insightful question of the week

1:14:14 - Dams and Distribution; setting up an energy industry inspired Dungeons and Dragons campaign

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

Kurt Miller, Dan Catchpole, KC Mehaffey, and Paul Dockery get together for a regularly formatted episode to talk about electric utility and electric-utility-adjacent news from a Power Department’s perspective. The crew covers the Murray-Inslee draft report, Australia’s electric market getting suspended, natural gas price slump after a fire, transfer of management of a fish hatchery to the Nez Perce Tribe, and Falconry at the Dalles Dam.

19:10 - A draft report developed for Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and Sen. Patty Murray to examine the impacts of breaching the four lower snake river dams

• Coverage by KC Mehaffey in Clearing Up on the report and reactions to the report
• A study commissioned by NWRP and prepared by Energy GPS Consulting LLC on the full power cost replacement analysis for the lower Snake River dams

33:12 - Australian Energy Market Operator suspended their national electric market

• Coverage by the Guardian
• Discussion and analysis on The Conversation
• The Professor Jacob Mays Interview
• The Professor Frank Wolak Interview

43:53 - Freeport’s Liquified Natural Gas had an unplanned outaged, and it impacted national natural gas markets

• Grubert, E., & Hastings-Simon, S. (2022). Designing the mid-transition: A review of medium-term challenges for coordinated decarbonization in the United States. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, e768. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.768

48:25 - Transfer of management of the Dwarshak National Fish Hatchery to the Nez Perce Tribe, also known as the Nimiipuu

• Coverage by The Spokesman

56:51 - The ancient art of falconry used to help reduce salmon predation

1:03:49 - TL;DR segment known as “Energy West …. Lite”

• Water, Weather Conditions Ripe for Boost in Sales for BPA
• PGE Considers Accelerating Renewables Acquisitions
• Idaho Regulators Approve Faster Bridger Depreciation for Idaho Power
• CPUC Approves Resource-Adequacy Plans
• CAISO DMM Suggests Clarifications to Extended Day-Ahead Market Proposal
• NRU Hires Matt Schroettnig
• Clatskanie PUD Case Study on Wildfire Risk Assessment
• Energy News Roundup

You can find our merch on shopify. You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember to share this with any friends you have that are electric utility enthusiasts like us!

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

It’s season 3, episode 8 - Distributed Demand Resource Response Week! for Public Power Underground. Underground regulars (Karen Heim, Arin Guillory, Ludgie Gelin, and Paul Dockery) are joined by our Podcast Ambassador from California Energy Markets, Jason Fordney this week. The episode includes conversations with Tacoma Power’s Ahlmahz Negash grant funding for microgrids and distributed resources, and PNUCC’s Shauna McReynolds and Tomás Morrisey about Demand Response and Distributed Generation in the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s draft 2021 Power Plan. 05:18 - Arin Reports 08:46 - The Arizona Corporation Commission is clashing with Arizona Public Service 13:13 - Ahlmahz Negash, PhD, talks Clean Energy Fund awards for grid modernization projects 21:45 - Southern California Edison transitioning residential customers to Time-of-Use rate plans 22:49 - The Diesel-Fired California Dream 30:15 - Shauna McReynolds and Tomás Morrissey talk about Distributed Generation and Demand Response in NWPCC’s draft 2021 Power Plan 48:30 - Avista and Puget Sound Energy file final clean energy implementation plans 51:07 - A Bipartisan Infrastructure Package makes it through Congress 53:19 - Dispatches from #EnergyTwitter: Maine Voters reject transmission and John Oliver talks Power Grid 58:17 - TL;DR news stories we ran out of time to discuss Remember to share this with any friends you have that are electric utility enthusiasts like us! Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

Professor Frank Wolak, the Holbrook Working Professor of Commodity Price Studies in the Department of Economics at Stanford University who also works as the Director of the Program on Energy and Sustainable Development, joins Paul Dockery for the third installation of our Electric Market Enthusiasm series. 

04:13 - my lede for Professor Wolak’s working paper

Wolak, Frank A. "Long-term resource adequacy in wholesale electricity markets with significant intermittent renewables." Environmental and Energy Policy and the Economy 3.1 (2022): 155-220.

10:22 - the Reliability Externality and it’s relation to the Missing Money problem

16:48 - suspending exports in scarcity events

20:27 - Standardized Fixed Price Forward Contract market auctions

34:50 - the Energy Market Game

48:28 - The Future of Electricity Retailing and How We Get There

52:43 - developing market depth on the demand side

You can find our merch on shopify. You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember to share this with any friends you have that are electric utility enthusiasts like us!

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

It’s season 3, episode 2 - Into the Metaverse! - week for Public Power Underground. We caught up with a couple special guests, and got back into the regular format covering public-power and public-power-adjacent news.

• 02:17 - Arin Reports
•  07:16 - Temporary Gas Plants in California
•  10:02 - Tu Phan talks Power Markets and Metaverse
•  20:04 - PNNL’s Research on Heat Pump Water Heaters
•  22:16 - Roger Gray talks about BPA post-2028 product design concepts
•  37:37 - Broadband expansion to rural areas
•  39:02 - Northwest Power and Conservation Council releases draft 2021 Power Plan
•  40:09 - High Columbia Temperatures Worry Steelhead Watchers
• Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

Ari Peskoe describes himself as an electric utility critic and has advice for electric utility enthusiasts.

Ari Peskoe is the Director of the Electricity Law Initiative at the Harvard Law School Environmental and Energy Law Program and a prolific writer about regulation of the U.S. power sector on issues ranging from constitutional challenges to states’ energy laws to interstate transmission development. The interview is wrapped in commentary from co-hosts Paul Dockery, Ahlmahz Negash, and Farhad Billimoria.

You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Share with friends that are energy enthusiasts, like us!

03:11 - 30 seconds of theory

• Farhad on Cost of Service vs Incentive based regulation
  • Joskow, P.L., 2024. The Expansion of Incentive (Performance-Based) Regulation of Electricity Distribution and Transmission in the United States. Review of Industrial Organization, pp.1-49.
• Ahlmahz on Procedural Justice
  • Jenkins, K., McCauley, D., Heffron, R., Stephan, H. and Rehner, R., 2016. Energy justice: A conceptual review. Energy research & social science, 11, pp.174-182.

11:01 - Ari Peskoe on Governance

• 11/01/2023 - CleanLaw Podcast - Electricity Law Initiative
• CleanLaw–Replacing the Utility Transmission Syndicate’s Control, Hannah Dobie interviews Ari Peskoe about his new article in Energy Law Journal
• Peskoe, A., 2023. Replacing the Utility Transmission Syndicate's Control. Energy LJ, 44, p.447.
• Market Configuration Matters; Effects of Market Choices on Consumers in the Northwest US

51:10 - Ranking Governance, Configuration, and Market Design

59:37 - Ari Peskoe’s Energy System Analogy

1:04:48 - Debriefing on transmission, governance, and public power with Ahlmahz Negash and Farhad Billimoria

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

Lea Fisher, Ahlmahz Negash, PhD, Dan Catchpole, and Paul Dockery cover electric utility and electric-utility-adjacent news in Season 5, Episode 3.

06:32 - introduce Ahlmahz Negash, PhD as new co-host for Public Power Underground

Ahlmahz has been a recurring guest on Public Power Underground and even accepted the designation of a Special Correspondent during earlier seasons. She has a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Washington, was recently the Chair of the Pacific Northwest Utility Conference Committee’s System Planning Committee, is a recipient of PNUCC’s “Albert Einstein Award”, and is currently on sabbatical from Tacoma Public Utilities where she is a Senior Power Analyst. [I forgot to do an adequate introduction during the recording because I figured y’all knew Ahlmahz, but then I realized I shouldn’t take knowledge for granted and am hopeful y’all will look here.]

09:18 - a lot going on with WRAP

• BPA’s draft close out letter and workshop materials
• coverage of draft closeout letter by Steve Ernst in Clearing Up
• Dan Catchpole’s coverage in Clearing Up on deficiency letter from FERC
• Comments filed by the Power Pool acknowledging BPA’s unique statutory obligations (WRAP22 0011 - Edmonds/Western Power Pool)

27:05 - tensions/tradeoffs of the incremental approach to markets

• coverage of Markets+ two-day, in-person development session by Tom Kleckner in RTO Insider
• presentation from workshop on implementation cost of Markets+ (slide 14)
• an earlier presentation on RTO West implementation costs

43:22 - reliability assessment: Not Great

• coverage of NERC’s 2022-2023 Winter Reliability Assessment by Rory Sweeney in Clearing Up
• North American electric grid faces ‘unprecedented’ widespread risk this winter: NERC by Robert Walton in Utility Dive
• NERC’s announcement with links to full assessment and infographic

53:55 - Short to Ground; where we TL;DR our way through the rest of the news

• Decade-Long Effort to Remove Klamath Dams Gets Final OK by KC Mehaffey in Clearing Up
• FERC, States Hash Out Independent Transmission Monitor Concept by Jason Fordney in California Energy Markets
• Boardman to Hemingway Power Line Approved by Oregon EFSC by Greg Mason in Clearing Up
• Study: Coal Facility Closures Could Increase Available Western Water by Linda Dailey Paulson in California Energy Markets
• BPA Rate Cases Kick Off; Settlement Calls for Keeping Rates Flat by Steve Ernst in Clearing Up
• Diablo Canyon Selected for $1.1-Billion Federal Boost by Jim DiPeso in California Energy Markets
• Heat-Wave Power Sellers Argue Their High Prices Were Justified by Jason Fordney in Clearing Up
• Spot Market Power
• La Nina
• NOAA Climate Forecasts
• WY2023 Water Supply Forecast

1:04:07 - Paul shares some personal news

You can find our merch on shopify. You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember to share this with any friends you have that are electric utility enthusiasts like us!

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

Inspired by the YouTube series *Hot Ones*, Whitney Muse (Senior Policy Advisor in the White House Office of Clean Energy Innovation and Implementation), Mark Lauby (Senior Vice President and Chief Engineer at North American Electric Reliability Corporation), and Jordan White (Executive Director, Development at GridLiance) join co-hosts Paul and Crystal to discuss increasingly controversial topics while eating a series of increasingly spicy wings. The conversation triangulates hot topics in the energy industry from engineering, policy, and business perspectives.

You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Share with friends that are electric utility enthusiasts, like us!

Round 1: Mild Spice - ERO Report / Texas & Utah Inverter caused outages

Round 2: Medium Spice - No Transition without Transmission & Regulatory Frameworks for Change

Round 3: Hot - Joint Federal-State Task Force on Electric Transmission  & Western States Transmission Initiative

Round 4: Spicy

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

Lorenzo Kristov and Josh Keeling join Ahlmahz and Paul to talk about maximizing the deployment of distributed energy resources but first we make them say something nice about electric utilities

Lorenzo Kristov and Josh Keeling join Ahlmahz Negash, PhD and Paul Dockery for a discussion of FERC 2222, maximizing the distribution-level customer value of distributed energy resources, international examples of unbundling the functions of distribution utilities, and 80/20 advice on how to make the most progress toward DER deployment. First, we make them compliment electric utilities.

You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Share with friends that are electric utility enthusiasts, like us!

12:17 - say something nice about electric utilities

Lorenzo and Josh brought a lot of great compliments and some not-so-nice compliments. Among the list of compliments they didn’t get to but shared by Josh Keeling afterward:

• Pretty good at the poles and wires game
• Never get confused about the differences between “useful life” and “economic life”
• Captain planet-like super team of lawyers, economists, engineers, and accountants
• Never scared to pilot something
• Always happy to explain what “you just don’t understand” about distribution engineering
• Very optimistic: can always find a way to point out how “used and useful” things are
• Really good at finding new ways to apply the word “innovation”
• Never too quick into something “at scale”
• Really are the best of both world between trudging local government and greedy corporate monopoly

15:51 - discussion of FERC Order No. 2222

• FERC order 2222
• NREL summary
• NARUC status update

25:05 - maximizing the distribution-level and customer value of DERs

• Catalyst w/ Shayle Kahn episode on electrification

40:06 - international examples of unbundling the functions of distribution utilities

48:58 - 80/20 of DER interconnection

• Volts episode with Saul Griffith 
• Interstate Renewable Energy Council, DER interconnection best practices

1:00:05 - Ahlmahz’s insightful question of the week

1:03:10 - DER for a day

1:08:20 - Josh Keeling’s closing thoughts

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

Jacob Mays, Assistant Professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Cornell University, answers Paul’s remedial questions on how electric markets function and what the Pacific Northwest should be considering when approaching market expansion incrementally in a wide ranging and engaging conversation. 

Since Professor Mays is an academic, it feels fitting to include citations for the materials referenced. Please excuse any errors in citation.

1. Mays et al., Private risk and social resilience in liberalized electricity markets, Joule (2022), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2022.01.004
2. Mays, Jacob and Jenkins, Jesse, Electricity Markets under Deep Decarbonization (April 19, 2022). USAEE Working Paper No. 22-550, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4087528 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4087528
3. Mays, J., Morton, D.P. & O’Neill, R.P. Asymmetric risk and fuel neutrality in electricity capacity markets. Nat Energy 4, 948–956 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-019-0476-1
4. F. A. Wolak, Economic and political constraints on the demand-side of electricity industry re-structuring processes, Review of Economics and Institutions 4 (1) (Feb. 2013). doi:10.5202/rei.v4i1.101.
   URL https://doi.org/10.5202/rei.v4i1.101
5. Grubert, E., & Hastings-Simon, S. (2022). Designing the mid-transition: A review of medium-term challenges for coordinated decarbonization in the United States. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, e768. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.768
6. Mays, J., A mini-thread on my and @JesseJenkins working paper, Electricity Markets under Deep Decarbonization. (April 28, 2022). Twitter.com. 
7. Jenkins, J., Texas's grid is straining again, as a spring heat wave finds ERCOT with about 1/3 of thermal power plants down, some for scheduled outages (prep for summer), others forced outages due to equipment failures, including 1 coal and 6 gas units. A few threads on the situation... (May 14, 2022). Twitter.com. 

You can find our merch on shopify. You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember to share this with any friends you have that are electric utility enthusiasts like us!

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, where you’re valued and appreciated.

It’s Return Counts are Up! week on Public Power Underground! Some great guest news and insight from returning Friends of the Underground this week. There’s a lot going on in the region and we’re just trying to keep up. We also talk a lot about EVs, because we really find electric vehicle public charging interesting.

01:52 - Arin Reports
05:45 - Guest News: PNUCC’s Tomás Morrisey talks about the NRF
14:31 - Guest News: PNGC’s Greg Mendonca records a promo for an open position
19:47 - PPC’s Executive Director, Scott Simms, gives an update on their Blue Sky initiative
31:36 - Pole-Mounted Electric Vehicle Public Chargers
35:21 - PGE and Daimler Trucks North America build the first vehicle charging site specifically for heavy-duty trucks
38:50 - Steller sea lion removal news is back as the number of Chinook climbing Bonneville Dam fish ladders is on the rise
40:16 - Debrief from BPA’s April 27th Energy Imbalance Market Implementation Workshop

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: We’re recording a special after-dark, mailbag episode on May 26th. Send us your mailbag questions for us to talk about after-hours in a happy-hour-ish version of Public Power Underground! We’ll be joined by MANY SPECIAL GUESTS AND ONE SUPER-SPECIAL CELEBRITY GUEST!!!!

Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch. Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts.

to sign up for the newsletter visit our substack at publicpowerunderground.substack.com.

Transmission experts talk about horror stories from permitting Idaho Power's Boardman to Hemmingway transmission line and react to a regional planning organization scorecard

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Adam Richins, Christina Hayes, and Pam Sporborg join Paul Dockery at Paddy’s Bar & Grill for an after-hour conversation about transmission in the West. The recording starts with another edition of Energy Enthusiasm, Distilled where the experts distill complicated topics in infotaining ways while on a clock. The conversation then tackles the 3Ps of transmission policy (Planning, Permitting, and Paying-for) and closes out with a new, unscripted game: FERC-for-a-Day.

• Permitting: Horror Stories from Boardman to Hemmingway (B2H)
• Planning: Transmission Planning & Development Regional Report Card
• Paying-for: Importance of transmission to Clean Energy Pathways

We also discussed briefly the cultural importance of the Bonneville Power Administration’s rate hearing room for the energy community in the northwest, which led me (Paul) to bring up an Ezra Klein podcast about cultural evolution. A link is included here for those who want the background information.

You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Share with friends that are electric utility enthusiasts, like us!

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

Pam Sporborg, Spencer Gray, Joe Taylor and Paul Dockery debrief and synthesize the discussion from an SPP Markets+ Leadership Forum hosted by Tacoma Power, NV Energy, and the Bonneville Power Administration on May 12th, 2023.

05:04 - Benefits, Opportunities and Barriers to Market Expansion

18:18 - Long-run resource portfolios adapted to market design

30:00 - Seams

41:49 - The toughest outstanding issues for market expansion in the west

56:13 - Final Predictions

You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Share with friends that are electric utility enthusiasts, like us!

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

A discussion of the building blocks of a just energy transition with Professor Erin Baker, the Faculty Director of the Energy Transition Institute at UMass Amherst.

Professor Erin Baker visited with Ahlmahz Negash and Paul Dockery in-person at the office of the Pacific Northwest Utility Conference Committee (PNUCC) about energy justice, meaningful metrics, and the Holyoke Community Energy Project. The discussion is wrapped by insightful commentary on energy justice from hosts Conleigh Byers, Farhad Billimoria, Paul Dockery, and Ahlmahz Negash.

You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Share with friends that are energy enthusiasts, like us!

2:58 - 30 seconds of theory

• What is energy justice?

Jenkins, K., McCauley, D., Heffron, R., Stephan, H. and Rehner, R., 2016. Energy justice: A conceptual review. Energy research & social science, 11, pp.174-182.

• 3 core tenets of energy justice

Jenkins, K., McCauley, D., Heffron, R., Stephan, H. and Rehner, R., 2016. Energy justice: A conceptual review. Energy research & social science, 11, pp.174-182.

• 5 categories of energy justice metrics

Baker, E., Carley, S., Castellanos, S., Nock, D., Bozeman III, J.F., Konisky, D., Monyei, C.G., Shah, M. and Sovacool, B., 2023. Metrics for decision-making in energy justice. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 48(1), pp.737-760.

11:31 - Interview with Prof. Erin Baker

58:22 - Debriefing from interview w/ hosts Conleigh Byers, Farhad Billimoria, Paul Dockery, and Ahlmahz Negash

1:33:00 - Closing Thoughts from Conleigh Byers & Farhad Billimoria

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

Michelle Manary, Bonneville Power Administration’s Chief Financial Officer who is on assignment to the Department of Energy as the Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of Electric Delivery, joins Matthew Scroettnig (EWEB’s Power Planning Supervisor & Staff Counsel) and Paul Dockery (Clatskanie PUD’s Director of Energy Resources) to go deep into the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, electrification’s impact on long-term planning, how to prepare for grant funding, SEASONAL TIME CHANGE, and how much she misses all our wonderful workshops in the Pacific Northwest. If you watched s3e10, Infrastructure Week!, you have already heard the first part of the interview. The conversation picks back up in this video at 13:54. You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. We hope you enjoy the conversation. Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

Travis Kavulla, Abigail Sawyer, Dan Catchpole, and Paul Dockery cover electric utility and electric-utility-adjacent news in Season 5, Episode 2.

05:51 - energy angles to election coverage

• Abigail Sawyer coverage of elections in the Southwest in California Energy Markets
• Anne Ernst coverage of California elections in California Energy Markets
• Dan Catchpole’s coverage of NW election results in Clearing Up

21:15 - Travis Kavulla acts as the Underground’s Special Correspondent from the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners’ (NARUC) Annual Meeting in New Orleans

• White Paper on approaches to State-Federal Cooperation in a Decarbonizing Electricity Sector
• Twitter Wager between Rob Gramlich and Travis Kavulla

32:57 - Travis Kavulla’s take on bifurcating spot market price formation

45:33 - legislative mandates for RTO participation from a former regulator’s perspective

• story on Nevada legislation from Utility Dive
• story on Colorado legislation from Utility Dive
• job opening for Executive Director of the California Electric Transmission Authority

55:58 - Short to Ground; where we TL;DR our way through the rest of the news

• California Public Utilities Commission releases NEM 3.0
• WECC's 2022 resource adequacy assessment
• Powerex committed to joining SPP’s Markets+
• NW Groups Compete for Slice of $7B From Feds for Clean Hydrogen Hub
• Joe Manchin won’t hold a renomination hearing for FERC’s Rich Glick
• Mike Hummel, CEO and general manager of Salt River Project, announced he will retire in May 2023
• PacifiCorp Proposes Nearly 26 Percent Rate Increase for California Customers
• the Public Utility Commission of Texas released a study of Market Reform Options
• Travis Kavulla quoted in the Wall Street Journal
• Spot Market Power
• La Nina
• NOAA Climate Forecasts
• WY2023 Water Supply Forecast

You can find our merch on shopify. You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember to share this with any friends you have that are electric utility enthusiasts like us!

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

Conleigh, Farhad, Ahlmahz, and Paul debrief on coverage of FERC Order 1920 then discuss resource adequacy, hedging tail risk, and preview business capability models.

Ahlmahz Negash, Conleigh Byers, and Farhad Billimoria scan news stories after FERC’s release of Order 1920, then Conleigh Byers explains Resource adequacy, and Farhad Billimoria explains Hedging & Tail Risk in Electricity Markets.

You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Share with friends that are energy enthusiasts, like us!

03:17 - Short-to-Ground (FERC Order 1920 Edition)

• On May 13th the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved a sweeping long-term transmission planning and cost-allocation rule aimed at modernizing the grid
• In the Special Transmission Reform Meeting, Chair Willie Phillips said the U.S. faces "an unprecedented surge in demand for affordable electricity while confronting extreme weather threats to the reliability of our grid and trying to stay one step ahead of the massive technological changes we are seeing in our society."
• FERC is helping to pave the way for a much-needed investment in our transmission infrastructure
• The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s fact sheet for Order 1920 states that the grid rule contains five major elements:
  1. Requirement to conduct and periodically update long-term transmission planning to anticipate future needs.
  2. Requirement to consider a broad set of benefits when planning new facilities.
  3. Requirement to identify opportunities to modify in-kind replacement of existing transmission facilities to increase their transfer capability, known as “right-sizing.”
  4. Customers pay only for projects from which they benefit.
  5. Expands states’ pivotal role throughout the process of planning, selecting, and determining how to pay for transmission facilities.
• “Landmark transmission reform could dramatically speed US energy transition”
• Large Public Power Council’s president, John Di Stasio’s, written statement
• Americans for a Clean Energy Grid’s Executive Director, Christina Hayes, applauded FERC for finalizing a, quote, “strong and comprehensive regional planning and cost allocation rule.”
• Spot market power in the U.S.
• Wholesale spot prices for the National Electricity Market (NEM)
• Energy Information Administration’s Natural Gas Weekly Update

41:03 - Hedging and Tail Risk in Electricity Markets By: Farhad Billimoria , Jacob Mays , Rahmat Poudineh

Abstract: A concern persistent in scarcity-based market designs for electricity over many years has been the illiquidity of markets for long-term contracts to hedge away volatile price exposures between generators and consumers. These missing markets have been attributed to a range of factors including retailer creditworthiness, market structure and the lack of demand side interest from consumers. Using a stochastic equilibrium model and insights from insurance theory, we demonstrate the inherent challenges of hedging a legacy thermal portfolio that is dominated by volatile fat-tailed commodities with significant tail dependence. Under such conditions the price required for generators to provide such hedges can be multiples of the expected value of prices. Our key insight is that when the real-world constraints of credit and financing are considered, the volatility of thermal fuels and their co-dependence under extremes may be a key reason as to why electricity markets have been incomplete in terms of long-term hedging contracts. Counterintuitively, in the context of the energy transition, our results show that, ceteris paribus, increasing the penetration of low carbon resources like wind, solar and energy storage, can add tail-diversity and improve contractability.

22:16 - The Future of Resource Adequacy in a Decarbonized Grid w/ Conleigh Byers

Conleigh Byers Resource Adequacy Harvard Energy Policy Seminar 25 4.93MB ∙ PDF file DownloadDownload

1:02:23 - Institutions in the electric sector are evolving like the eras of Taylor Swift, but are their business models evolving with them?

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

It’s Be Curious! not judgmental week! on Public Power Underground! We had a great conversation with Energy Northwest’s Greg Cullen about all their non-CGS, got a special guest interview by EWEB’s Matt Schroettnig of BPA’s Crystal Ball, and covered a bunch of other fun public-power and public-power adjacent topics.

Arin Reports (01:55), Energy Northwest news with their Vice President for Energy Services and Development, Greg Cullen (05:15), Checking on the California Duck Curve (23:20), EWEB sponsored content in Eugene Weekly about Electric Vehicles (25:50), Clark’s Lena Wittler and Seattle’s Debra Smith profiles in Public Power Current (26:37), Special, crossover podcast w/ APPA’s Public Power Now promo trailer (27:31), Biden administration’s infrastructure plan to bring broadband to all Americans (29:09), Special Salmon War Correspondent, Matt Schroettnig, interviews BPA’s Director of Fish & Wildlife, Crystal Ball (30:08), Debrief of Northwest River Forecast Center’s water supply briefing (45:13), BREAKING NEWS: The Power Department is hiring!!! (46:47)

Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch. Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts.

to sign up for the newsletter visit our substack at publicpowerunderground.substack.com.

Sarah Edmonds, Crystal Ball, Ahlmahz Negash, PhD, and Paul Dockery discuss a how resource adequacy design theory applies to resource adequacy program design, why FERC asked questions about market based rate authority, what it means for a program to be interoperable, and where inter-regional transmission is coming from. 

06:08 - Reminder for friends and fans of Therese Hampton to RSVP for her Celebration of Life and information about the Therese Hampton Endowed Scholarship for Economics and Business1at Portland State University.

09:53 - translating theory into a program, debriefing from the interview with Prof. Jacob Mays

23:55 - Market Based Rate Authority and the status at FERC

• FERC Wants More Western Resource Adequacy Program Information
• Western Power Pool’s response to FERC’s deficiency letter

35:45 - Interoperability of a resource adequacy program with multiple markets

• Western US regional grid, reliability efforts reach crossroads in 2023

47:57 - Interregional transmission and the West

• FERC Staff-Led Workshop on Establishing Interregional Transfer Capability Transmission Planning and Cost Allocation Requirements
• FERC urged to set interregional transfer capacity requirements to boost reliability, lower costs
• Inter-regional planning and transmission could help keep the lights on during extreme weather

1:05:55 - Short to Ground; where we TL;DR our way through the rest of the news

• BLM Proposes Solar Plan Expansion to Include 11 Western States
• Harris Attends Ten West Line Groundbreaking
• NRC Certifies First U.S. Small Modular Reactor Design
• Federal Government Says 'Not So Fast' on Diablo Canyon Extension
• Billions in federal dollars could make the Pacific Northwest a hub for renewable hydrogen
• Day-Ahead Market Enhancements decision to be deferred
• Spot Market Power
• La Nina
• NOAA Climate Forecasts
• WY2023 Water Supply Forecast

You can find our merch on shopify. You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember to share this with any friends you have that are electric utility enthusiasts like us!

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, where you’re valued and appreciated.

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1 At the hyperlink go to “Search All Funds” and either find or search for the Therese Hampton Endowed Scholarship for Economics and Business. Image below.

Kyri Baker, PhD, Karen Heim, Ahlmahz Negash, PhD, and Paul Dockery address topical energy issues and share stories in the latest episode of Public Power Underground.

06:36 - hot takes and lessons to be learned from Winter Storm Elliott

• oral history of the winter storm elliott takes on #energytwitter compiled by Brian Bartholomew
• TVA and Duke Energy notices of level 3 Energy Emergency Alerts
• PJM, MISO, and SPP energy emergency alerts
• paper co-authored by Prof Baker on the Texas freeze of February 2021

19:26 - debrief from White House Electrification Summit

• RTO Insider coverage
• recording of the event
• Dafoe, S., Krarti, M., and Baker, K. (March 7, 2022). "Optimal Designs of Grid-Connected Energy Efficient and Resilient Residential Communities." ASME. J. Eng. Sustain. Bldgs. Cities. February 2022; 3(1): 011004. https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4053908

33:00 - transformer shortages and why distribution needs to be taken more seriously in discussion of electrification

• Utility Dive coverage of transformer shortages by Robert Walton
• APPA survey of its members shows that production of distribution transformers is not meeting current demand
• Inaction on electric transformer crisis adds to reliability concerns, APPA warns

43:25 - Short to Ground; where we TL;DR our way through the rest of the news

• Power restored to 4 Pierce County utility substations after Christmas Day vandalization
• FERC Orders NERC Reevaluation of Substation Security Standards Following Attacks by Greg Mason in Clearing Up
• C. Crozier, A. Pigott and K. Baker, "Spatial Arbitrage through Bidirectional Electric Vehicle Charging," 2022 IEEE Power & Energy Society General Meeting (PESGM), 2022, pp. 1-5, doi: 10.1109/PESGM48719.2022.9916944.
• Senate passes bill to increase EV battery recycling as part of defense budget
• Power Supply Negotiations End for Washington Aluminum Smelter by Dan Catchpole in Clearing Up
• A Changing Landscape: Native American Tribes Turn to Renewable Energy by Iolande Bloxsom in California Energy Markets
• 19 Participants Formally Commit to WRAP's Binding Phase by Dan Catchpole in Clearing Up
• Two Northwest Clean Hydrogen Proposals Advance in Federal Grant Program by Dan Catchpole in Clearing Up
• Atmospheric Rivers Deluge California, but No Relief for Long-Term Drought by Linda Dailey Paulson in California Energy Markets
• NuScale Submits Standard Design Application for Small Modular Reactor With NRC by Steve Ernst in Clearing Up
• Spot Market Power
• La Nina
• NOAA Climate Forecasts
• WY2023 Water Supply Forecast
• Energy-Themed Carols to Liven the Holiday Season from Clearing Up

You can find our merch on shopify. You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember to share this with any friends you have that are electric utility enthusiasts like us!

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Katherine Blunt, author of California Burning, joins Crystal Ball and Paul Dockery to discuss the eras of the electric sector (Taylor's Version).

To celebrate Taylor Swift’s April 19th release of The Tortured Poets Department (and Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology), Katherine Blunt, Crystal Ball, and Paul Dockery recorded a special, bonus, episode dedicated to the Eras of the Electric Sector.

Katherine Blunt is the author of California Burning; The Fall of Pacific Gas and Electric--and What It Means for America's Power Grid which is the most approachable introduction to the history of the electric sector ever published! The book interprets, unpacks, and conveys the complex history of Pacific Gas & Electric, and, through it, provides an introduction to the history of the electric sector as well. Katherine Blunt joined Crystal Ball and Paul Dockery for an interview that’ll be part of an upcoming, regular, episode of Public Power Underground, but while we were together we took some time to record a discussion of the sector’s history.

In the recording (and attached 20 slide power point) Katherine, Crystal, and Paul explore the history of the electric sector and Pacific Gas & Electric through Taylor Swift’s discography.

The exploration answers the age old question of what electric sector milestone Taylor Swift wrote “You Belong With Me” about. And, because you know it’s what you wanted, there’s an official Eras of the Electric Sector Spotify playlist.

Yes, my wife and I share a Spotify account. And, yes, my whole family contributed to the playlist including the additions, modification, and resorting of songs like “The Last Great American Dynasty” starting the Efficiency Era instead of “Cardigan” and the addition of Jimmy Carter’s sweater speech as an electric sector milestone. But, no, we didn’t get a preview of The Tortured Poets Department to include songs from the new album in the playlist. 

You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Share with friends that are energy enthusiasts, like us!

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

Rebecca Sexton, Crystal Ball, Dan Catchpole, and Paul Dockery run through the latest in public power and public-power-adjacent news. There are a few instances where we go off the rails - - - as it often does when discussing public-power-adjacent news.

1:12 - Rebecca breaks news in her opening, Celebrity Guest, monologue
11:46 - Arin Reports with Rebecca Reporting
15:20 - follow up on Arin Reports with discussion on Northeast natural gas prices
21:10 - CAISO issued a 20-year draft transmission outlook plan (coverage by NewsData and Utility Dive)
29:40 - Hydropower’s Contributions to Grid Reliability and Resilience (coverage by Utility Dive)
36:36 - we go off the rails (calling on BPA people who have access to THE teletype, we need a sound sample!)
40:02 - Maersk is launching an offshore vessel-charging venture
44:45 - 2022 Pan-Pacific Winter High Seas Expedition
48:00 - Silicon Valley Clean Energy’s Controlled EV-Charging Pilot
53:36 - TL;DR the rest of the news

You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember to share this with any friends you have that are electric utility enthusiasts like us!

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, where you’re valued and appreciated.

It’s It Takes a Process week on Public Power Underground! This week we were joined by Snohomish County PUD’s Manager of Power Supply, Garrison Marr to talk about IRPs, and returning champion, Friend of the Underground, and Rates and Policy Director for NRU, Megan Stratman to talk about revenue financing in BP-22. And in true Public Power Underground fashion, we’re debuting a brand new innovation in Northwest Public Power infotainment: Zoom Duels!

02:40 - Arin Reports; 07:30 - Public Power Desktop; 10:24 – Garrison Marr on IRPs; 25:41 – Megan Stratman on Revenue Financing; 38:39 – Zoom Duel!: Ranting Power Manager vs. Banjulele Virtuoso; 42:40 - Plug-Pass promo

Emily Grubert, PhD, Frank Incropera, PhD, Ahlmahz Negash, PhD, and Paul Dockery discuss natural gas distribution system obsolescence, energy security during the transition away from fossil fuels, the magic of heat pumps, increased reliance on electric utility reliability, and the wickedness of the problem of a just energy transition.

You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Share with friends that are electric utility enthusiasts, like us!

07:03 - Discussion of what constitutes a wicked problem and whether the mid-transition qualifies
     - Climate Change: A Wicked Problem by Frank Incropera, PhD, Chapter 1 - Energy, economics, and climate change
     - Residential Cold Climate Heat Pump Challenge | Department of Energy
     - News Releases - Rheem Manufacturing Company

44:57 - Natural Gas distribution systems’ obsolescence
     - Designing the mid-transition: A review of medium-term challenges for coordinated decarbonization in the United States
     - Grubert, E., & Hastings-Simon, S. (2022). Designing the mid-transition: A review of medium-term challenges for coordinated decarbonization in the United States. WIREs Climate Change, 13( 3), e768.

59:19 - Electrification of end-uses and the need for reliability
     - Climate Change: A Wicked Problem by Frank Incropera, PhD, Chapter 10 -      - The ethics of climate change

1:12:03 - Ahlmahz’s insightful question of the week

1:19:49 - Dr. Frank Incropera’s Closing Thoughts

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

Sarah Edmonds, the Western Power Pool’s President and Chief Executive Officer, join Humaira Falkenberg, Brian Fawcett, and Paul Dockery on Public Power Underground to participate in our Electric Utility Recruiting video series. Before kicking off the interview she encouraged us to broaden our approach to include all electric utilities in our target audience. We capture some of that conversation as well.

The NWPP Corporation, doing business as the Western Power Pool, is based in Portland, Oregon. Having evolved from its informal origins of three engineers on loan from member utilities in 1941 to the existing staff today, the WPP strives to help its customer organizations achieve maximum benefits of coordinated operations.

Electric Utility Recruiting video series

Attracting a new workforce into electric utility professions is going to be one of the key challenges of the next 20 years, and electric utility enthusiasts need to build up recruiting skills to meet the challenge. So Public Power Underground took the opportunity, while it was recording on location at the opening reception for NWPPA’s Annual Meeting in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, to pull aside executives from across the region and quiz them on their best recruiting pitches to attract new folks to electric utility professions.

We were honored to be joined by John Hairston, Mark Johnson, Sarah Giomi, Scott Corwin, Scott Simms, Scott Coe, Scott Rhees, Sarah Edmonds, Marc Farmer, Crystal Ball, and Bear Prairie. The interviews will be released individually over the coming weeks as special, bonus episodes.

You can find our merch on shopify. You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember to share this with any friends you have that are electric utility enthusiasts like us!

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

It’s season 3, episode 10 - Infrastructure Week! for Public Power Underground. Michelle Manary joins us to chat about the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act! Also joining is Juergen Pilot from the National Offshore Wind Research & Development Consortium and returning champion Kurt Miller. 07:28 - Arin Reports with (the newest Honorary Member of the Power Department) Crystal Ball Reporting! 13:39 - FERC, States Kick Off New Task Force Focused on Transmission Buildout 16:15 - Juergen Pilot, the National Offshore Wind Research & Development Consortium's Program Manager, answers a series of questions about offshore wind as quickly and entertainingly as possible 27:41 - Agrivoltaic Farming! 31:05 - Microgrid powering buses in LADWP's service territory 32:23 - Kurt Miller is championing hydropower’s inclusion in the Build Back Better Act 38:16 - Combined Geothermal power production and Lithium extraction 41:59 - Dispatches from #EnergyTwitter: @JesseJenkins did an outstanding, google sheets, summary of all the energy-related provisions of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act 47:24 - Michelle Manary joins to chat about DOE, BPA, and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act 1:04:37 - TL;DR news stories we ran out of time to discuss You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember to share this with any friends you have that are electric utility enthusiasts like us! Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

Kieran Connolly, Dan Catchpole, Abigail Sawyer, and Paul Dockery kick off the Season 5 premier of Public Power Underground.

06:11 - what evolution into a centrally dispatched market means for a hydro-centric region

• SPP Sees Markets+ as Potential Path to Full RTO in the West
• Carrie Simpson to serve as Southwest Power Pool’s director of western services development
• California Independent System Operator released its draft final proposal for the Extended Day-Ahead Market (EDAM)

18:42 - how does increased deployment of wind and solar in the Northwest impact hydro operations

• Biden Signs Inflation Reduction Act; Permitting Reform Next Step
• Rural Electric Co-ops Glad to Be Included in Inflation Reduction Act Benefits
• Twitter memo on Ira versus I-R-A
• The definitive podcasts on the content of the Inflation Reduction Act

29:05 - thoughts on SMRs in a hydro dominated region like the Pacific Northwest

• PacifiCorp, TerraPower to Study Deploying Five More SMRs by 2035
• TVA developing plans for 20 small nuclear reactors to power Tennessee Valley by 2050
• TVA takes step to build small modular reactor near Oak Ridge

38:52 - hydro operations under stressed grid conditions

• California Avoids Rolling Blackouts in Record Heat; Energy Prices Surge
• Pacific Northwest heat wave was a freak, 10,000-year event, study finds
• An energy emergency alert 3 for CAISO in August of 2020
• Extremely constrained system in the Northwest in March of 2019

53:46 - Short to Ground; where we TL;DR our way through the rest of the news

• SPP membership elects two new directors
• Western Power Pool Approves Nominees for New Independent Board of Directors
• SRP coverage by Abigail Sawyer
• Southwest elections preview by Abigail Sawyer
• Coverage of PPC pressing Columbia Basin Collaborative by K.C. Mehaffey
• Fusion coverage by Dan Catchpole
• Product switch coverage by Dan Catchpole
• Hydrogen project coverage by Steve Ernst
• Drought coverage by Linda Dailey Paulson
• Briefs in Clearing Up
• Spot Market Power
• La Nina
• NOAA Climate Forecasts
• WY2023 Water Supply Forecast

You can find our merch on shopify. You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember to share this with any friends you have that are electric utility enthusiasts like us!

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

Prof. Dr. Destenie Nock joins Dr. Ahlmahz Negash and Paul Dockery for a conversation about what the grid of the future *should* look like. The discussion dives deep into (1) the energy equity gap, (2) a methodology for finding the optimal expansion of a power system under the objective of maximizing social benefit, (3) the Gini coefficient, and (4) how to use the Strategic Objective Hierarchy combined with the expertise of social scientists to translate community input into rigorously measurable inputs into an optimization model!

You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Share with friends that are electric utility enthusiasts, like us!

09:24 - A benefit maximization approach to utility planning

Destenie Nock, Todd Levin, Erin Baker, Changing the policy paradigm: A benefit maximization approach to electricity planning in developing countries, Applied Energy, Volume 264, 2020, 114583, ISSN 0306-2619, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2020.114583.

28:13 - Amplifying community leader perspectives

Erin Baker, Destenie Nock, Todd Levin, Samuel A. Atarah, Anthony Afful-Dadzie, David Dodoo-Arhin, Léonce Ndikumana, Ekundayo Shittu, Edwin Muchapondwa, Charles Van-Hein Sackey, Who is marginalized in energy justice? Amplifying community leader perspectives of energy transitions in Ghana, Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 73, 2021, 101933, ISSN 2214-6296, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2021.101933.

Prof. Dr. Destenie Nock explainer videos: https://www.youtube.com/@dr.destenienock4164/videos

48:53 - Unveiling hidden energy poverty using the energy equity gap

Cong, S., Nock, D., Qiu, Y.L. et al. Unveiling hidden energy poverty using the energy equity gap. Nat Commun 13, 2456 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-30146-5

• Video link to “The Energy Equity Gap: Unveiling Hidden Energy Poverty” presentation for Energy Seminar Series at UC Davis
• Video link to Destenie Nock: Identifying Hidden Forms of Energy Poverty
• Video link to Energy Nerd Show
• NOAA’s Meteorological Development Lab’s work on Wet Bulb Globe Temperatures
• NOAA’s experimental tools for calculating Wet Bulb Globe Temperatures and how it compares to heat index
• Evaluating the 35°C wet-bulb temperature adaptability threshold for young healthy subjects

1:07:38 - What should the grid of the future look like?

1:12:42 - Ahlmahz’s insightful question of the week: What’s the overlap between energy justice and energy assistance?

“Jenkins et al. [49] review three core tenets of energy justice: 1) distributional justice, relating to equal distribution of both the costs and benefits of the energy system; 2), recognition justice, relating to the fair representation of individuals; and 3) procedural justice, providing equal access to decision making processes.”From Who is marginalized in energy justice? Amplifying community leader perspectives of energy transitions in Ghana, Section 1:

1:18:27 - from Human Batteries to Solarpunk - a new Public Power Underground game!

• Ezra Klein podcast: What the heck is going on with UFO stories?
• Monk and Robot series by Becky Chambers
• Futurama
• The Fifth Element
• The Matrix
• Avatar
• Men in Black
• WALL-E
• Strange World
• Mad Max
• Iron Man

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

exploration of approaches to distribution systems from microcontrollers and software to MOAR HARDWARE

Distribution infrastructure, microcontrollers in everything, hardware vs software solutions, and prices-to-devices get covered in a distribution systems episode with Ahlmahz Negash, Conleigh Byers, Farhad Billimoria, and Paul Dockery featuring an interview with the enthusiastic Francis Sammy! A discussion that manages to navigate the nuances of MOAR HARDWARE as an actionable energy transition strategy while articulating the benefit of deploying smart, controllable, and price-responsive devices.

You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Share with friends that are energy enthusiasts, like us!

01:18 - 30 second theory

• Schweppe, Fred C., et al. Spot pricing of electricity. Springer Science & Business Media, 2013.
• Schweppe, Fred C. "Power systems2000': hierarchical control strategies." IEEE spectrum 15.7 (1978): 42-47.

08:59 - Short-to-Ground; a segment where we blow a fuse covering the news

• The Major Drivers of Long-term Distribution Transformer Demand
• Cybersecurity baselines for both electric distribution systems and distributed energy resources (DER)
• Portland-based GridStor announced its acquisition of a planned 450-MW/900-MWh lithium-ion battery storage installation
• The National Renewable Energy Lab recently released a report studying the economics of building long-distance, high-voltage transmission lines
• Spot market power in the U.S.
• Wholesale spot prices for the National Electricity Market (NEM)
• Energy Information Administration’s Natural Gas Weekly Update

23:21 - Francis Sammy provides a practitioner perspective on distribution systems and the energy transition

Francis Sammy is a licensed professional engineer that works as the supervisor of the Systems Distribution Engineering workgroup for Seattle City Light. He was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, studied electrical engineering at Howard University, and works on distribution systems for Seattle. Francis lives in Beacon Hill with his family of 3 and says you can find him riding around town on his bike, vibing out at a concert, laboring up the basketball court, or sliding down a mountain face first.

54:06 - Francis Sammy’s analogy; the grid is like an old, reliable car

56:38 - Updating our priors

1:17:55 - ESA (Energy System Analogies) World Cup Standings

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

Ben Serrurier, Jason Fordney, Arin Guillory, and Paul Dockery talk about the latest in public power, public-power-adjacent news and exciting acronyms, including BPA in the EIM, CREPC-WIRAB, all-things Tx, NuScale IPO, and another WSJ article!

04:07 - a new merch idea coming from the FDR speech Ben quotes in the cold open

08:19 - Arin Reports

14:21 - BPA joined the EIM on May 3rd

• BPA press release
• CAISO press release

20:28 - Committee on Regional Electric Power Cooperation // Western Interconnection Regional Advisory Body (CREPC-WIRAB)

• Ben’s live tweet of the event
• CREPC WIRAB agenda
• Jason Fordney’s article

34:53 - Ari Peskoe’s Utility Dive guest article

• Jim DiPeso’s coverage of FERC’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking
• Keegan Moyer’s (Energy Strategies, Partner) presentation on Transmission Planning from CREPC-WIRAB

43:13 - NuScale starts trading on the NYSE

• Coverage from The Oregonian (link from Joel Myer’s Energy News Digest, thanks Joel)
• Stock tracking

49:19 - WSJ’s Katherine Blunt covers Electricity Shortage Warnings

• the February article by Katerine Blunt on the “increasingly unreliable” power grid
• Bloomberg’s coverage of California state officials warning
• Dan Catchpole’s coverage of PNUCC’s Northwest Regional Forecast (NRF)
• The EI/GridLab/Telos report on CA 2030

1:02:31 - TL;DR the rest of the news in “Energy West, lite”

• Rick Adair
• K.C. Mehaffey
• K.C. Mehaffey
• Linda Dailey Paulson
• Jim DiPeso
• “News Roundup”

You can find our merch on shopify. You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember to share this with any friends you have that are electric utility enthusiasts like us!

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, where you’re valued and appreciated.

With quotes from the hit comedy “Shrinking”, Paul navigates the vibes after a Regional Expansion Summit hosted by Seattle City Light, Portland General Electric, and the Bonneville Power Administration

Jan Smutny-Jones, Mary Wiencke, Jim Shetler, and Chris Robinson join Paul Dockery to debrief and synthesize the participants shared understanding after a California/Northwest Regional Expansion Summit hosted by Seattle City Light, Portland General Electric, and the Bonneville Power Administration on March 10th, 2023.

In true Public Power Underground fashion the topics were introduced with quotes from the first two episodes of the new Apple TV comedy Shrinking starring Jason Segel, Jessica Williams, and Harrison Ford who all play psychologists. The timestamps for the quotes are included in the show notes, just in case you want to get some laughs before diving into the discussion.

05:03 - History of Market Development in the West

“Classic compassion fatigue, we ask questions, listen, stay non-judgmental and you don’t make that face” - Dr. Paul Rhoades played by Harrison Ford (Episode 1, 10:13)

19:12 - Benefits, Opportunities and Barriers

“Look, I don't have people in my home, it’s not that I’m antisocial. I know that you do this [referring to Jimmy and Gaby asking probing questions] to shame me because I'm a somewhat private person, but it just strengthens my resolve. I’m pro boundaries, my family is for me, my home is my fortress of solitude” - Dr. Paul Rhoades played by Harrison Ford (Episode 2, 7:54)

48:12 - Decarbonization pathways and the role of Regional Markets

“I know someone does [i.e., who “gets it”], he’s tall and he calls me too much.” - Dr. Paul Rhoades played by Harrison Ford (Episode 2, 17:16)

1:03:55 - A shared understanding of the mutual benefits of ongoing collaboration

“Hey, anybody that helps us raise our kids with love and respect, we should be grateful” - Dr. Paul Rhoades played by Harrison Ford (Episode 2, 12:43)

You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember to share this with any friends you have that are electric utility enthusiasts like us!

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

It’s Resource Adequacy double-feature! week on Public Power Underground! We talk about the Northwest Power Pool’s Resource Adequacy program in back-to-back interviews. First with NWPP’s Chief Operating Officer, Gregg Carrington, and the second interview with Chair of WSPP’s Operating Committee, Matthew Schroettnig. And to get caught up on the BP-22/TC-22 rate cases we talk to PPC’s Mike Deen about what’s going on!

01:31 - Arin Reports
05:11 - Celebration of ClearingUp’s 2000th edition
07:22 - PPC’s Mike Deen joins to talk BP-22/TC-22 rate process
15:06 - PG&E’s Community Microgrid Enablement Program
18:01 - “Agro-voltaic” solar projects
21:11 - PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT; Ted Lasso, Season 2 is coming
22:17 - NWPP’s Gregg Carrington gives advice on approach to the RA program for those that aren’t power pool members
34:42 - Chair of WSPP’s Operating Committee, Matt Schroettnig, talks about how a RA product might go through the process to develop a standard product exhibit/rider
43:30 - Anadromous Championship Belt return counts w/ Karen Heim and Lauren Tenney Denison

Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch. Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts.

to sign up for the newsletter visit our substack at publicpowerunderground.substack.com.

A trip to the Skagit River Hydroelectric Project to talk about power system inertia with Seattle City Light operators, plus a discussion of popular fallacies and unpopular opinions with the hosts.

To experience the visceral sounds and sights of big synchronous generation, an interview with Mike Haynes, Will Andersen, and Brandt March was recorded in-person at Seattle City Light’s Skagit River Hydroelectric Project. To start the episode Ahlmahz, Paul, Farhad, and Conleigh discuss popular fallacies of the energy system and share some of their own unpopular opinions.

You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Share with friends that are energy enthusiasts, like us!

03:17 - Popular Fallacies & Unpopular Opions

52:08 - Big Synchronous Generation - Seattle City Light’s Skagit River Hydroelectric Project

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

a special, bonus episode recorded at the Western Power Pool with celebrity guests Sarah Edmonds, Bob Rowe and Debra Smith

Crystal Ball and Matthew Schroettnig host a conversation with Sarah Edmonds, Bob Rowe and Debra Smith about their “Theory of Change” for expanding high voltage, long distance transmission in the West.

You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Share with friends that are energy enthusiasts, like us!

Western Transmission Expansion Coalition (WTEC) is a West-wide effort to develop an actionable transmission plan to support the needs of the future energy grid.

The Western Transmission Consortium aims to support the development of transmission infrastructure in the West through a collaborative process involving infrastructure owners and investors.

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

It’s Use Your Illusions of Choice week on Public Power Underground! We’re excited to be joined by a slew of celebrities of the region this week to spice things up. Karen Heim joined as a guest co-host, (07:02) Matt Schroettnig interviews Bo Downen about the Simpson Concept, (32:52) Greg Mendonca talks about the NW Power Pool’s Resource Adequacy program, and (43:44) Kurt Miller does a special guest readout about NOAA Fisheries Science Center’s recent report.

Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch. Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts.

to sign up for the newsletter visit our substack at publicpowerunderground.substack.com.

Bill Drummond, Dan Catchpole, Karen Heim, and Paul Dockery talk about the latest in public power and public-power-adjacent news, including Lineworker Appreciation Day, solar developers betting on RTO development, what’s going on with the battery supply chain, and jumpstarting interregional transmission!

08:45 - Arin Reports with Karen Reporting

14:10 - Lineworker Appreciation Day

21:11 - solar developers betting on RTO development

31:08 - a bunch of battery stories

• CAISO is developing a new participation model for energy storage resources
• a Southern California Edison’s energy storage project is facing delays
• Rivian Chief Executive Officer, RJ Scaringe has a warning
• Supply chain issues facing batteries

41:21 - DOE’s $2.5 billion Transmission Jump Start Program

50:01 - TL;DR the rest of the news in “Energy West, lite”

• K.C. Mehaffey
• Rick Adair
• Linda Daily Paulson
• Rick Adair
• Abigail Sawyer
• “News Roundup”
• Albuquerque Journal

You can find our merch on shopify. Remember to share this with any friends you have that are electric utility enthusiasts like us!

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, where you’re valued and appreciated.

Your friends at the Power Department are excited to announce that we’re teaming up with NewsData to make Public Power Underground better, bigger, and more sustainable.

In a special, bonus episode the friends you’ve come to know as the voices of the Underground (Karen Heim, Brian Fawcett, Arin Guillory, Ian Bledsoe, Ludgie Gelin, and Paul Dockery) reminisce a little about what we’ve enjoyed so far, we talk with NewsData’s Editor-in-Chief, Mark Ohrenschall, about the collaboration, and get insights from Mike Shepard, the CEO of NewsData’s parent company, Pioneer Utility Resources, and Marc Farmer, the General Manager of Clatskanie PUD, about listeners should look forward to from the Underground going forward.

03:37 - Mark Ohrenschall talks about the collaboration
10:31 - lightning round questions with the Voices of the Underground
15:22 - Mike Shepard and Marc Farmer join Paul to talk about what listeners should expect
26:44 - more lightning round questions and we discuss the future of the Anadromous Championship Belt

You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks to all the newest Friends of the Underground who have joined us since last week. Remember to share this with any friends you have that are electric utility enthusiasts like us!

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

Scott Corwin, Scott Simms, Scott Rhees and Scott Coe joined Humaira Falkenberg, Brian Fawcett, and Paul Dockery on Public Power Underground to participate in our Electric Utility Recruiting video series.

Scott Corwin is the Executive Director of NWPPA.

Scott Simms is the Executive Director of Public Power Council.

Scott Rhees is the General Manager and CEO for Franklin Public Utility District.

Scott Coe received a lifetime achievement award at the 2022 NWPPA Annual Meeting.

Electric Utility Recruiting video series

Attracting a new workforce into electric utility professions is going to be one of the key challenges of the next 20 years, and electric utility enthusiasts need to build up recruiting skills to meet the challenge. So Public Power Underground took the opportunity, while it was recording on location at the opening reception for NWPPA’s Annual Meeting in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, to pull aside executives from across the region and quiz them on their best recruiting pitches to attract new folks to electric utility professions.

We were honored to be joined by John Hairston, Mark Johnson, Sarah Giomi, Scott Corwin, Scott Simms, Scott Coe, Scott Rhees, Sarah Edmonds, Marc Farmer, Crystal Ball, and Bear Prairie. The interviews will be released individually over the coming weeks as special, bonus episodes.

You can find our merch on shopify. You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember to share this with any friends you have that are electric utility enthusiasts like us!

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

The electric sector is evolving like the eras of Taylor Swift; at least that's the hypothesis that Commissioner Ann Rendahl and Gen-Z-Swiftie Scholar, Sherry Zuo, consider in a special episode.

Commissioner Ann Rendahl and Sherry Zuo join hosts Paul Dockery and Crystal Ball to consider how the electric sector is evolving like the eras of Taylor Swift. Paul and Crystal joined Commissioner Rendahl at the offices of the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission and Sherry joined remotely from Cornell University where she is a PhD candidate in the Mays Group.

Agreeing on the eras of the electric sector and how they map to the eras of Taylor Swift is no small task. To facilitate the conversation we put together some reference materials including a summary of the proposed timeline with sector milestones and representative songs.

The discussion considered how the eras of the electric sector fell on a quadrant map that mapped along vectors of structured ←→ chaotic and building ←→ optimizing.

The quadrant mapping was compared to the eras of Taylor Swift mapped along the vectors of career ←→ romantic and confident ←→ pensive.

The conversation also used a 40”x30” histomap of organizing activities across the eras of the electric sector that I presented at the 2024 Macro Energy System workshop.

You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Share with friends that are energy enthusiasts, like us!

For additional reading, Commissioner Rendahl recommends the following:

• Prophets of Regulation
• Electricity Regulation in the U.S.
• The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations

You can also listen to our eras of the electric sector playlist on Spotify!

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

Jackie Flowers, PE, Humaira Falkenberg, Karen Heim, and Ahlmahz Negash, PhD discuss pathways to workforces that are representative of our communities in an all-female-cast episode of Public Power Underground.

05:07 - Introduction of Diverse Workforce of the Future article by Jackie Flowers, PE, in NWPPA’s Monthly Bulletin

24:14 - Lessons learned from Tacoma’s experience with the Math-Engineering-Science-Achievement (MESA) program that could apply to open positions at peer utilities today

• An insightful Venn Diagram of belonging1
• The Waymaker by Tara Jaye Frank

46:15 - Sharing wisdom in mentorship and sponsoring

57:38 - Ahlmahz’s Insightful Question of the Week

1:17:03 - Short to Ground

• Billi Kohler, the General Manager of West Oregon Electric Cooperative, is featured in a national rural electric magazine story about workforce changes
• Lane Electric’s 7-member board of directors now includes 6 women working with Debi Wilson, the first female general manager in the co-op’s 83-year history

1:19:40 - Humaira Falkenberg’s Closing Thoughts

You can find our merch on shopify. You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember to share this with any friends you have that are electric utility enthusiasts like us!

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

Russ Mantifel, Jason Fordney, Paul Dockery, and Ludgie Gelin talk about the latest in public power and public-power-adjacent news, plus a preview of an upcoming interview with PGP’s Mary Wiencke!

08:08 - Arin Reports with Paul Reporting
14:20 - Roundtable on rural broadband at Mason PUD #3 plus other broadband news
21:38 - CAISO adopts Phase 1 of Resource Sufficiency test rule changes
30:24 - The Wall Street Journal’s long-form article on the grid’s reliability
44:30 - the cost of going underground
51:05 - 2021 Power Plan in pre-publication, final form
58:50 - Matt and Paul talk to PGP’s Mary Wiencke
1:09:49 - TL;DR the rest of the news in “Sound Bites”

Remember to share this with any friends you have that are electric utility enthusiasts like us!

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, where you’re valued and appreciated.

In the fifth installment of Public Power Underground’s Electric Market Enthusiasm series, an expert panel including Laura Trolese (Senior Market Design & Policy Analyst, The Energy Authority), Carrie Simpson (Director - Western Markets, Xcel Energy), and Jeff Spires (Director - Power, PowerEx) discuss different choices made in market paradigms and how it all makes sense. 

Specifically the discussion is framed as a compare and contract episode of different market design choices, but in a fun, infotaining way using professional sports analogies whenever possible. The notes from the analogies are available as a google sheet (← link works).

05:59 - Resource Adequacy is like Roster Management for professional sports leagues

25:24 - Real Time Markets are “the game”

43:34 - Day Ahead Markets are like practice / training / coaching

55:50 - Transitioning from bilateral to centrally dispatched markets make comparisons complex

01:09:23 - Transmission cost recovery is as controversial as who pays for professional sports stadiums

You can find our merch on shopify. You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember to share this with any friends you have that are electric utility enthusiasts like us!

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

Matt and Paul have a meandering conversation with Chris Kroeker from NW Natural about H2’s role in the energy transition.

04:01 - all the colors of hydrogen
17:32 - difference between hydrogen (H2) and renewable natural gas (CH4)
21:23 - How much H2 can go in CH4 transmission and distribution lines?
26:58 - How much H2 can be used in natural gas power plants?
29:35 - H2’s role in industrial decarbonization (include paper mills)
31:50 - Infrastructure necessary to get H2 to industrial loads (and money from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that may go toward it)
36:50 - How much hydrogen infrastructure does a billion dollars get ya!? 
39:15 - Is there an inverse heat rate for the electricity to H2 conversion? 

• 55kWh/kg-H2, 1kg-H2 = 135,000 btu 
• 55kWh/135,000btu or 2,454 btu/kWh
• Inverse heat rate (a.k.a. the Cold Hart Rate) = 1 / 2.454 MMBTU/MWh = 0.4075 MWh/MMBTU
• Break even price for electrolysis at $30/MWh = 0.4075 MWh/MMBTU * $30/MWh = $12.22/MMBTU

I decided to check my concepts against known efficiencies of Proton exchange membrane electrolysis cells

• 3.4121 MMBTU = 1 MWh
• Efficiency of electrolysis conversion from MWh to H2, η = ~70%
• η*3.4121MMBTU/MWh = 2.38847 MMBTU/MWh 
• Inverse heat rate (a.k.a. the Cold Hart Rate) = 1/2.38847 MMBTU/MWh = 0.4187 MWh/MMBTU 
• Break even price for electrolysis at $30/MWh = 0.4187 MWh/MMBTU * $30/MWh = $12.56/MMBTU

Special thanks to Chris Kroeker and Jonathan Hart for finding mistakes in my initial math. In exchange for Jon’s help resolving my error, I will forever refer to this conversion as the “Cold Hart Rate”. 

I don’t know if that was useful, if you have thoughts about the usefulness of an inverse heat rate or better math, let me know.

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Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, where you’re valued and appreciated.

In a special, bonus, episode the Underground tackles The Scourge of Seasonal Time Change. Joining the Underground to tackle the issue is the Executive Director of the Pacific Northwest Utilities Conference Committee (PNUCC), Shauna McReynolds, the Power Resource Manager for PUD No 2 of Pacific County, Humaira Falkenberg, and the Executive Director of the Northwest Public Power Association (NWPPA), Scott Corwin.   

We manage to have great banter while doing a deep-dive into the practice of transitioning between Standard Time and Daylight Saving Time twice a year in an even less serious, more-happy-hour-ish version of Public Power Underground we’re calling Public Power Underground - after dark.  

Public Service Announcement: It is with no pleasure I remind everyone that Daylight Saving Time begins at 2am this Sunday, March 14th, 2021 when clock time will jump from 1:59am to 3:00am skipping an entire hour, costing us an hour of sleep, and screwing up circadian rhythms.  

Also Public Service Announcement: Scott wants everybody to head over to NWPPA's website to sign up for the E&O conference. Do me a favor and help him out! https://www.nwppa.org/training-and-education/conferences/eo/

Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch. Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts.

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SPP agreed to sit down for an interview to talk about the Market+ concept they unveiled at the March 4th Members Forum. It’s the centerpiece of this, bonus, episode of Public Power Underground – Premium!. Bookending the discussion with SPP’s Steve Johnson are conversations with public power professionals from the region to provide context. PPC’s Mike Linn sets the stage for why markets matter to Northwest public power (01:32), SPP’s Steve Johnson joins Public Power Underground as a refresher on the Market+ concept (21:47), Humaira Falkenberg (Pacific County PUD), Lauren Tenney Denison (PPC), and Robert Cromwell (Seattle City Light) join to debrief and digest the concept from a Northwest public power perspective (50:31), UPSET ALERT: The Public Power Underground Anadromous Championship Belt for the Best Friend of the Underground, Because they Keep Coming Back HAS BEEN CLAIMED (01:31:24).

Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch. Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts.

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It’s Bring Your Ideas! week on Public Power Underground! A lot of guests and guest news this week. Arin Reports (01:16), Tacoma Power’s Ahlmahz Negash, PhD, talks about demand response (04:21), Puget Sound Energy’s Integrated Resource Plan identifies biodiesel peakers (19:30), Guest News from Oregon Department of Energy’s Blake Shelide (20:46), Brian Johnson introduces Holly Dohrman’s interview on the post-2028 Provider of Choice process (26:24), Financial Times article on the next step in battery development (41:30), Debrief from April 7th Technical Management Team discussion (47:18), Guest News from NewsData’s Mark Ohrenschall on the upcoming Grid Resilience webinar (50:00), NewsData’s News Bulletin on Power & Transmission Customers call for BP-22 Comprehensive Settlement (54:46).

Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch. Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts.

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LIVE from the Lounge at NWPPA’s Power Supply Conference hosts Paul Dockery, Ahlmahz Negash, PhD, and Dan Catchpole play an energy-themed analogy game; Arne Olson and Laura Trolese make sports analogies to electric markets in a continuation of Season 4’s Electric Market Enthusiasm Series; and Debra Smith joins to rant about energy and energy-adjacent topics in a rant wheel segment inspired by Lovett or Leave It.

03:22 - the Underground vs OpenAI: a game of energy-adjacent analogies with contestants Doug Gilmore and Matt Schroettnig

16:30 - Electric Market Enthusiasm pt 5.1: sports analogies for electric markets w/ Arne Olson and Laura Trolese

35:47 - the rant wheel w/ Debra Smith; and special contributors Crystal Ball and Matt Schroettnig

You can find our merch on shopify. You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember to share this with any friends you have that are electric utility enthusiasts like us!

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

Power markets are a hot topic this week, and we didn’t shy away from diving into the conversation. It’s Extreme Weather and Extreme Adventurer week on Public Power Underground! On the first half of the episode we’re serious (for us) as we talk about Northwest power markets (02:34), have Ansergy’s Mike Griswold on to talk about next week’s market outlook (05:14), debrief on the current state of the extreme weather events (13:03), and cover some other northwest public power news (16:00). The second half (18:10) we loosen up with NRU’s John Francisco on this month’s edition of “Slummin’ with the Underground”.

We'll be back next week on February 25th to talk more about northwest public-power and public-power-adjacent topics. Get on the email list at publicpowerunderground.substack.com

In this bonus episode Matt and Paul have a conversation with the Executive Director of PGP and former Vice President of Transmission Regulation and Market Policy for PacifiCorp: Mary Wiencke!

Reference Materials:
PGP’s Market Retrospective
Western States’ Market Study prepared by Energy Strategies
Handbook on Electricity Markets
FERC Landmark Orders

Remember to share this with any friends you have that are electric utility enthusiasts like us!

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, where you’re valued and appreciated.

It’s Friends and Neighbors Week on Public Power Underground! The crew was VERY LOOSE this week with a lot of spring sunshine vibes going on. I think you’ll really enjoy the banter, and the content. We got a guest lede from Clearing Up’s KC Mehaffey about an article she wrote (23:03), got to talk to PPC’s Executive Director, Scott Simms, about virtual events and remote work (26:17), and PPC’s Lauren Tenney Denison returned to talk about PPC's Special Meeting Series with BPA on Potential Resource Adequacy Program Participation (38:53).

Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch. Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts.

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It’s season 3, episode 4 - Fish Risk! week for Public Power Underground. We cover everything from permafrost to Dolly Parton on this week’s episode hosted a combination of new stars (Ludgie Gelin and Betsy Bridge), returning star (Arin Guillory), and regular co-host (Paul Dockery). The highlight is a wonderful interview with the Director of BPA’s Fish & Wildlife Program, Crystal Ball, where we try to better understand fish risk for preference customer considering a post-2028 contract with BPA. We also get a visit from Special Correspondent, and star of the Underground, Matt Schroettnig. The whole thing is wonderful.

• 04:05 - Arin Reports
•  07:38 - Three news releases from BPA
•  10:42 - safe, small, TRANSPORTABLE nuclear reactor
•  12:24 - Oregon Solar Program update
•  17:52 - Matt Schroettnig appears as Special Guest Correspondent to talk about submarine supergrids
•  27:34 - Portland General Electric topic that is very-accountant-nerdy 
•  29:18 - The Cold Climate Housing Research Center is designing Alaskan housing for a future of changing climate
•  33:40 - Crystal Ball, the Director of BPA's Fish & Wildlife Program, helps clarify fish risk for preference customers considering a post-2028 contract with BPA
•  56:42 - Dispatches from #energytwitter starring Dolly Parton, Ted Lasso, and #HotFERCSummer
• Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

Robert Trinnear, Abigail Sawyer, Brian Fawcett, and Paul Dockery talk about the latest in public power and public-power-adjacent news, including IPCC’s working group 3 report, the nationalization of National Grid, a $4.7 million fine by FERC, electrifying heavy duty trucks, and public power whitepapers!

08:02 - Arin Reports with Brian Reporting

16:28 - IPCC’s Working Group 3 Report

• The Guardian article on Working Group 3 conclusions
• The Guardian article on IPCC reports and what they address

29:29 - UK government buys ESO from National Grid

37:32 - Constellation NewEnergy pays fine for violating CAISO market rules

42:25 - Nevada joins EV MOU

47:57 - Preference customers publish papers on Provider of Choice

• PPC’s “PUBLIC POWER POST-2028 CONCEPT PAPER”
• PNGC’s “Post-2028 BPA Contract Framework and Concept Paper”

52:37 - TL;DR the rest of the news in “Energy West, lite”

• Wholesale electric prices in CAISO
• Colstrip operator Talen Energy reportedly preparing for bankruptcy
• Biden Invokes Defense Act to Boost Critical Minerals

You can find our merch on shopify. You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember to share this with any friends you have that are electric utility enthusiasts like us!

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In a wide ranging, engaging, and entertaining conversation, Humaira, Matt and Paul interview Jesse Jenkins. Jesse is an assistant professor at Princeton University with a joint appointment in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and Environment. He is also an affiliated faculty with the Center for Policy Research in Energy and Environment at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and an associated faculty at the High Meadows Environment Institute. He leads the Princeton ZERO Lab - the Zero carbon Energy systems Research and Optimization Laboratory -- which conducts research to improve decision-making to accelerate rapid, affordable, and effective transitions to net-zero carbon energy systems.

05:26 - Public Power's role in the energy transition
17:13 - Intermission Game: “Parametric Uncertainty or Structural Error”
28:46 - How much are we gonna electrify? and is a Northwest RTO necessary for our region to do it?
40:59 - Nuanced approached to the energy transition
52:52 - Hope for the kids
58:40 - The Demand Balance Constraint, on merch

One area of conversation we didn’t get to because we ran out of time isthe Power Genome project and GenX model which Jesse has been involved in developing. Hopefully he’ll come back again to dive into open source models, and how electric utilities can utilize them in public processes.

You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember to share this with any friends you have that are electric utility enthusiasts like us!

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, where you’re valued and appreciated.

It’s season 3, episode 9 - Leading Innovation Week! for Public Power Underground. Underground regulars (Karen Heim, Brian Fawcett, Ludgie Gelin, and Ian Bledsoe) are joined by our returning Podcast Ambassador from Clearing Up, Dan Catchpole. The episode includes conversations about blockchain technologies with NRU’s Resource Analyst, Ellyn Groves, and a preview of a longer interview by Special Correspondent Matt Schroettnig of Emerald PUD’s General Manager, Scott Coe. The full interview of Scott Coe will be in a follow-up BONUS episode, next week. 02:54 - Arin Reports with Ian Reporting 06:29 - Cooking, Hot Water Grew Residential Demand During Pandemic 11:27 - Ellyn Groves joins as a Special Research Specialist to talk about Blockchain and Paul unpacks some NFTs 20:22 - BPA Study May Be 'Early Warning' of Trouble for Clean Energy Goals 22:43 - NMPRC Hearing Examiner Recommends Against $8-Billion PNM-Avangrid Merger 24:43 - Nuclear Power is having a moment 30:21 - Preview of blockbuster Scott Coe interview w/ Special Correspondent, Matt Schroettnig 40:37 - TL;DR news stories we ran out of time to discuss You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember to share this with any friends you have that are electric utility enthusiasts like us! Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

It’s Breach-Ladder-Repower week on Public Power Underground! This week we were joined by PPC’s Karen Heim on a re-vamped version of Slummin’ w/ the Underground where we had a lot of fun and toned down the overall seriousness we’ve gotten into with Public Power Underground.

As always we started by covering northwest market indicators with Arin Reports and cover other public power and public-power-adjacent news on Public Power Desktop.

02:21 - Arin Reports
05:48 - Public Power Desktop
09:23 – Slummin’ w/ the Underground
42:14 - Plug-Pass promo

Public Power Underground is as a northwest public power info-tainment series that began as awkward forced fun time for the Power Department 44 weeks ago when we altered our work arrangements at the start of an ongoing pandemic and has evolved into a coping mechanism to stay connected and informed about what’s happening in the industry.

It’s season 3, episode 5 - Live from the Benson! week for Public Power Underground. In an upbeat, LIVE,  recording we get communication celebrities from across the region to come read some news for us on this week’s episode. 

The episode also includes a couple of wonderful interviews with industry experts. We talk with BPA’s Industry Economist, Daniel Fisher, about product development philosophies, and with Electric Vehicle enthusiast, Loren McDonald, about Level 1 charging infrastructure.

• 04:05 - Arin Reports with the City of Roseville’s Erin Frye Reporting
•  11:16 - WMEG (Western Markets Exploratory Group) was announced!
•  13:00 - Clearwater Power Company’s Jeff Marshall talks SCL’s Renewable Hydrogen Research Project
•  18:48 - The WRAP (Western Resource Adequacy Program) moves to its implementation phase
•  20:07 - Daniel Fisher talks about post-2028 (Provider of Choice) product development philosophies
•  40:50 - Clallam County PUD’s Nicole Hartman joins to talk about a proposal for carbon sequestration, energy plant in Port Angeles
•  45:10 - Loren McDonald of EVAdoption.com and @EVAdoptionTweet joins to talk about Level 1 charging
•  1:00:50 - Best-Friend-of-the-Underground Kurt Miller joins to talk about the joy of pregnant Southern Resident orcas, and CLAIM THE ANADROMOUS CHAMPIONSHIP BELT

It’s Resource Adequacy week on Public Power Underground! This week we were joined by Susan Ackerman to talk about the Northwest Power Pool’s Resource Adequacy program, Mark Ohrenschall to talk about NewsData’s upcoming webinar on Electric resource Adequacy in California and the West, and lastly by Mike Linn to talk about CAISO’s Summer 2021 readiness initiatives.

It was a fun week of banter while covering important topics, as always we started by covering northwest market indicators with Arin Reports and cover other public power and public-power-adjacent news on Public Power Desktop.

02:38 - Arin Reports
06:34 - Public Power Desktop
08:51 - Susan Ackerman joins to talk about NWPP’s RA program
21:52 - Mark Ohrenschall joins to talk about NewsData’s upcoming webinar
30:26 - Mike Linn joins to talk about CAISO’s readiness initiative
39:53 - Plug-Pass promo

Ben Serrurier, Lea Fisher, Matt Schroettnig, and Paul Dockery share some energy themed maybe-good-maybe-bad-brainstorming ideas during a special windowless conference room in-person recording.

Ben Serrurier, Lea Fisher, Matthew Schroettnig, and Paul Dockery were all in Anchorage, Alaska for NWPPA’s 83rd Annual Conference and Membership Meeting so they decided to borrow a windowless conference room for an informal brainstorming session about energy and energy-adjacent ideas. The format for the bonus episode is inspired by a Bill Simmons segment with Kevin Wildes on “The Bill Simmons Podcast” called “Half-Baked Ideas”1. 

You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Share with friends that are electric utility enthusiasts, like us!

05:50 - Cowpoke ISO

09:20 - Kids & Grids Our Hidden Powers

14:18 - “Space: The Energy Frontier” - Space Elevator w/ Space Solar & Wireless Transmission PG&E & Start-Up Solaren Corp. Plan To Beam Solar Power From Space

21:38 - Wireless Transmission, just on it’s own

24:09 - District cooling Deep Lake Water Cooling System

27:32 - Cut me off, conservation

36:28 - Text-to-bid for price responsive demand; $ for % load reduced https://twitter.com/kyrib/status/1544018634762231808?s=20&t=7ewwz-xBMUixjkXEXe0BCw

45:30 - Connect & Manage for generator interconnection https://twitter.com/jacob_mays/status/1655966663135600640?s=20

50:02 - crypto as a battery; mandatory demand response programs for crypto mining facilities

52:02 - explain the grid to kids with jump rope https://twitter.com/NicoleKelner/status/1631352402086354945?s=20

52:57 - slower planes

55:58 - “Opt-in to save the distribution lines” // community infrastructure opt-in https://twitter.com/waDNR

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

1 the half-baked ideas segment starts at the 1:13:00 mark of the Bill Simmons Podcast episode

Karen Heim, Dan Catchpole, Ian Bledsoe, and Paul Dockery get up to speed on public power and public-power-adjacent news! 04:05 - Arin Reports with Ian Reporting! 08:20 - Northwest winter storm 14:36 - BPA's land acquisition program 20:23 - Another electric truck 25:21 - EDAM stakeholder process update 30:13 - PG&E Building ‘Remote Grids’ in Fire-prone Areas, and containerized microgrid systems 38:20 - Where Does Santa Go When the Arctic's Summer Ice Is Gone? You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember to share this with any friends you have that are electric utility enthusiasts like us! Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, where you’re valued and appreciated.

It’s season 3, episode 7 - Markets Week! for Public Power Underground. Underground regulars (Brian Fawcett, Arin Guillory, Ian Bledsoe, and Paul Dockery) are joined by our Podcast Ambassador from Clearing Up, Dan Catchpole, to get our listeners up to speed on public-power and public-power-adjacent news. The episode includes special, feature conversations with The Energy Authority’s (TEA) Chris Lewis and John Raiford to talk about the state of Natural Gas Markets, and Public Generation Pool’s Therese Hampton and Steve Kerns about PGP’s Market Retrospective. 03:49 - Arin Reports 06:16 - TEA’s Chris Lewis and John Raiford explain what’s going on with Natural Gas Markets 23:08 - Global supply chain issues are hitting California’s energy industry 24:07 - Some more Colstrip action in Federal Court 25:13 - Chinook salmon in the Salish Sea leads to surprising findings about southern resident orcas 26:42 - Therese Hampton (Executive Director) and Steve Kerns (Senior Technical Advisor) talk about PGP’s Organized Market Retrospective 39:53 - Our friends from Cowlitz PUD made the news 42:18 - Market expansion is in the news and on people’s minds 43:56 - PJM released study on transmission build out to handle offshore wind 50:20 - TL;DR news stories we ran out of time to discuss You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks to all the newest Friends of the Underground who have joined us since last week. Remember to share this with any friends you have that are electric utility enthusiasts like us! Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

Nicole Hughes, Karen Heim, Ahlmahz Negash, PhD, and Paul Dockery address topical energy issues and share stories in the latest episode of Public Power Underground.

06:43 - debrief from The NY Times article on the opportunities awaiting electric utilities

• How utilities can maximize IIJA and IRA benefits
• a new way to reference the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (aka the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)

24:34 - another run at transmission siting reform

• SEEC releases Policy Brief on Permitting Reform for the Clean Energy Future
• REPEAT project report on Electricity Transmission
• Michael Cembalest’s 12th annual energy report
• We recorded on Monday December 5th. Permitting reform legislation has gained some momentum in the days since. If we recorded again today, we’d probably have more to say!

39:34 - Southwest Power Pool Markets+ detailed design proposal 

• Coverage in Utility Dive by Robert Walton
• Coverage in Clearing Up by Dan Catchpole

57:11 - Short to Ground; where we TL;DR our way through the rest of the news

• BPA Proposes New Transmission Line Near Tri-Cities by Stever Ernst in Clearing Up
• NuScale SMR Project Still on Track, While Costs Rising by Steve Ernst in Clearing Up
• Southern California Natural Gas Supplies Good, Barring Extreme Cold by Linda Dailey Paulson in California Energy Markets
• CPUC Allows PG&E to Exit Enhanced Oversight Process by Anne Ernst in California Energy Markets
• Clark Public Utilities Acquires Output From Box Canyon Dam by Steve Ernst in Clearing Up
• Hydropower Uneconomical in Willamette Project, DEIS Says by KC Mehaffey in Clearing Up
• NuScale, Shell, others to develop hydrogen production concept with heat from small modular reactor by Stephen Singer in Utility Dive
• Spot Market Power
• La Nina
• NOAA Climate Forecasts
• WY2023 Water Supply Forecast

You can find our merch on shopify. You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember to share this with any friends you have that are electric utility enthusiasts like us!

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

Ahlmahz Negash, Dan Catchpole, Karen Heim, and Paul Dockery talk about the latest in public power and public-power-adjacent news, plus a preview of an upcoming interview with Northwest Natural’s Chris Kroeker about the future of hydrogen!

06:48 - Arin Reports with Karen Reporting
12:13 - Ukraine and the European Union to urgently link electric grids (which successfully occurred after recording)
19:13 - Columbia REA let’s employees bring dogs to work
22:44 - Spring 2022 Energy Justice Speaker Series
26:50 - Jason Fordney’s article debriefing Arne Olson’s presentation at the February 25th NewsData and CJB Energy Economics video conference on Western Electric System Transformation
29:53 - Ahlmahz talks about her paper on Allocating the Cost of Demand Response Compensation in Wholesale Energy Markets
37:29 - Matt and Paul talk to Northwest Natural’s Chris Kroeker
42:03 - TL;DR the rest of the news in “Short to Ground”

other sources of energy news related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine mentioned in the episode

• Germany may speed up renewables (Reuters)
• No taboos for Germany’s energy future (Reuters)
• Another energy podcast tackles macro energy impacts (The Carbon Copy)

You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember to share this with any friends you have that are electric utility enthusiasts like us!

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, where you’re valued and appreciated.

Rob, Kathleen, Ahlmahz, and Paul discuss the transmission expansion: it's importance, it's barriers, and it's path forward.

Rob Gramlich, Kathleen Staks, Ahlmahz Negash, PhD, and Paul Dockery discuss transmission policy, planning, and funding in light of the increased need for an interconnected grid due to electrification of end-uses, new generator interconnections, and increasing footprint of extreme weather events.

07:34 - Department of Energy’s Grid Deployment Office release of a draft National Transmission Needs Study

23:43 - The Quagmire of Transmission Investment and Cost Recovery

• Rob’s 3 Ps of Transmission Policy Reform
• Rob’s tweets about the importance of solving the cost allocation quagmire
• A brilliant quote by Rob on the conundrum of transmission investment in a New York Times article
• Ahlmahz’s articles (part 1 and part 2) on the Grid as a Public Good

48:26 - Why transmission and market expansion is important to commercial and industrial customers

• Seattle utilities consider massive efforts that could help green our grid by Brendan Kiley in the Seattle Times

59:48 - Interconnection queues and solutions for clearing them

• Prof Jacob Mays hot take about Connect and Manage and how it relates to Resource Adequacy
• Prof Jesse Jenkins solutioning on #energytwitter

1:09:50 - Ahlmahz’s insightful question of the week

1:15:07 - Kathleen Stak’s Closing Thoughts

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

You can find our merch on shopify. You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Share with friends that are electric utility enthusiasts, like us!

Therese Hampton, Jason Fordney, Crystal Ball, and Paul Dockery talk about the latest in public power and public-power-adjacent news, including Blue Wolf Capital, minimum pool elevation for power generation at Glen Canyon Dam, FERC’s take on ROE, innovation at Douglas County PUD, a new President and CEO at WPP, and two new members of WMEG!

06:45 - Arin Reports with Crystal Reporting
13:29 - Blue Wolf Capital is pursuing the restart of the Intalco aluminum smelter 

• Larry Brown opinion piece in The Seattle Times
• Scott Simms rebuttal in The Seattle Times

18:47 - Glen Canyon Dam approaching minimum pool elevation

• Coverage by Jake Bittle at Grist
• AP coverage in October of 2021
• US Bureau of Reclamation Reservoir Storage Dashboard
• US Drought Monitor map

24:20 - FERC Lowers PG&E Transmission ROE, related coverage in Utility Dive
34:16 - Douglas County PUD is innovating with renewable hydrogen (and maybe, possibly, someday expanding)
40:21 - The Western Power Pool announces the selection of Sarah Edmonds as President and CEO
44:22 - TL;DR the rest of the news in “Energy West, lite”
52:30 - the Western Markets Exploratory Group (“W”- “meg”) added two new members since announced in October of 2021
56:56 - BREAKING NEWS from the Chair of the Western Energy Imbalance Market Governance Review Committee

Remember to share this with any friends you have that are electric utility enthusiasts like us!

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, where you’re valued and appreciated.

Conleigh, Farhad, Ahlmahz, and Paul start season six with a discussion of ways to understand the energy system and analogies that can be used to explore its complications

Conleigh Byers, Farhad Billimoria, Ahlmahz Negash, and Paul Dockery discuss various ways of understanding the energy system in the Season 6 Premiere of Public Power Underground. The episode starts with “Short-to-Ground,” a TL;DR segment where the hosts run through summaries of topical news from around the world and then have a short discussion of trends in the industry. Paul then introduces the ground rules for a season-spanning Energy System Analogies World Cup tournament. Lastly, the hosts discuss analogies for the energy system for consideration by future guests on Season 6. 

You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Share with friends that are energy enthusiasts, like us!

04:17 - Promotion for Conleigh’s upcoming presentation for the Harvard Kennedy School’s Energy Policy Seminar: “The Future of Resource Adequacy in a Decarbonized Grid" - March 25, 2024 - Register with the link

06:54 - Short-to-Ground; a segment where we blow a fuse covering the news.

• Increased EV-Charging Demand and Changing Load Profile Underscore Need for Cross-Sector Collaboration
• Utilities, EV charging companies must collaborate to avoid bulk power system disruptions: NERC
• Another tower collapse poses more questions about transmission
• Preliminary Thoughts after Preliminary Report: A few early thoughts following the release of the AEMO Preliminary Report into the recent Victorian power system event.
• Industry to drive tripling of natural gas consumption in India by 2050
• ISO-NE recommends capacity market reforms
• ISO New England proposes capacity market changes, further 2-year delay for upcoming auction
• CAISO Postpones New Interconnection Requests Due to High Volume

27:57 - 2024 ENERGY SYSTEM ANALOGIES WORLD CUP

33:04 - The electric sector is like the human body

37:00 - The electric sector is like a water catchment and irrigation system

44:30 - The electric sector is like back country skiiing

49:38 - Electric utilities function like a P-I-D controller for the energy system

59:43 - The electric sector is like air

01:01:20 - The electric sector is like the Mumbai dabbawala tiffin service

01:06:03 - The electric sector is like a game of twister

01:08:59 - Ways of understanding the energy system are like moral theories for right action

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

LIVE! from the main stage at The Energy Authority's 2023 Energy Symposium, Paul and Laura moderate a panel on market disruptors with energy executives and leaders

Paul Dockery and Laura Trolese moderate a panel on disruptors to resource adequacy, day-ahead, and real-time markets at The Energy Authority’s 2023 Energy Symposium with Melie Vincent, Richard Dillon, and Jamie Mahne. After a serious discussion of disruptors, they tackle less serious energy analogies in a game called “Disruptors or Duds”.

07:34 - Large weather patterns changing evaluation of resource adequacy

21:40 - Accounting for new uncertainty in day-ahead markets

32:32 - Volatility of natural gas and real-time markets

46:38 - Disruptors or Duds: a niche pop culture or sports reference as an analogue to an energy industry topic

You can find our merch on shopify. You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember to share this with any friends you have that are electric utility enthusiasts like us!

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, where you’re valued and appreciated.

Bear Prairie, the General Manager of Idaho Falls Power, is the last interview in our Electric Utility Recruiting series! In this 8th and final episode Bear reminds Humaira, Brian, and Paul that public power is a movement, and encourages all of us to spread the message throughout or communities.

Idaho Falls Power is a municipal electric utility that has served the city of Idaho Falls, Idaho since 1900. The utility owns and operates five hydropower plants that deliver about one-third of the city’s electricity needs. In addition to the electric utility they offer high-speed, affordable, internet capability for homes and businesses.

Electric Utility Recruiting video series

Attracting a new workforce into electric utility professions is going to be one of the key challenges of the next 20 years, and electric utility enthusiasts need to build up recruiting skills to meet the challenge. So Public Power Underground took the opportunity, while it was recording on location at the opening reception for NWPPA’s Annual Meeting in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, to pull aside executives from across the region and quiz them on their best recruiting pitches to attract new folks to electric utility professions.

We were honored to be joined by John Hairston, Mark Johnson, Sarah Giomi, Scott Corwin, Scott Simms, Scott Coe, Scott Rhees, Sarah Edmonds, Marc Farmer, Crystal Ball, and Bear Prairie. We hope you found value in our video series and got some insights into messages that can work to recruit new professionals to the electric utility workforce.

You can find our merch on shopify. You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember to share this with any friends you have that are electric utility enthusiasts like us!

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

Ric O’Connell and Anna Sommers join Ahlmahz Negash, PhD and Paul Dockery for a deep dive into power planning best practices including planning for extremes, open source models, and best in class computational techniques.

You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Share with friends that are electric utility enthusiasts, like us!

09:41 - how to explain power planning to a five year old

19:00 - best practices in power planning

58:10 - Ahlmahz’s unfair question of the week: what about AI?

1:03:50 - PUC-for-a-day

for more about open source planning, GridLab recently collaborated with RMI on an open source modeling report. you can find it here.

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

Richard Glick, the Chair of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), joined Crystal Ball, Matt Schroettnig, and Paul Dockery for the fourth installation of our Electric Market Enthusiasm series. We try to keep it light while discussing transmission, batteries, price formation, the incremental approach to market expansion, governance, and FERC’s recently published five year strategic plan. To close it out we played an outro game called "Which FERC is the best FERC?".

06:02 - Discuss elements of FERC’s FY22-26 Strategic Plan

• FERC FY22-26 Strategic Plan | Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
• Fact Sheet | Strategic Plan FY 2022-2026 | Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

15:01 - New merch idea

15:12 - Benefits of Transmission Regionalization

• The Pacific Northwest/Pacific Southwest Intertie
• MISO board approves $10.3B transmission plan to support 53 GW of renewables
• the Organization of MISO States

24:28 - Governance and the incremental approach to market expansion

27:58 - “I think it’s inevitable”

31:46 - Outro Game: Which FERC is the best FERC?

You can find our merch on shopify. You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember to share this with any friends you have that are electric utility enthusiasts like us!

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

Mark Johnson, the General Manager of Flathead Electric Cooperative, joins Humaira Falkenberg, Brian Fawcett, and Paul Dockery on Public Power Underground to participate in our Electric Utility Recruiting video series.

Flathead Electric Cooperative serves over 56,000 members in and around the area of Kalispell and Libby, Montana. It has grown from 82 miles of line serving 117 farm homes in December of 1938 to what is now the second largest electric utility in Montana.

Electric Utility Recruiting video series

Attracting a new workforce into electric utility professions is going to be one of the key challenges of the next 20 years, and electric utility enthusiasts need to build up recruiting skills to meet the challenge. So Public Power Underground took the opportunity, while it was recording on location at the opening reception for NWPPA’s Annual Meeting in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, to pull aside executives from across the region and quiz them on their best recruiting pitches to attract new folks to electric utility professions.

We were honored to be joined by John Hairston, Mark Johnson, Sarah Giomi, Scott Corwin, Scott Simms, Scott Coe, Scott Rhees, Sarah Edmonds, Marc Farmer, Crystal Ball, and Bear Prairie. The interviews will be released individually over the coming weeks as special, bonus episodes.

You can find our merch on shopify. You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember to share this with any friends you have that are electric utility enthusiasts like us!

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

It’s the SEASON FINALE, and to celebrate the conclusion of another wonderful season of Public Power Underground we invited a special guest of honor, Susan Ackerman, to join us for an after dark, mailbag episode.

Susan recently announced her retirement from her role as Eugene Water and Electric Board’s (EWEB) Chief Energy Officer. To celebrate her career and ask her deeply personal and occasionally inappropriate questions the Underground invited a cast of extraordinary characters from around the region to join the underground for the happy-hour-ish episode.

Joining us for the episode were:

Karen Heim, PPC’s Office Administrator and Public Power Underground’s Editor-at-Large
Therese Hampton, PGP’s Executive Director who is making a debut appearance on Public Power Underground
Megan Capper, EWEB’s Energy Resources Manager and Hero of the Underground
Matt Schroettnig, EWEB’s Power Resources Counsel and member of the Anadromous Championship circle
Humaira Falkenberg, Pacific Count PUD’s Power Resource Manager and enthusiastic public power advocate
Betsy Bridge, NRU’s General Counsel emeritus and newly recruited Executive Producer for Public Power Underground
Crystal Ball, BPA’s Fish & Wildlife Program Director and newly recruited Brand Manager for Public Power Underground
Megan Stratman, NRU’s Rates & Policy Director and Special -all-the-topics-she’s-willing-to-talk-about-Correspondent

We’re not sure when we’ll be back for Season 3, so hit the subscribe button so you’re notified of the Season Premiere!

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts. Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch.

to sign up for the newsletter visit our substack at publicpowerunderground.substack.com.

Laura Trolese, Tyler Wolford, Matt Johnson, and Paul Dockery recorded an episode at a spas about how power contracts could change during a transition from bilateral to centrally dispatched markets.

In a special, bonus episode recorded at the One Ocean Resort & Spas in Atlantic Beach, Florida during The Energy Authority’s 2023 Energy Symposium, Laura Trolese, Tyler Wolford, Matt Johnson, and Paul Dockery discuss the impact of transitioning from bilateral markets to centrally dispatched day-ahead markets on long-term wholesale power supply agreements.

Caution: it gets extremely wonky.

You can find our merch on shopify. You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Share with friends that are electric utility enthusiasts, like us!

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

We’re Breaking News this week on Public Power Underground! Arin Reports (03:04), APPA's profile of women in high-voltage trades (06:06), RMG Financials’ Reid Grossman joins to talk about counterparty credit in the aftermath of the winter freeze event (07:19), Debrief from BPA’s IRP 2 Workshop (23:03), Idaho Power’s Customer Growth (25:52), Guest Lede by PPC’s Aaron Bush on the March 1stPublic Power / BPA Carbon Forum (32:18), Debrief from the NWRFC’s Water Supply Briefing (32:40), Snohomish County PUD’s Brian Booth joins to talk electric rates (34:20), BREAKING NEWS: SPP unveils Markets+ concept at PPC Members Forum w/ special guest lede by PPC’s Lauren Tenney Denison (46:44), BREAKING NEWS: Public Power Underground unveils the Anadromous Championship Belt (49:24).

Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch. Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts.

to sign up for the newsletter visit our substack at publicpowerunderground.substack.com.

4:39 - Arin Reports
8:16 - B2H news
13:58 - Advanced nuclear fission projects in the news and fun twitter follows
23:10 - Dispatches from #energytwitter on ev charger siting
32:35 - California Public Utilities Commission takes up NEM 3.0 and Jason has some thoughts
41:20 - Seattle City Light’s newly released electrification study
48:57 - Matt and Paul interview BPA CEO and Administrator, John Hairston and celebrate his one year anniversary as Administrator
1:07:30 - TL;DR the rest of the news

You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast,

Paul Dockery, Jason Fordney, Abigail Sawyer, and Dan Catchpole field listener submitted questions from all types of energy enthusiasts. Plus, we have a Bluey Inspired intermission game with the Honorable Katie Mapes, Matt Schroettnig, and Jon Hart.

03:12 - Dan Campbell wonders about the DER value proposition for Public Power

13:24 - Dr. Kyri Baker pitches an airline idea for electric utilities

27:13 - Travis Kavulla has a contracting question

34:46 - Mary Wienke wants to know how we think about new technology development

• Ben Serrurier’s work on A Fair Green Deal for the Last Coal Plant in Mississippi
• Family Guy’s recurring bit with the Kool Aid Man

44:51 - Robert Cromwell asks a bunch of questions about transmission

• MISO board approves $10.3B transmission plan to support 53 GW of renewables, coverage by Utility Dive

57:04 - Intermission Game - energy industry Bluey Scholars on character parallels

1:20:40 - TL;DR segment called “Just a Text”

• Mike Bloomberg from Groundwork Data
• Bryce Johanneck of Quanta Technology
• Therese Hampton proposes a conundrum
• Bill Drummond poses a question
•  Simon Mahan wants to talk about squirrels
• Mary Wienke with a testimonial

1:31:04 - New Merch: “Objectively Enthusiastic”

We hope you enjoyed the Fourth Season. Remember to share this with any friends you have that are electric utility enthusiasts, like us! Share the link to merch on shopify. And podcast links on Apple Podcast and Spotify. Subscribe on here so you don’t miss Season 5 or any bonus content in between.

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

John Hairston returns to discuss what BPA is doing to navigate an era of transmission expansion for the grid.

John Hairston, the CEO and Administrator of the Bonneville Power Administration, shares his enthusiasm for transmission and people in an interview with Paul Dockery and Crystal Ball. The interview is wrapped in informative discussion on energy industry news, research, and reflection by Ahlmahz Negash, Conleigh Byers, Farhad Billimoria, and Paul Dockery.

You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Share with friends that are energy enthusiasts, like us!

01:36 - How transmission is addressed in seminal texts

• Power System Economics: Designing Markets for Electricity by Steven Stoft 
• Imperfect Markets and Imperfect Regulation: An Introduction to the Microeconomics and Political Economy of Power Markets by Thomas-Olivier Léautier

05:23 - Short-to-Ground; a segment where we blow a fuse covering the news.

• Wednesday February 28th the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission hosted the eighth public meeting of the Joint Federal-State Task Force on Electric Transmission
• Rob Gramlich and his team at GridStrategies released a report in February titled “Fostering collaboration would help build needed transmission”
• Utility Dive published an opinion piece by Will Kenworthy and Boratha Tan titled “Advancing energy justice: A new paradigm in grid equity and reliability analysis”
• The Bonneville Power Administration identified 14 new transmission projects costing an estimated $3.9 billion in its 2023 TSR Study and Expansion Process
• The Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC or Commission) has released a draft determination on a 'flexible trading' rule
• The Western Transmission Expansion Coalition announced the members of its Regional Engagement Committee
• Spot market power in the U.S.
• Wholesale spot prices for the National Electricity Market (NEM)
• Energy Information Administration’s Natural Gas Weekly Update

17:17 - John Hairston’s interview with special-correspondent Crystal Ball

41:00 - John Hairston’s analogy; the electric system is like golf
45:24 - Crystal Ball’s analogy; the electric sector is evolving like the eras of Taylor Swift
1:17:33 - Updating our priors

• Risanger, Simon, and Jacob Mays. "Congestion risk, transmission rights, and investment equilibria in electricity markets." The Energy Journal 45.1 (2024). 
• Baker, Erin, et al. "Who is marginalized in energy justice? Amplifying community leader perspectives of energy transitions in Ghana." Energy Research & Social Science 73 (2021): 101933.

1:15:22 - ESA (Energy System Analogies) World Cup Standings

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

“This paper argues for the centrality of real-time markets, which are cleared sequentially with a single binding interval.”

Prof. Dr. Jacob Mays and Paul Dockery have an in-depth discussion in Hollister Hall at Cornell University about Prof. Mays recently released working paper on Sequential Pricing of Electricity. The discussion is only available as a podcast and is published uninterrupted and unedited.

Mays, J. (2023). Sequential Pricing of Electricity. Working Paper, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Cornell University.

You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Share with friends that are electric utility enthusiasts, like us!

The conversation explores the paper in 8 parts.

1. The goal of the paper

“The goal of this paper is to promote a shift in the discussion of price formation in wholesale electricity markets from a static to a dynamic modeling framework. While the design and analysis of systems with significant reservoir hydropower have long relied on dynamic models, most other systems have come to rely on simpler static models that have nevertheless been useful in contexts with limited variability, uncertainty, and intertemporal constraints. The entry of large quantities of renewable and battery storage has increased the salience of all these factors, necessitating a richer modeling framework.” p. 40“This paper argues for the centrality of real-time markets, which are cleared sequentially with a single binding interval.” p. 3.

2. Framework to assess the effect of price formation proposals on market outcomes

“This paper develops a framework to assess the effect of such proposals on market outcomes, investigating how choices made by wholesale market operators regarding algorithms for commitment, dispatch, and market clearing can affect incentives for operation and investment.” p. 2“Step 1: specifying the model for operations” Section 3.2.1, p. 15“Step 2: specifying a parameterization” Section 3.2.2, p. 15“Step 3: specifying a pricing policy” Section 3.2.3, pp. 15-16

3. Static vs Dynamic modeling frameworks

“The paper’s conceptual goal is a shift from the static picture of the merit-order curve in thermal-dominant markets to a dynamic understanding of price formation. Electricity prices are often colloquially described as the cost to serve an additional unit of load for a given period. In a static, convex economic dispatch model, prices that maximize efficiency both in short-run operations and long-run investment can be calculated as the dual variables corresponding to power balance constraints equating supply and demand. With no intertemporal operating constraints, dual values are typically determined by the fuel cost of thermal resources. In a dynamic model, an additional unit of load in a given period not only entails a direct cost in the present period, but also places the system in a slightly different state entering the subsequent operating period (e.g., with more or less energy stored in batteries). Dynamic models have been long been understood as necessary to the design and analysis of markets in regions with significant reservoir hydropower (see, e.g., Pereira and Pinto (1991) as well as more recent reviews in Steeger et al. (2014) and Aasg ̊ard et al. (2019)). In other regions, including the U.S. systems that serve as the primary motivation of this paper, markets have evolved in a context where storage was negligible. This state of affairs is set to change rapidly over the coming decade, as models typically find that decarbonized electricity systems will feature substantial quantities of storage (Jenkins et al., 2018; Williams et al., 2021; Frazier et al., 2021).” p. 2

4. Importance of dynamic models to regions with storage hydro. p. 38
5. Section 5. Evaluating price formation policies, pages 36-37

“The broader point of the examples is to establish the need for the proposed framework in evaluating price formation: even with the limited scope of tests included here, the models produce a wide range of price outcomes.” p. 37

6. Flexible Ramping Products vs Fast Start Pricing

“We note several differences between the (DLAC − NLB − θ) and (DLAC − RT − θ) policies. First, while we assumed in Section 4.3 that net load biasing would not result in any binding forward financial positions, the (DLAC −RT −θ) policy directly affects the quantity of reserves procured in the binding interval.” p. 30

7. Policy and parameterization are choices that matter: Section 5.3 Long-run consequences, pages 39-40

“The choice of operating policy can have a significant impact on the total revenue across all resources. [...] In general, resource-specific revenues track the total charges.” however “storage is a notable exception with revenues deviating significantly from that seen by the market as a whole.”“They indicate the potential for substantial misallocation of investment due to inefficiencies in spot price formation.”

8. Policy Recommendation: Advocate for high-fidelity simulation tools

“Accordingly, a second policy recommendation is to advocate for high-fidelity simulation tools enabling system operators to compare operational performance and pricing outcomes with alternative algorithmic choices and reserve product specifications, putting them in position to credibly demonstrate the value of new reserve products and parameterize them efficiently.” p. 5.

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If you haven’t listened to prior discussion with Prof. Mays, you can check out prior conversations:

Prof. Jacob Mays on Electric Markets and Resource Adequacy
Paul Dockery
·
January 27, 2023

Jacob Mays, PhD, Matt Schroettnig, Ahlmahz Negash, PhD, and Paul Dockery discuss a paper Prof. Mays co-authored on contractual form in electricity reliability obligations, how it applies to the program getting developed in the Northwest, and what perspective he has on electric market development in the Northwest.

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Electric Market Enthusiasm, pt. 1: Professor Jacob Mays on Electric Market Design
Paul Dockery
·
May 19, 2022

Jacob Mays, Assistant Professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Cornell University, answers Paul’s remedial questions on how electric markets function and what the Pacific Northwest should be considering when approaching market expansion incrementally in a wide ranging and engaging conversation.

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Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

Crystal Ball is bringing the power of good ideas to Public Power Underground with her appearance in our Electric Utility Recruiting series. The entertaining conversation with Crystal Ball, Humaira Falkenberg, Brian Fawcett, and Paul Dockery includes Crystal’s recruiting pitch that “Electric utilities are sexy again.” Public Power Underground is an origin story for the Humaira Falkenberg → Crystal Ball friendship and the duo talk about the way community brought them together.

PNUCC is a not-for-profit trade association of consumer-owned and investor-owned electric utilities and other power industry partners that share a common interest in the efficacy and reliability of the Northwest Power system. This forum facilitates a unique function in the Northwest where complex and divisive industry issues are brought to the table and discussed in an environment where members put aside competitive differences to chart a mutually beneficial course forward.

Electric Utility Recruiting video series

Attracting a new workforce into electric utility professions is going to be one of the key challenges of the next 20 years, and electric utility enthusiasts need to build up recruiting skills to meet the challenge. So Public Power Underground took the opportunity, while it was recording on location at the opening reception for NWPPA’s Annual Meeting in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, to pull aside executives from across the region and quiz them on their best recruiting pitches to attract new folks to electric utility professions.

We were honored to be joined by John Hairston, Mark Johnson, Sarah Giomi, Scott Corwin, Scott Simms, Scott Coe, Scott Rhees, Sarah Edmonds, Marc Farmer, Crystal Ball, and Bear Prairie. The interviews will be released individually over the coming weeks as special, bonus episodes.

You can find our merch on shopify. You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember to share this with any friends you have that are electric utility enthusiasts like us!

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

A discussion about public goods and what classifying services as common pool resources, congestible public goods, or club goods means for grid planning and market design.

Lynne Kiesling joins Ahlmahz Negash, Conleigh Byers, Farhad Billimoria, and Paul Dockery to discuss the classification system used in economics to distinguish public goods from private goods and what classifying some services as common pool resources means for grid planning and market design.

Lynne Kiesling is an economist focusing on regulation, market design, and the economics of digitization and smart grid technologies in the electricity industry. She is Director of the Institute for Regulatory Law & Economics in the Center on Law, Business, and Economics, and is an Adjunct Professor in the Master of Science in Energy and Sustainability program, both at Northwestern University. She is also a Research Professor at University of Colorado Denver, a member of the External Faculty of the Santa Fe Institute, and a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

In addition to her academic research, she is currently a member of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Electricity Advisory Committee, has served as a member of the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Smart Grid Advisory Committee, and is an emerita member of the GridWise Architecture Council. Her academic background includes a B.S. in Economics from Miami University (Ohio) and a Ph.D. in Economics from Northwestern University.

You can find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Share with friends that are energy enthusiasts, like us!

05:07 - 30 seconds of theory

• Ahlmahz: Public Good
• Farhad: Common Pool Resource
• Conleigh: Club good
• Lynne: The pacing problem
• Ahlmahz: The collective action problem
• Farhad: The tragedy of the commons
• Conleigh: Induced demand
• Lynne: The Knowledge Problem

39:02 - What is and what is not a public good in the electric system

Billimoria, F., Mancarella, P. and Poudineh, R., 2022. Market and regulatory frameworks for operational security in decarbonizing electricity systems: from physics to economics. Oxford Open Energy, 1, p.oiac007.

51:06 - Is transmission a Public Good?

1:16:22 - Implications for planning and market design

1:40:06 - National Treasure, Public Good, or Excludable - a Public Power Underground game

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it’s work to watch!

Goodbyes are hard and tend to be cringeworthy. WHAT AN OPPORTUNITY FOR A SPECIAL EPISODE!!! The original cast of Public Power Underground gets together for a nostalgic recording with a throwback script to celebrate Ian Bledsoe's promotion to Senior Power Analyst, and acknowledge Paul Dockery's last day at Clatskanie PUD.

3:48 - Celebration of Ian Bledsoe's promotion to Senior Power Analyst!
8:06 - Conveyance of Anadromous Championship smelt belts for best friends of the underground because they kept coming back
12:03 - Paul gives a pep talk on the difficulty of transitions while Ian plays the ukelele

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, it's work to watch!

Debra Smith, the General Manager and Chief Executive Officer for Seattle City Light, joined the Karen, Matt, and Paul for a special bonus discussion about the electric utility enthusiast trifecta: Electrification, Markets, and People. We also get some jokes, elephant noises, an intermission game, and some new merch ideas.

05:49 - what’s going well, a numbered list

12:14 - Attracting, retaining, and recruiting public power people

36:56 - an Intermission Game called “Fantasy Utility Draft” where we do a mock electric utility draft from the characters of Schitts Creek, Succession, Ted Lasso, and Parks & Rec

51:27 - Debra’s thoughts on market development in the Northwest

57:03 - Seattle City Lights approach to electrification and highlights of their recent projects

• Curbside EV charging
• New electric bus charging base
• Electrification study developed in collaboration w/ EPRI

1:01:46 - Scaling up our workforce as the biggest challenge facing electric utilities

• background from interview w/ Jesse Jenkins
• Saul Griffith’s book Electrify and link to Rewiring America
• the hk tweet

1:10:03 - new merch ideas

You can find our merch on shopify. Remember to share this with any friends you have that are electric utility enthusiasts like us!

Public Power Underground, for electric utility enthusiasts! Public Power Underground, where you’re valued and appreciated.