Welcome to the weekly newsletter of the Michigan Energy Innovation Business Council (Michigan EIBC), the business voice for advanced energy in Michigan. Here’s what’s new this week:

A Look Back at 2022 for Michigan EIBC

We end 2022 looking back at what has been a very eventful year for Michigan EIBC and its member companies. Here are some highlights:

• In March, the Institute for Energy Innovation released the Energy Storage Roadmap for the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy. The roadmap has continued to be a source of policy ideas, as seen in the storage targets included in the MI Healthy Climate Plan and new Integrated Resource Plan requirements, and this Renewable Energy World article about solar-plus-storage in schools.
• Michigan EIBC President Laura Sherman testified before the Michigan House Energy Committee about energy storage and this roadmap.
• The 10th Annual Michigan Energy Innovators Gala, was held in Detroit, with awards bestowed to Michigan EIBC members Utopian Solar (for Project of the Year) and Ryter Cooperative Industries (for Business of the Year), as well as Public Official of the Year winner Gov. Whitmer and Energy Innovators Hall of Fame inductees Lana Pollack and Tom Stanton. 
• The 10th Annual Michigan Energy Innovators Conference featured keynote speaker Dr. Tony Reames, senior advisor on energy justice at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Economic Impact and Diversity, and multiple panel discussions.
• A rate case settlement with Consumers Energy expanded opportunities for residential and business customers to directly purchase renewable energy, ensured fair competition in the utility’s procurement processes and spurred additional research on opportunities for combined heat and power.
• We were engaged in redesigning Michigan’s regulatory system to better accommodate advanced energy through efforts like participating in the MI Power Grid stakeholder process, in which we encouraged integrated resource plans to anticipate distributed energy resource (DER) growth and laid out ways to improve storage modeling and interconnection standards. 
• We were a strong voice on weatherization and energy efficiency, including providing a plan on how to overhaul Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) funds so they can better support weatherization projects. Our comments to regulators explained why Michigan should adopt what would be the state’s strongest energy conservation building codes to date.
• We kept up momentum on the fight to eliminate the cap on distributed generation. We intervened in DTE’s most recent electric rate case, which led to a result where DTE must file a “successor” distributed generation tariff that will not be capped.
• Michigan EGLE released the MI Healthy Climate Plan, which, with input submitted by Michigan EIBC and other stakeholders, showed the path for Michigan to significantly reduce its emissions and eventually reach net-zero emissions.
• We helped develop legislation, Senate Bill 1106 and Senate Bill 1107, allowing payments in lieu of taxes (PILT) for utility-scale solar systems over 2 MW in size that addresses concerns of project developers, landowners and local governments.
• Michigan EIBC President Laura Sherman provided testimony to the Michigan Senate Energy and Technology Committee in favor of the solar PILT legislation.
• Public convenings this year were on topics including energy storage, electric vehicles, commercial and industrial solar and the future of building decarbonization.
• This year was marked by exciting announcements of new manufacturing facilities in Michigan tied to the EV supply chain. For example, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm unveiled $3.1 billion in federal funding for domestic EV battery production at an event in Detroit where Michigan EIBC President Laura Sherman also spoke.
• Laura also teamed up with Michael Weiss, principal at Michigan EIBC National Associate Member Advanced Energy Economy, for an op-ed in the Detroit News about opportunities from the Inflation Reduction Act for manufacturing jobs.
• In May we released Advanced Energy Infrastructure: A Roadmap for Implementation in Michigan, a toolkit and guide to the various federal funding streams found in the Infrastructure and Investment Jobs Act (IIJA).

---

 

Michigan Energy News

• MiBiz’s Andy Balaskovitz writes an overview of the changed energy policy landscape in Michigan going into 2023.
• Tier 1 automotive supplier Lear Corp. plans to expand its position in the EV market with three new facilities in Michigan.
• Consumers Energy says it will fund a study of the local impact of 13 hydroelectric facilities.

---

National Energy News

• The Alliance to Save Energy, American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), and the Business Council for Sustainable Energy (BCSE) release the 2023 Energy Efficiency Impact Report.
• Entergy Louisiana’s $9.6 billion, nine-year resilience plan identifies 10 potential microgrid sites.
• The U.S. Postal Service plans to acquire and use at least 66,000 EVs by 2028.

---

Job Board

Attention Michigan EIBC members: if you have a job announcement you would like in the newsletter, please send a paragraph describing the position and a link to apply to Matt Bandyk at matt@mieibc.org. Please include in the email a specific end date for the job posting.

Form Energy

Director, State Affairs. Location: Somerville, Mass., Berkeley, Calif., Washington, D.C., or Remote

As Director of State Affairs, you will play a leadership role in building and guiding a team of state policy advocates to transform state and regional electric markets and enable Form Energy’s goals. The team you direct will secure incentives, procurement programs, electricity market designs, and other supportive policies for multi-day storage that will enable Form Energy to deploy multiple gigawatts of our iron-air batteries before 2030. Your team will lead efforts to weave multi-day storage into all aspects of state electric resource planning and decarbonization goals. 

Form Energy

Policy Manager, Eastern Region. Location: Remote

The Policy Manager, Eastern Region will drive policy advocacy efforts across eastern states to advance Form’s goals and transform state and regional electric markets. You will collaborate with policy team leadership alongside outside partners to develop and execute state specific advocacy plans that successfully influence regulatory and legislative outcomes and advance Form’s goals. You will be responsible for securing incentives, procurement programs, and changes to market design in priority states to develop markets for multi-day energy storage. 

Madison Energy Investments

Finance Analyst — Renewable Energy. Location: Vienna, Va., or New York City

Madison Energy Investments is a high-growth, PE-backed renewable energy company with investments in Solar, Battery and Electric Vehicle infrastructure.Madison is seeking a full-time Finance Analyst to work on our renewable energy investments. Candidates should have a passion for systematically managing cash flows of a business, general knowledge of accounting principles and ability to work cross functionally with team members in Sales, Accounting and Operations.

Michigan EGLE

Environmental Engineer 12 (Energy Unit Engineer), Location: Lansing, Mich.

This position serves as a recognized technical resource regarding light-duty electric vehicles (plug-in electric vehicles [PEV], hybrid electric vehicles [HEV], battery electric vehicles [BEV]), charging infrastructure, planning of road networks, and commercial building codes related to PEV. It will interface with various state agencies and private sectors to research, analyze, develop, and manage projects/programs that support the State Energy Program’s (SEP) Light-Duty Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Supply Equipment Program objectives in coordination with the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy’s (EGLE) work on the Volkswagen (VW) Environmental Mitigation Trust (EMT) and Beneficiary Mitigation Plan (BMP).

Michigan EGLE

Environmental Engineer 12 (Building Trade Industry Engineer), Location: Lansing, Mich.

As a recognized resource, this position serves as the Building Trade Industry Engineer for EGLE’s Energy Services, with responsibilities for supporting operations and maintenance activities within the public (state and municipal units of government and institutions) and commercial buildings’ sectors. These duties include, but are not limited to, grant management; interfacing with the public; providing in-depth engineering technical assistance for optimization of energy intensive building operating systems; developing strategies for reducing energy consumption in building; benchmarking building operations; technical advising on performance contracting; authoring technical reports; and serving as a technical resource to EGLE on building matters.

---

Michigan and National Energy Events

Save the date April 26, 2023 for the Michigan Energy Innovators Conference at the Kellogg Center in East Lansing.

Save the dates Aug. 6-9, 2023 for the Mid-America Regulatory Conference (MARC) Annual Meeting at the JW Marriott in downtown Grand Rapids.

Opportunities

The Michigan Public Service Commission, EGLE and the Great Plains Institute encourages organizations that are interested in partnering on applications for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnership (GRIP) competitive grant program to share their contact information by filling out this form.

The U.S. Department of Energy has issued a Notice of Intent announcing $550 million for community-based clean energy projects through the Energy  Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) Program, Section 40552(b) of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) of 2021. Applications will open in January 2023.

The Lansing Board of Water & Light (BWL) is soliciting an all-source Request for Proposal (RFP) seeking competitive proposals to supply up to 475 MW firm capacity to meet customer loads into the future and to meet the planning reserve requirements of the Mid-Continent Independent System Operator (MISO). RFP offers are due on Jan. 13, 2023. Registration to participate in this RFP is here.

The Michigan Economic Development Corporation’s PlanetM Testing Grant gives mobility companies the opportunity to access testing facilities around the state, including Mcity at the University of Michigan. Apply here.