On March 12, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) released their Energy Infrastructure Update for January, related to natural gas and hydropower, and covering the highlights for electric generation and transmissions.

In January, two liquefied natural gas (LNG) pipeline projects were certified, and another four were proposed. There were no updates to any storage or import/export LNG projects. In January 2018, seven LNG pipelines were certified, and there are no other differences in totals for that month last year.

For nonfederal hydropower, one capacity amendment was filed, and nothing new was issued or placed in service.

For new generation in-service electric generation, there was one new natural gas unit, compared to three in 2018. There were no nuclear power or oil units, compared to three in January 2018. There were no hydropower or biomass units, the same as in 2018. Wind power had four new units, compared to 12 last year. There were no updates to geothermal steam power, compared to one in January 2018. There were 18 new solar power units added, compared to 44 in 2018. In total, 23 new units were added, one-third of the 69 units added in January 2018.

There were a number of proposed additions and retirements of units by February 2022. For coal there was one proposed addition and 54 retirements; for natural gas there were 265 proposed additions and 94 retirements; there were 12 proposed additions for nuclear power and nine retirements; for oil, there were 18 proposed additions and 25 retirements; hydropower had 238 proposed additions and 18 retirements; wind power had 538 proposed additions and no retirements; biomass had 53 proposed additions and 27 retirements; geothermal steam had 18 proposed additions; and solar power had 2,394 proposed additions and five retirements.

For electric transmission highlights, “American Electric Power announced plans to increase their four year forward transmission capital expenditure plans by $1.7 billion.” FERC also noted there were no transmission projects completed in January, compared to 30 in January 2018.

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