Category: Resiliency

Creative Solutions for Resilience in a Regulated Utility Market

8/14/2023

By Jessica Hendricks, AAE's State Policy Director

With so much going on at the Louisiana Public Service Commission (LPSC) you may be wondering why I spent the morning digging through an old, stalled out Docket. But, that under the radar Docket (U-36507), is an application for a microgrid in Louisiana and extremely relevant to resilience and deregulation.

Ingevity Corporation is a chemical manufacturer in DeRidder, LA, and a current Cleco customer. Ingevity is not satisfied with the reliability of Cleco Power, citing frequent power outages.

Verdant is a microgrid company with no existing ties to LA. Ingevity and Verdant teamed up and drafted a plan whereby Verdant would build a microgrid, consisting of 1000 kW of solar, 2000kW of Combined Heat & Power (CHP) and a heat recovery steam generator (“HRSG”) on Ingevity owned property. Verdant would then sell the power solely to Ingevity, and Ingevity would continue to rely on Cleco Power for 10-20% of its electric load.

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A Community Dialogue with your Representatives

6/6/2023

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By Brenna Landis, JD Candidate, Class of 2023, Loyola University New Orleans College of Law

On March 23, 2023, the Alliance for Affordable Energy hosted a virtual community dialogue in partnership with two of its interns, Carrie Anne Ducote and Brenna Landis – law students at Loyola New Orleans College of Law.

Carrie and Brenna created a group called the Louisiana Utility Watchdog as a way to highlight the power imbalance at the state level between regulated investor-owned utilities (IOUs) and the public, the bill-paying ratepayers.

We were honored to have Louisiana Public Service Commissioner Davante Lewis and State Representative Matthew Willard join as special guests. The dialogue focused on the Securitization Act, which allows utilities to purchase securities (basically loans) to repair infrastructure damaged by storms, and to pass those repair costs onto ratepayers.

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There’s a lot going on at the LPSC these days!

4/7/2023

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By Jessica Hendricks, AAE's State Policy Director

Entergy Louisiana (ELL) has filed two applications for solar resources. One application, for 224 MW, includes a 175 MW Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) facility and a 49 MW ELL constructed facility, both located in the Amite South region where transmission congestion has been a long standing problem. The other application is a much bigger application for up to 3 GW in solar resources. Given the scale, ELL plans to prove that these resources are needed in Phase I.

Phase II is where we’ll discuss costs, structure & where the identified potential resources will be located.

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A new model for hurricane response? Nonprofit eyes churches, community centers as recovery hubs by Matt Sledge

6/1/2022

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Article by Matt Sledge
Originally Published on Nola.com
May 24, 2022

A LaPlace church that served food and organized volunteers after Hurricane Ida will be outfitted with solar panels in the first phase of a $40 million project to create dozens of “resilience hubs” across southeast Louisiana, officials said Tuesday.

Supporters of the far-reaching project hope that they can eventually equip up to 100 churches and community organizations with solar power and batteries. The first batch includes the New Wine Christian Fellowship and nine other locations. One goal is to create places where residents can get cool and charge up after a hurricane.

But supporters also hope to cut electricity bills throughout the year and to transform community groups like churches into disaster responders.

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Looking for Common Ground with In-Laws this Holiday Season?

11/27/2017

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What has consumer watchdogs, environmental advocates, oil and gas companies and the Louisiana Public Service Commission all aligned on the same side? Here’s a hint, it’s not bourbon. Sure enough it’s FERC’s new NOPR!

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The Watchdog

Creative Solutions for Resilience in a Regulated Utility Market

A Community Dialogue with your Representatives

There’s a lot going on at the LPSC these days!

A new model for hurricane response? Nonprofit eyes churches, community centers as recovery hubs by Matt Sledge

Looking for Common Ground with In-Laws this Holiday Season?

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