Tuesday, November 3rd 2015

Good

From Barron’s:

It’s not just crude.

Persistently low — and falling– natural gas prices are weakening business prospects for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale region, which includes parts of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio and New York. Big producers there are EQT, Southwestern Energy, Cabot Oil & Gas, Range Resources, Antero Resources.

A new report from Fitch Ratings finds that pricing remain weak, which is instigating companies to slow production growth forecasts for 2016. That should ultimately benefit the producers. Fitch analysts write:

At current economics, continued growth could heighten financial risk and limit future value creation, and supports producers move to slow production growth in 2016.

However, declining production means less volume for their infrastructure partners, often structured as master limited partnerships (MLPs).

Given strong liquidity, most producers aren’t going to suffer credit downgrades even as they reduce production. Plus, some like Antero, EQT, and Range Resources have hedged positions, which will help profitability. Fitch notes Antaro’s hedges are particularly strong.

Fitch concludes:

In the medium term, the combination of falling rig counts, improving takeaway capacity, and diminishing efficiency gains should provide pricing support for Marcellus producers. This will likely support credit profiles by improving reserve development prospects, encouraging volume growth, and ultimately, increasing cash flow.

Read more at Barrons.com…

Thursday, October 29th 2015

In addition to new rules that will facilitate the expansion and improvements to PECO’s natural gas distribution network,last week the Public Utility Commission also approved $274 million in proposed upgrades to PECO’s electricity distribution grid.

From Utility Dive:

Philadelphia-based PECO, like several other eastern seaboard utilities, is investing to strengthen its distribution infrastructure in the
wake of Superstorm Sandy in 2012.

In most cases, the utilities are seeking regulatory approval to recover those investments through rate increases.

In PECO’s case, the Pennsylvania PUC unanimously approved the utility’s $274 million System 2020 (Docket No. R-2015-2471423), which also includes underground cable replacement, building substation retirements and facility relocations. PECO expects to begin work on the five-year plan in 2016.

PECO, a subsidiary of Exelon Corp., serves more than 2.1 million electric and natural gas customers in an area of southeast Pennsylvania that includes Philadelphia and five surrounding counties.

A total of 845,709 PECO customers were affected by Sandy.

Read more at UtilityDive.com

Monday, October 26th 2015

On Friday the Smart Energy Initiative hosted a crowd over 60 at the Chester County Economic Development Council to discuss the upcoming implementation of the Clean Power Plan across the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Presenting at the event was Secretary John Quigley from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and Kathy Robertson, Senior Environmental and Fuels Policy Manager at Exelon Corporation. Due to the current restrictions on government employee travel, Sec. Quigley presented via Skype.

Many thanks to our three sponsors: Practical Energy Solutions, Community Energy, and DES Global.

Friday, October 23rd 2015

PECO recently gained approval to facilitate new access to gas mains by allowing customers to payback installation costs over longer periods of time.

From Pennsylvania Business Daily:

The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) recently approved a three-year, $10 million pilot program proposed by PECO Energy Co. to increase consumer access to service and lower costs for homes and businesses. 

The Neighborhood Gas Pilot Program, one of two proposals accepted by the PUC last week, would allow new gas customers to pay a fixed, monthly surcharge rather than a large up-front payment for the cost of installation. 

The commission also approved changes in PECO’s calculation process for any required customer contribution. The PUC noted that calculating the financial return for a gas main extension over a 40-year period, rather than PECO’s previously used 15-year period, will more accurately represent natural gas service economics and reduce the amount consumers will have to pay for connections to gas mains. 

Read more at Pennsylvania Business Daily…

Monday, October 19th 2015 

From Reuters:

“A total of 81 companies, including Alcoa Inc, General Electric Co and Procter & Gamble, have backed a U.S.-sponsored pledge supporting action to combat climate change.

The White House said that 68 additional companies had signed the pledge, joining 13 earlier corporations to support “a strong outcome” for upcoming United Nations climate negotiations in Paris and take steps to reduce their impact on the environment.

President Barack Obama is pursuing private sector support ahead of the U.N. conference and more corporations are expected to sign the pledge before it begins on Nov. 30, senior adviser to the president Brian Deese told a call with reporters.

The pledge’s signatories announced on Monday span the spectrum of major American corporations, and also include Bank of America, Best Buy, Coca-Cola, General Motors, Google and WalMart Stores Inc.

The White House said it also expects a consortium of major investors to announce on Monday $1.2 billion in investment capital for companies and projects that can “produce impactful and profitable solutions to climate change.” The initial group of investors includes the University of California, TIAA-Cref and the Alaska Permanent Fund, according to the White House.”

Read more at Reuters…

Friday, October 16th 2015

Much has been made about the decline in American coal consumption, largely the result of price competition from natural gas. While this progress is laudable, unused coal isn’t just sitting in the ground. It’s being mined and shipped to the coasts via rail, then exported via ship to international markets, contributing even more to the environmental impacts of this energy source.

From the Washington Post: 

Gillette, Wyo. — A few feet below this prairie town lies one of North America’s biggest coal deposits, a 100-foot-thick slab of brittle black rock spanning an area the size of Rhode Island — nearly all of it owned by the U.S. taxpayer.Just a dozen nearby mines, scattered across a valley known as the Powder River Basin, contain enough coal to meet the country’s electricity needs for decades. But burning all of it would release more than 450 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere — more than all greenhouse-gas emissions from all sources since 2000.

The Obama administration is seeking to curb the United States’ appetite for the basin’s coal, which scientists say must remain mostly in the ground to prevent a disastrous warming of the planet. Yet each year, nearly half a billion tons of this U.S.-owned fuel are hauled from the region’s vast strip mines and millions of tons are shipped overseas for other countries to burn. Government and industry reports predict a surge in exports of Powder River coal over the next decade, at a time when climate experts are warning of an urgent need to reduce coal burning to prevent global temperatures from soaring.

Read more at WashingtonPost.com

Tuesday, October 13th 2015

A recent editorial in the Pittsburg Post-Gazette illustrates the recent buzz about maintaining or perhaps even growing Pennsylvania’s nuclear fleet.

“Pennsylvania’s nuclear power plants produce 93 percent of the state’s emission‐free electricity, meaning they are our largest single source of clean electrical energy. They are also the only emissions-free source that can produce large amounts of electricity reliably around the clock.

In 2013, the state’s nuclear power plants prevented 63 million metric tons of carbon-dioxide emissions. This is the amount of emissions that would have poured into our atmosphere if the power generated by nuclear energy had instead been generated by the mix of other sources now producing electricity in Pennsylvania. It also is equivalent to what would be released in a year by some 12 million passenger cars — more than twice as many as are registered in the commonwealth.

Beyond their environmental benefits, nuclear-power plants deliver tremendous economic benefits to Pennsylvania. According to a recently released report from the Brattle Group, Pennsylvania’s five nuclear power plants contribute $2.36 billion to the state gross domestic product and directly account for 15,600 full-time jobs.

Nuclear power also is reliable and available around the clock, and it now represents almost 35 percent of Pennsylvania’s electricity generation.”

Join us on October 23rd as Secretary Quigley from the Department of Environmental Protection and  Kathy Robertson, Senior Environmental and Fuels Policy Manager at
Exelon Corporation, discuss impacts of the Clean Power plan in the Commonwealth.

Wednesday, October 6th 2015

Good read on the once might Anthracite industry!

From PowerSource:

“Everything except the eggplant at Anthony’s Coal Fired Pizza in Cranberry is cooked by coal. The restaurant ceiling is lightly charred with coal dust. Sometimes even the tables have a thin layer of Pennsylvania anthracite on them. 

In the morning, when the oven that has been burning since February 2011 is packed with its daily 300 pounds of shiny, hard coal, you can smell it in the parking lot.

Every day, Marcelino Ibarra reinvigorates the oven with eight more bags of the coal mined in eastern Pennsylvania and nowhere else in the U.S.

Anthracite burns hot — between 800 degrees and 900 degrees Fahrenheit. It can cook a pizza in five minutes and must never be allowed to extinguish because of the cost and time of reigniting. On Thanksgiving and Christmas, the two days when the pizza restaurant is closed, Mr. Ibarra still comes in to feed the oven.

A dozen bags of Blaschak Coal are wedged next to the oven, representing a tiny but expanding market segment for the company from Mahanoy City in Schuylkill County.

Pizza won’t save anthracite coal. “You can’t hang your hat on that,” said Greg Driscoll, Blaschak’s president. 

But it’s a growing slice of the company’s business and any growth in coal demand these days is a big deal.

Having weathered a century-long decline in demand, the tiny anthracite industry has diversified into a recently stable and, even more recently, growing segment of the coal business.

Of all the coal types, anthracite has the most carbon and the least sulfur and ash, so it burns hotter and cleaner and continues to be a residential heating option. It is also used in steel making. Those two markets make up the majority of Blaschak’s business.”

Read more at PowerSource

Wednesday, September 23rd 2015

From Energy Manager Today:

The value of apartments is higher if they are designed with efficiency and sustainability in mind, according to National Real Estate Investor. Earlier this year, Fannie Mae lent $10.2 million to Station House, a 50-unit apartment community in Maplewood, N.J. The apartments had won a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. The interest rate on the loan is lower than the normal 10 basis points, which will save $101,000 in interest payments over the life of the loan. The loan was the first under Fannie Mae’s Multifamily Green Building Certification Pricing Break program.

Green building is seeing dramatic growth, according to the USGBC. This year it is estimated that 40% to 48% of new nonresidential construction will be green, equating to a $120-145 billion opportunity.And 62% of firms building new single-family homes report that they are doing more than 15% of their projects green. By 2018, that will increase to 84%. Strong market demand is driving growth, in large part because of a significant cost savings for businesses and tax payers. Property owners benefit from low rental vacancy rates from LEED-certified buildings and from increased property values, the USGBC says.

In 2014, the DOE reported in its Energy Efficiency & Financial Performance study that buyers pay 10 percent to 31 percent more for LEED-certified properties.

Large buildings are far more likely than small buildings to qualify as green, at 62% and 5% respectively, according to a study by CBRE Group and Maastricht University. The 2015 Green Building Adoption Index found that 62.1% of office buildings in the US greater than 500,000 square feet hold either an EPA ENERGY STAR label, US Green Building Council full-building LEED certification or both. In contrast, only 4.5% of all US office buildings less than 100,000 square feet qualified as green.

Read more at EnergyManagerToday.com 

The Smart Energy Initiative’s Board met on Wednesday, September 16th for its first meeting of the 2015-2016 program year. The following was elected as the Board of Directors. Welcome to our new members!

Alan Slobojan – Manufacturing Alliance of Chester and Delaware Counties
Alex Dews – Delaware Valley Green Building Council
Bill Lauer – Delaware Valley Industrial Resource Center
Bill Ronayne (Chair) – Brandywine Valley Heating and Air Conditioning
Bob Keares – Keare’s Electrical Contracting
Ed Piscopo – PECO, an Exelon Company
James Robinson – DES America, LLC
Jay Carlis – Community Energy
Jen Robinson – ICF International
Jon Costanza – SunPower Builders
Kirk Williard – Chester County Intermediate Unit
Lou Nazirides – Keare’s Electrical Contracting
Pat Bokovitz – Chester County Department of Community Development
Paul Spiegel (Vice Chair) – Practical Energy Solutions
Phil Eastman (Immediate Past Chair) – PECO, an Exelon Company
Rob Graff – Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission
Steve Krug (Programming Chair) – Krug Architects