FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 25, 2012
CONTACT: Lisa Meiman, 720-962-7050, CORPCOMM@wapa.gov
WESTERN GENERATION WEBINAR DRAWS LARGE CROWDS
LAKEWOOD, Colo. – Western Area Power Administration, in partnership with the Department of Energy, American Public Power Association and National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, hosted a wildly successful webinar for more than 150 utilities, Federal agency representatives, tribes, developers and others May 23.
The webinar, entitled Regulatory Considerations for Developing Distributed and Utility-Scale Generation Projects, brought together subject matter experts from across the electric industry to discuss regulatory issues that should be considered when developing distributed generation or utility-scale projects.
“The design of the webinar was easy to follow,” said Margie Schaff, Chief Compliance Officer for New West Technologies LLC. “It provided an excellent overview of the regulatory issues relating to everything from small renewables to large generation projects within utility systems.”
Specific topics included key questions for business models; state and Federal regulations; public utility, electric utility, transmitting utility designations; definition of a qualifying small power production facility; and mandatory North American Electric Reliability Corporation standards. The presentation is available at http://ww2.wapa.gov/sites/western/renewables/Pages/default.aspx#regu. The audio recording will be available soon at the same location.
“I now have a much better idea of how complex interconnecting Federal renewable energy projects can be and how unintended consequences can vastly alter the plan if you proceed without utility regulation expertise on your project team,” said Robi Robichaud, National Renewable Energy Laboratory. “It is important to have detailed discussions up front between your utility, project developer and lawyer about project structure, size, intent and more before you go far down the project development path.”
Moderator Jay Caspary, a senior policy advisor at DOE’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, commented, “As an engineer, I appreciated learning more about the legal side of project development. It really makes a difference having experts to explain complicated topics like facility ownership and state versus
Federal requirements. The participants were very engaged, too, and came up with good questions that furthered the discussion.”
Next webinar May 30
On May 30, Western and DOE will continue their tribal webinar series to educate and empower tribes to successfully complete renewable energy projects. The webinar, Today’s Energy Supply – Yesterday’s Grid, features grid operators using the old transmission system in new ways outside its original design and transmission studies from the Western Grid Group and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“This webinar will discuss how utilities’ generation portfolios are changing, often faster than the grid infrastructure that supports them, and the challenges grid operators face in integrating new generation, balancing supply and demand and incorporating new technologies into a grid that was designed to operate a different way,” said Manion.
Registration for the May 30 webinar is still open at https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/276921344.