Revision: March 8, 2023, 8:47 a.m.
Energy and Natural Resources
March 7, 2023
2023-0831s
10/05
Amendment to SB 166-FN
Amend the bill by replacing all after the enacting clause with the following:
1 Findings. The general court finds:
I. Recent record increases in the cost of electricity supply have created hardships and excessive burdens for many New Hampshire residents and businesses.
II. New Hampshire can protect against such prices spikes and achieve lower costs and greater price stability for electricity while enabling greater local control, resiliency, and sustainability of our energy system and local economies.
III. The July 2022 New Hampshire 10-Year State Energy Strategy adopted by the department of energy recommends that “New Hampshire policymakers should pursue market-based mechanisms for achieving cost effective energy, while avoiding preferential quotas and mandates” and that “New Hampshire should seek to foster an environment where new and emerging technologies can flourish by the value they may bring to the market.” Among the goals of the strategy are “Goal 7: Encourage market-selection of cost-effective energy resources” and “Goal 8: Generate in-state economic activity without reliance on permanent long term subsidization of energy.”
IV. Developing new cost-effective distributed energy resources (DERs), consisting of enhanced demand response (DR), distributed generation and storage (DG and DS) that are connected to the distribution grid that can help reduce and stabilize costs for electric ratepayers. DG and DS are those facilities with less than 5 MW in rated interconnection and are not participating in ISO New England interstate wholesale electricity markets.
V. In 1996 the general court enacted RSA 374-F restructuring the electric utility industry in New Hampshire and stipulated, as part of the purpose statement, that “[i]ncreased customer choice and the development of competitive markets for wholesale and retail electricity services are key elements in a restructured industry” and that “[c]ompetitive markets should provide electricity suppliers with incentives to operate efficiently and cleanly, open markets for new and improved technologies, provide electricity buyers and sellers with appropriate price signals, and improve public confidence in the electric utility industry.”
VI. The value of distributed energy resources study recently completed for the department of energy found that "The value that such DERs provide is location- and time-dependent, varying by hour, season, and year.”
VII. DERs that are able to respond to the same temporal price signals can help reduce the peaks and fill the valleys of electric load.
2 New Section; Department of Energy; Grid Modernization Advisory Group. Amend RSA 12-P by inserting after section 15 the following new section:
12-P:16 Grid Modernization Advisory Group.
I. The department of energy shall establish and support a grid modernization advisory group (GMAG) consisting of the following voting members:
(a) The commissioner of the department of energy, or designee.
(b) The consumer advocate, or designee.
(c) Representatives of each of the electric distribution utilities regulated by the public utilities commission and the New Hampshire Electric Cooperative.
(d) Two representatives of distributed energy providers, including at least one with experience interconnecting distributed generation and one with experience interconnecting distributed storage, appointed by the commissioner of the department of energy.
(e) A representative of the Community Power Coalition of New Hampshire, appointed by that organization.
(f) A representative of a not-for-profit organization representing clean energy, environmental, or consumer issues appointed by the commissioner of the department of energy.
(g) A representative of the Business and Industry Association, appointed by that organization.
II.(a) The grid modernization advisory group shall consider and provide recommendations to the department and the legislature on issues including but not limited to:
(1) Grid modernization as defined in RSA 374-F:2;
(2) Transactive energy and distributed energy resources including advanced meter infrastructure (AMI);
(3) Settlement of appropriate price signals for transactive energy at the distribution system level for distributed energy resources;
(4) Appropriate customer and distributed energy resources access to temporal price signals;
(b) The GMAG shall review different cost structures that enable a reasonable portion of costs of distributed generation and storage interconnections to be shared by entities that interconnect future distributed generation or storage to the distribution grid to the extent that such subsequent interconnection is enabled by the investment or costs incurred by the prior entity or entities that interconnect. The GMAG shall provide recommendations to address this issue by September 1, 2024.
(c) The department of energy may obtain the services of a consultant for technical support concerning distribution systems and transactive energy to support department of energy staff, the consumer advocate, and the GMAG. The department of energy shall charge a special assessment for any such amounts for this consultant against any utility participating in the grid modernization advisory group and shall provide for the timely recovery of such amounts for the affected utility.
III. A quorum shall be a majority of filled positions.
IV. The grid modernization advisory group shall report annually on November 1 on its meetings and any recommendations for legislation, rules, and practices, to the governor, senate president, speaker of the house of representatives, chair of the house and senate committees with jurisdiction over utilities, and the chair of the public utilities commission.
3 New Paragraphs; Electric Utilities; Definitions Added. Amend RSA 374-F:2 by inserting after paragraph V the following new paragraphs:
VI. "Demand response" means a reduction in the use of electricity by retail electricity energy customers in response to power grid needs, economic signals from their electricity supplier based on wholesale market prices, or time varying rates.
VII. "Distributed energy resources" or "DER" means demand response, distributed generation, and distributed storage.
VIII. "Distributed generation" or "DG" means a customer-generator as defined in RSA 362-A:1-a, II-b or a limited producer as defined in RSA 362-A:1-a, III, excluding qualifying storage systems and grid-interactive electric vehicles.
IX. "Distributed storage" or "DS" means qualifying storage systems as defined in RSA 362-A:1-a, IX-a, grid-integrated electric vehicles when they are interconnected to a New Hampshire jurisdictional distribution grid behind a retail electric meter, or energy storage as defined in RSA 374-H:1, III, that are not participating in any wholesale energy markets administered by ISO New England as a registered asset or otherwise.
X. "Grid-integrated electric vehicle" or "GIEV" means a battery-run motor vehicle that has the ability for 2-way power flow between the vehicle and the electric grid and the communications hardware and software that allow for the external control of battery charging and discharging by the electric utility customer, an electric distribution company, an electricity supplier, or an aggregator.
XI. "Grid modernization" means improvements to electric distribution or transmission infrastructure, including related data analytics equipment, that are designed to accommodate or facilitate the integration of renewable electric generation resources with the electric distribution grid or to otherwise enhance electric distribution or transmission grid reliability, grid security, demand response capability, customer service or energy efficiency, or conservation and includes:
(1) Advanced metering infrastructure that facilitates metering and providing related price signals to users to incentivize shifting demand and support transactive energy;
(2) Intelligent grid devices for real time system and asset information at key substations and customer locations;
(3) Automated control systems for electric distribution circuits and substations;
(4) Communications networks for service meters;
(5) Energy storage systems and microgrids that support circuit-level grid stability, power quality, reliability or resiliency or provide temporary backup energy supply;
(6) Electrical facilities and infrastructure necessary to support electric vehicle charging systems;
(7) Interconnection standards and procedures for state jurisdictional DG and DS connection to the distribution grid consistent with New Hampshire’s energy policy in RSA 378:37 that reasonably balances reliability and safety risks with costs and benefits; and
(8) Other new technologies that may be developed regarding the electric grid.
XII. "Transactive energy" or "TE" means a system of economic and control mechanisms that allows the dynamic balance of supply and demand across the entire electrical infrastructure using value as a key operational parameter.
4 Electric Utilities; Principles; Interconnection Requirements. Amend RSA 374-F:3, IV to read as follows:
IV. Open Access to Transmission and Distribution Facilities. Non-discriminatory open access to the electric system for wholesale and retail transactions should be promoted. The commission and the department should monitor companies providing transmission or distribution services and take necessary measures to ensure that no supplier has an unfair advantage in offering and pricing such services. Interconnection requirements and procedures to enable distributed generation and distributed storage to have access to the grid should be consistent with New Hampshire energy policy under RSA 378:37.
5 Limited Electrical Energy Producers Act; Definition; Qualifying Storage System. Amend RSA 362-A:1-a, IX-a to read as follows:
IX-a. "Qualifying storage system" means an electric energy storage system as defined in RSA 72:84 or a grid-integrated electric vehicle as defined in RSA 374-F:2.
6 Limited Electrical Energy Producers Act; Pilot Programs. Amend RSA 362-A:2-b, IV to read as follows:
IV. Pilot projects shall be subject to the following limits:
(a) Projects shall be limited to [2 megawatts in size] 5 megawatts in overall size.
(b) [No more than one pilot shall be permitted for any utility.
(c)] Pilot projects shall end no later than 10 years from their initiation.
[(d)] (c) Each pilot project shall deliver a study [3] 2 years after project initiation to report to the commission on the consumer benefits of the project.
7 Limited Electrical Energy Producers Act; Pilot Programs; Grid Modernization. Amend RSA 362-A:2-b, VII to read as follows:
VII. Each electric distribution utility may propose and participate in [a pilot] one or more pilots, in conjunction with a competitive electric power supplier or municipal or county aggregation, pursuant to RSA 53-E, operating as or in conjunction with a load-serving entity. The commission may approve provisions to cover incremental costs of the utility related to any such approved pilot. The public utilities commission may approve utility participation in a pilot for transactive energy and distributed energy resources, and the associated advanced metering infrastructure, as components of grid modernization if the jurisdictional conflicts under paragraph III are successfully resolved and increase the allowed size of pilots to 2 MW for utilities serving less than 20 percent of New Hampshire load and up to 5 MW for any utility serving more than 50 percent of New Hampshire load.
8 Customer Energy Storage Systems; Tariffs. Amend the introductory paragraph of RSA 374-H:2, I to read as follows:
I. The commission shall adopt rules or approve tariffs clarifying policy for the installation, interconnection, and use of energy storage systems by customers of utilities, and shall incorporate the following principles into the rules or approved tariffs:
9 Energy Policy Act Standards. Amend RSA 378:7-a, to read as follows:
378:7-a Energy Policy Act Standards. Consistent with their statutory authority, the commission and the department of energy may establish requirements, standards, and rate mechanisms for net metering, fuel diversity, fossil fuel generation efficiency, advanced metering, time-based rates, demand response practices, electric vehicle charging programs, and interconnection with on-site generation facilities of customers in a manner not inconsistent with section 111 of the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 (16 U.S.C. Chapter 46) as amended by the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and 16 U.S.C. section 2621 (20) and (21).
10 New Subparagraph; Office of Offshore Wind Industry Development; Report; Clean Energy Resources. Amend 2022, 177:2 by inserting after subparagraph (c) the following new subparagraph:
(d) Recommendations on how to find efficiencies and encourage coordination among the states in the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Gulf of Maine Task Force and other New England states in the development of transmission infrastructure needed to integrate offshore wind into the electrical grid in order to reduce costs.
11 Effective Date. This act shall take effect 60 days after its passage.