Ari Peskoe

The future of the U.S. power grid may ride in part on an obscure tussle over transmission in the Lone Star State. Front and center is a new law in Texas — enacted as S.B. 1938 — that gives incumbent utilities first dibs on building new transmission lines. Critics say the measure effectively cuts out new entrants, clashes with the state's history of competition and could raise the costs of transmission projects that factor into consumers' power bills. Proponents counter that the language preserves Texas' approach to electricity and should help ensure reliability and affordability..."As competitive transmission expands, it's certainly plausible that other utilities will go to their state legislatures and ask for this kind of protection," said Ari Peskoe, director of Harvard Law School's Electricity Law Initiative

While other states are embracing renewable energy, Ohio is heading in the opposite direction. A bill passed this week by the Ohio House would subsidize nuclear and coal power while cutting state support for renewable energy and energy efficiency, with the utilities' customers footing the bill.. The Ohio bill begins to make sense only as a bailout for one company as opposed to comprehensive energy plan, said Ari Peskoe, director of the Electricity Law Initiative at Harvard Law School. That company is FirstEnergy Solutions, the owner of the state's only two nuclear plants and the leading architect of the bill. It's a subsidiary of Akron-based FirstEnergy that FirstEnergy is in the process of spinning off..."FirstEnergy has really been a failure in the generation business, and so it's been looking for a bailout," Peskoe said.

The United States' largest interstate electricity market will soon hold a multibillion-dollar auction to determine which power plants will supply it in the years to come. But more than six months after FERC tossed out the rules PJM had planned for the capacity market over the fairness of nuclear subsidies, federal regulators have yet to approve a rewrite — leaving some power players on edge ... Others are less concerned FERC will alter the results of the auction even if it proceeds under the invalidated rules. Ari Peskoe, director of the Harvard Electricity Law Initiative, said the commission typically avoids issuing refunds in wholesale power markets and is unlikely to order the auction be re-run. The most probable conclusion, he said, is that PJM runs its auction under invalidated rules this year, and then FERC approves new rules PJM proposed last year ahead of next year's auction.

The Supreme Court yesterday rejected challenges that aimed to dismantle nuclear subsidies in Illinois and New York. By declining a pair of challenges filed by the Electric Power Supply Association (EPSA), the justices preserved two appellate court rulings upholding the states' zero-emission credit (ZEC) policies. Other states with an interest in developing their own incentive programs now have a legally tested blueprint for doing so, legal experts said yesterday. "EPSA asked the Court to expand preemption under the Federal Power Act, a move that might have threatened state renewable energy programs and could have jumpstarted a wave of litigation," Ari Peskoe, director of Harvard Law School's Electricity Law Initiative, wrote after the Supreme Court's order denying review. "Today's denials underscore that states have broad legal authority to enact programs that pay clean energy generators for their production of zero-emission energy."

It’s been more than a year since the Trump administration declared that coal and nuclear retirements were threatening the electric grid -- and regulators still aren’t rushing to the rescue. ... “The political winds that created this docket -- I don’t know if they’re still blowing or not," said Ari Peskoe, director of the Electricity Law Initiative at Harvard University.

The U.S. president has joined Kentucky's governor and the coal state's U.S. senators in trying to pressure the Tennessee Valley Authority to keep a 49-year-old coal-fired power plant operating, even though the nation's largest public electric utility has concluded that the plant is unreliable, no longer needed and too expensive to repair and operate. ... What study the governor was referring to isn't clear, said Ari Peskoe, director of the Electricity Law Initiative at the Harvard Law School, who follows FERC proceedings.

America's first major offshore wind project is caught in a crosswind. The Federal Regulatory Energy Commission declined this week to rule on a waiver that would have eased the wind developer's entry into New England's electricity market. The decision, or lack thereof, prompted an unusual round of public sniping among FERC commissioners on Twitter and highlights the simmering tensions in New England, where state climate ambitions are straining against the structure of the region's wholesale electricity markets. ... But it's a fragile compromise. In many ways, the disagreement over Vineyard Wind's waiver is best understood as a fight over money, said Ari Peskoe, who leads Harvard Law School's Electricity Law Initiative. He pointed to a New England Power Generators Association filing with FERC this week, in which the power plant owners argued that Vineyard Wind's participation in the auction would prompt total market revenues to fall by $270 million. For the wind developer, on the other hand, the capacity auction represents an additional revenue stream outside its state contract.

PG&E Corp. on Tuesday became the largest public company to file for bankruptcy in the U.S. in the past decade as mounting liabilities from its role in triggering California wildfires pushed the utility over the brink. ... Ari Peskoe, director of Harvard Law School’s electricity law initiative, said the changing nature of PG&E’s customer base mirrors broader challenges to the monopolistic business model many U.S. utilities have enjoyed for decades. “There’s a larger issue at hand regarding how utilities are coping with new technology,” Mr. Peskoe said. “Maybe this is an opportunity for the industry to think about this differently.”

An op-ed by Ari Peskoe, Director of the Electricity Law Initiative at the Harvard Law School Environmental and Energy Law Program: Last week, power generation companies asked the Supreme Court to review a pair of lower court decisions upholding states' Zero Emission Credit (ZEC) programs. Nearly identical ZEC programs enacted by New York and Illinois require utilities to compensate certain nuclear plants for their emission-free power by purchasing credits that represent the environmental benefits of zero-emission energy.

Several power producers joined the Electric Power Supply Association on Monday in petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to review appellate court rulings upholding the New York and Illinois zero-emission credit programs. ... Ari Peskoe, director of the Electricity Law Initiative at Harvard Law School, said, “These arguments about the text of the FPA and the court’s 2016 Hughes decision largely repeat the generators’ briefs filed at the 2nd and 7th Circuits. In rejecting these arguments, the 2nd Circuit panel found it ‘telling that [the generators] cannot persuasively explain why FERC’s holding [disclaiming jurisdiction over RECs] does not apply equally to ZECs.’”

Earth Day is usually an occasion for politicians to extol natural wonders and our efforts to preserve them. For Bernard L. McNamee, who today became one of the nation’s top energy regulators, it was an opportunity to praise oil and coal...Ari Peskoe, director of the Electricity Law Initiative at Harvard Law School, told Yahoo News that McNamee should be “disqualified” from handling matters related to this past work with the Department of Energy. McNamee has made no indication that he would make such a recusal.

The grid operator for the mid-Atlantic region released a long-anticipated study about whether coal and nuclear plant retirements present a threat to its electric supply. The study found there's no immediate threat over the next five years. But it found that under some scenarios -- a perfect storm of plant retirements, pipeline failures, and extreme weather -- there could be problems in the future...Ari Peskoe, Director of the Electricity Law Initiative at the Harvard University, said the study provided little support for those in favor of the plan to bail out FirstEnergy's coal and nuclear plants. "Had they found an immediate need, then that would have supported FirstEnergy's case," Peskoe said.

...Roughly 5 percent of U.S. coal capacity is scheduled to retire this year, while Energy Department figures show that domestic coal consumption in the power sector slumped to a three-decade low in 2017 (Climatewire, March 15). "They're basically trying to stop the bleeding," said Ari Peskoe, director of Harvard University's Electricity Law Initiative. "But they still can't stop their ultimate death."

The Trump administration's latest bid to boost troubled coal and nuclear plants is certain to spark a legal war if it's ever finalized. After details of a rescue proposal leaked ahead of a National Security Council meeting Friday, energy experts set to work unpacking the legal issues and gaming out potential litigation scenarios. The draft memo out of the Department of Energy, first published by Bloomberg News, proposes using two federal laws focused on emergencies and wartime needs to extend the life of coal and nuclear power plants at risk of retiring soon...While federal courts have issued decisions about contract disputes and other specific issues under the law, they haven't reached any broad rulings about the scope of authority the DPA gives DOE, said Ari Peskoe, director of the Electricity Law Initiative at Harvard Law School.

Trump administration officials are making plans to order grid operators to buy electricity from struggling coal and nuclear plants in an effort to extend their life, a move that could represent an unprecedented intervention into U.S. energy markets. The Energy Department would exercise emergency authority under a pair of federal laws to direct the operators to purchase electricity or electric generation capacity from at-risk facilities, according to a memo obtained by Bloomberg News. The agency also is making plans to establish a "Strategic Electric Generation Reserve" with the aim of promoting the national defense and maximizing domestic energy supplies...Invoking national security concerns could bolster the Trump administration’s case in any legal challenges over the intervention, said Ari Peskoe, director of the Electricity Law Initiative at Harvard University. "It’s going to be tough to get a court to question DOE’s factual finding -- particularly if it relates to national defense," Peskoe said in an interview. Tapping two statutes simultaneously also could give the administration more "legal room," Peskoe said.

As the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission prepares to revive a review of the implementation of the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act, energy industry experts say that FERC might make some regulatory updates this time around, which could end up making it harder for renewable facilities to sell power to utilities under the law...The most substantive possible PURPA changes, however, would need to come from Congress, which last enacted substantive amendments to the law in the 2005 Energy Policy Act. “The fundamental goal of the law is to encourage the development of these qualifying facilities that Congress outlined, and FERC does not have the authority to rewrite that goal,” said Ari Peskoe, director of the Electricity Law Initiative at the Harvard Law School Environmental and Energy Law Program, in a phone interview Tuesday. “That goal is embedded in the law.”

Months into the Korean War, President Harry Truman capped wages and imposed price controls on the steel industry, seizing authority under a newly passed law to take action in the name of national defense. Now, more than a half century later, Trump administration officials are considering using the same statute to keep struggling coal and nuclear power plants online, according to four people familiar with the discussions who asked for anonymity to discuss private deliberations..."This would extend the statute far beyond how it’s ever been used before," said Ari Peskoe, director of the Electricity Law Initiative at Harvard University. "This statute did not contemplate the sort of use that apparently now the administration is considering."

new 10-year energy strategy from the Sununu administration prefers Uber to trains, supports nuclear at least as much as wind and solar, and says that electricity cost to ratepayers rather than support for renewables should be topmost in the minds of regulators and lawmakers. The 10-Year State Energy Strategy, released Tuesday by the Office of Energy and Planning, signals several shifts from a 2014 report issued under Gov. Maggie Hassan...The Energy Strategy is much less bullish on renewable energy sources due to fears they will raise the cost of electricity, arguing that subsidizes and mandates in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island might “socialize costs” throughout the six-state region, which shares a power grid. “The default assumption is that renewable energy is expensive, which may or may not be true, and expressing concern that New Hampshire is going to pay for it,” said Ari Peskoe, director Director of the Electricity Law Initiative at the Harvard Law School Environmental and Energy Law Program. “It’s sort of a southern New England versus northern New England issue.”

Losing millions of dollars a year at its power plants, Ohio-based FirstEnergy has asked the Trump administration for help. Though it may have the president’s ear, it’s unclear how much President Trump can do to help the company’s struggling coal and nuclear plants. FirstEnergy, which filed for bankruptcy last month, and plans to close three nuclear plants in Pennsylvania and Ohio, wants Energy Secretary Rick Perry to declare a “202-C” grid emergency, and make customers in Pennsylvania and surrounding states pay more for electricity from nuclear and coal...What is a 202? It’s a provision of federal law designed to keep the grid functioning during extreme events that could cause power outages, said Ari Peskoe, an electricity law professor at Harvard. “It was specifically written by Congress in 1935 to ensure that electricity supply did not have the sort of problems that arose during World War One,” Peskoe said.

Energy Secretary Rick Perry downplayed the likelihood that his department would declare a grid emergency and direct financial support to coal and nuclear power plants owned by FirstEnergy Solutions Corp. (FES), the competitive-generation arm of FirstEnergy Corp. On March 29, FES told Perry that its money-losing coal and nuclear power plants face closure — amounting to a grid emergency — and that the Department of Energy should use its authority under Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act to keep them online...If DOE were to issue a 202(c) order, "people would be immediately filing challenges at the D.C. Circuit," said Ari Peskoe, director of the Electricity Law Initiative at Harvard Law School. Such a legal move, which is almost assured from other power generators, natural gas interests and large electricity consumers, among others, would prevent any meaningful "emergency" action to help the FES plants.

Deep in debt and undercut in the marketplace by renewable power, the big utility company FirstEnergy appealed to the Trump administration on Thursday to use emergency powers to let it charge more for standby power from its coal and nuclear plants. The request, in a letter to Energy Secretary Rick Perry, followed an announcement that the company plans to close three nuclear plants in Ohio and Pennsylvania unless they can get a break...In a detailed thread on Twitter dissecting FirstEnergy's bid, Ari Peskoe, an energy analyst at Harvard University, said the company's argument was "dizzying" in its critique of FERC, which regulates the grid, and PJM, which operates it regionally. The company called FERC's reliance on advice from the grid operators "misplaced" since between them they have allowed the markets to move in ways that put companies like FirstEnergy at a competitive disadvantage.