Powering Strong Communities

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Power outages, wildfires, rooftop solar systems, and demand response programs create a need for utilities to communicate with customers quickly and clearly. Utilizing omnichannel communication systems can help ensure customers stay in the know and also help utilities respond to the many outage-related calls and emails from customers.
Electricity Markets
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has approved a comprehensive series of reforms to the California Independent System Operator’s interconnection process, ruling that the changes will help “ensure that interconnection customers are able to interconnect to the transmission system in a reliable, efficient, transparent, and timely manner,” CAISO said on Oct. 1.
Bonds and Financing
On Sept. 30, the Bonneville Power Administration made its annual payment to the U.S. Department of the Treasury for the 41st consecutive year on time and in full, bringing cumulative payments to approximately $35.4 billion over this period. The total payment for fiscal year 2024 was $792.3 million.
Disaster Response and Mutual Aid
Impacted investor-owned electric companies, electric cooperatives, and public power utilities continue to work around the clock to restore power safely and as quickly as possible to customers and communities impacted by Hurricane Helene, which caused catastrophic damage across 10 states, impacting nearly 6 million electricity customers in total, the Electricity Subsector Coordinating Council said on Oct. 1.
Energy Storage
The U.S. energy storage market experienced significant growth in the second quarter, with the grid-scale segment leading the way at 2,773 MW and 9,982 MWh deployed.
Generation
In a new study assessing how climate change might alter hydropower generation across the continental U.S., researchers show that except for some parts of the Southwest, hydropower generation is expected to rise in the future.
Reliability
Public power utility Colorado Springs Utilities recently received a grant from the U.S. Department of Defense for a grid reliability project.
Transmission
The Bonneville Power Administration is planning to rebuild the 60-mile-long Shelton-Fairmount No. 1 115-kilovolt wood pole transmission line along the Hood Canal in Northwest Washington.
Transmission
The U.S. Department of Energy on Oct. 3 announced an investment of $1.5 billion in four transmission projects and released a final national transmission planning study.
Reliability
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Electricity on Oct. 2 announced the launch of the Community Microgrid Assistance Partnership, which is designed to assist remote, rural, and electrically isolated communities in developing resilient microgrid systems that enhance energy reliability and security, particularly in historically underserved and/or Indigenous areas.