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DOE Pretends to Plan New Transmission

3/16/2024

3 Comments

 
Our Big Green government is wasting our tax dollars on an effort to "plan" new transmission, although is has absolutely no authority to do so.  The latest waste of money is entitled "Interregional Renewable Energy Zones" and is a partisan effort to create these "zones" in rural America and "suggest" new HVDC transmission to connect the "zones" to "load centers."  Boiled down, it's an ineffective "plan" to turn rural areas into industrial scale power plants covered with wind turbines and solar panels and then ship all that green juice to the elite bastions of urban arrogance.  Why?  It's simple... they don't want any ugly, invasive power infrastructure sited in their own backyard, but they still want to pretend they are "clean and green" by turning us all into their personal energy serfs.

Nice try, but rural areas aren't that stupid.  DOE has absolutely no authority whatsoever to plan renewable energy "zones" or new transmission lines.  It seemed they thought they did last year, until they were challenged and came up empty handed.  No authority.  Not happening.  

But they're not giving up.  They continue to waste our money on idiotic "reports" that do absolutely nothing.  This time, they claim that their work is "helpful" to states who may want to use this nonsense to plan for their own energy needs.  Sorry... the states don't need your help anymore that the transmission planning authorities do.  Nobody needs help from a bunch of babies that are too stupid and partisan to accept reality.
This study is a preliminary analysis to help state decision makers determine whether to pursue more detailed analyses of IREZ corridors that are relevant to them. This report could not fully account for all the case-specific details that would affect the configuration of a transmission project. Nevertheless, if a corridor examined in this study has a high benefit-to-cost ratio based only on energy cost savings, a follow-on study focusing on that corridor might expand the economic analysis to include local factors that we were not able to address here. A guiding premise behind the IREZ analysis is that states will ultimately take the lead in deciding whether to pursue IREZ development.
But that has approximately ZERO chance of happening.  Even if one or two states used this dreck to ask their regional planning authorities to plan for zones and transmission, there are too many "fly over" states that are never going to agree to it.

What states are those?  Take a look at the grandiose "plan."  (larger image available at the "report" link)
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The green dots are "zones" to be covered with wind turdbines and solar panels.  The red dots are the places that want to pretend they are only using renewable energy.  The lines are new HVDC transmission projects.
This study develops a model using renewable energy zones to address the new challenges of interregional transmission planning. An interregional renewable energy zone (IREZ) is an area comprising a very high concentration of very low-cost developable renewable energy potential. An IREZ hub is a collection point on the bulk power system to which renewable energy plants built in the IREZ can connect easily. The hub anchors an IREZ corridor that consists of a dedicated high-voltage transmission path from the IREZ hub to a major load center.
What were you smoking when you drew that?
We have identified and quantified several high-value IREZ corridors that affected states might consider for interregional transmission planning. Our analysis suggests that these corridors can be valuable tools for reducing carbon emissions in a manner that uses known technologies, has relatively small net impact on customers’ electricity bills, improves resource adequacy, and provides the grid with an additional measure of resilience against major disruptions related to climate change and other causes.
Affected states won't be "considering" that.  It is quite insane and wasteful.

And let's talk about that "using known technologies" thing.  The only "technology" NREL considered here was wind and solar.  That's it.  News flash!  We absolutely, positively, undeniably cannot reliably power the United States with only wind and solar.  Putting their intermittency and unreliability aside, they are just too expensive at this scale.  There's nothing in this report that adds up the cost of all those renewables in the "zones" and the cost of all the new transmission.  I don't think they can count that high.  Here's an idea!  Why don't you take all the money you were hoping to spend on this wasteful plan and use it to build clean, renewable nuclear generation at all the red dot load centers?  None of this transmission would be necessary, and that's a huge savings.  I'm sure it would be cheaper, but DOE didn't compare any other resource plans to this biased brain fart.

And, before I end, let's examine one of the huge errors DOE made purporting "benefits" for the states:
​Benefits could include assumptions about local tax receipts and indirect economic development effects in the IREZ state, payments to landowners for the acquisition of right-of-way (ROW) along the transmission path, net savings in energy costs for customers at the receiving end of the corridor, and enhanced resilience against extreme weather events.
Sorry, but payments to landowners for land taken from them against their will is NOT a benefit.  It is COMPENSATION for something taken from them.  The idea of compensation is that the landowner remains whole after the taking, although you can't grow crops on piles of dirty money.  It is not a windfall similar to winning the lottery.  The landowner is supposed to use that money to purchase additional land, or to make up for the inability to use that land in the future.  That is not a "benefit" by any stretch of the imagination.

DOE did a pretty poor job of trying to dredge up some reason why flyover states should willingly sacrifice themselves for the urban elite.  It also completely overlooks that the "zones" may not want to be covered in wind turbines and solar panels and may outright refuse to sign leases or permit these projects to be built.

What a complete and utter waste of taxpayer money.
3 Comments

Media Misinformation

3/16/2024

0 Comments

 
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At the top of my STOOPID list this week is this article from Inside Climate News.  In his push to help make transmission siting and permitting a federal responsibility, this "reporter" from NYC interviewed some twit from the partisan Brookings Institution named Samantha Gross.  The Gross quote said this:
Transmission lines are among the most difficult projects to receive speedy approval, Gross said, because they tend to cross multiple states and jurisdictions, each of which have their own set of requirements the developer would need to fulfill. In fact, Gross said, she already knows of one transmission line currently under development in the Midwest that would immediately benefit from state level reforms. 
The project—a lengthy transmission line called the Grain Belt Express, which would deliver electricity produced at wind and solar farms in Kansas 800 miles to Missouri and Illinois—has been delayed for more than a decade by the regulatory process and legal challenges.
“If those contiguous states had some permitting reform, you could probably get that project done,” Gross said. ​
Yup, that sure is gross.  Miss Samantha doesn't know diddly about Grain Belt Express, apparently.  Grain Belt Express is stalled right now because it doesn't have enough customers to make the project economic.  Fact.  Making permitting a federal affair would have absolutely no impact on Grain Belt Express.  Permitting "reform" won't make anyone want to sign up for GBE.

Neither one of these people realize how STOOPID they sound to people who know the truth.  But, we're not really the target audience... STOOPID feeds on STOOPID and that "article" just makes everyone dumber.

Samantha needs to stop spewing misinformation born of her own presumptions and ignorance.  And the NYC reporter needs to quit printing it.
0 Comments

GBE's Epic Meltdown

3/9/2024

1 Comment

 
I've seen a lot of temper tantrums in my lifetime, and this one is screaming, red in the face, epic.

Yesterday, Grain Belt Express made another filing on its long-ignored complaint at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, having an absolute conniption fit that MISO is working on another package of transmission projects that ignores GBE.  Time waits for no man... and the transmission world waits for no bloated, limping merchant transmission project either.  GBE has taken so long to get its project together that it has been eclipsed.  So sad, too bad!

In the complaint GBE filed against regional grid planner MISO last year, GBE was ticked off that MISO's Tranche 1 transmission plan ignored its speculative merchant transmission project and approved a series of new projects that would deliver renewable energy into Missouri from Iowa.  MISO's new lines follow a similar path across Missouri and into Illinois and are expected to be online around 2030.  This raises the question... what's cheaper for Missouri utilities?  Purchasing energy from Kansas and service on the $7B GBE project, or purchasing energy from Iowa and taking service on MISO's new projects that cost a lot less?  This could create direct competition for GBE, who may have been banking on the fact that it had cornered the market on delivering renewable energy to Missouri.  Competition works to provide options for cheaper service for Missouri's ratepayers.

And now MISO has opened a solicitation for its Tranche 2 transmission project portfolio.
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Tranche 1 is represented by the gray lines.  The new Tranche 2 is represented by the new red (345kV) lines and the new green (765kV) lines.  That's right... MISO has included a new 765kV project that begins in Iowa and ends in Missouri, not too far from where GBE wants to interconnect, if it ever gets its crap together and finds customers.  It's even MORE competition for GBE in Missouri.  Good luck with that customer thing, GBE.

​Here's part of GBE's ranting tantrum filed with FERC:
MISO recently proposed a new 765 kV transmission line in Missouri close to where the GBX Project will connect. This is absurd given the advanced stage of GBX, disincentivizes the development of interregional merchant transmission, is contrary Commission policy, and is neither just nor reasonable transmission planning. 

MISO continues to march on blindly, act as if GBX does not exist and propose even further transmission in Missouri close to where GBX is fortifying the grid with significant network upgrades and will inject 6.3 TWh of energy annually and be online well before the new proposed 765 kV Tranche 2 Missouri transmission project would come online. This is not only unjust and unreasonable transmission practice but absurd transmission practice. It is irrational for MISO to propose even further transmission in Missouri and ignore that GBX that has obtained all its Certificates of Public Convenience and Necessity, including in Missouri, spent hundreds of millions of dollars, is committed to spend hundreds of millions more and has a TCA with MISO. 
But GBE doesn't have customers.  No customers, no project!  MISO can't wait another 10 years to see if GBE can actually get its project built.  It is far from a sure thing, therefore MISO planning marches on.  

GBE's second addition to its original complaint contains a bunch more technical mumbo-jumbo concocted by GBE's consultant that says that the MISO projects won't provide any value to MISO customers because GBE will be online.  GBE is oh so concerned about MISO consumers getting the most bang for their buck and it doesn't want those consumers to pay for projects that don't have a significant cost/benefit ratio.  Blah, blah, blah.  GBE insists that its project will be operating soon and will make the MISO lines unnecessary.  

Here's what GBE does not say...  

GBE does not say that its project will be cheaper than the MISO projects and provide cheaper energy to Missouri.  It's just claiming that the MISO projects won't provide benefit to Missouri if GBE is built.  All GBE's fake concern for Missouri ratepayers is nauseating.  GBE is only looking out for its own bottom line here, not yours.  In contrast, MISO doesn't have any skin (or a risky investment) in the transmission planning game.  MISO is only looking out for your bottom line, not its own.  It sure looks to me like GBE is simply trying to eliminate its competition. If MISO's lines are not built, then consumers may not have any other choice than service on GBE.  And that's the bottom line.

If GBE thought that its project could provide cheaper energy to Missouri than the MISO projects, it absolutely would not care if MISO planned other projects that were not such a good deal for consumers.  If GBE was such a great deal, then it would welcome competition.

Instead, GBE just had an epic meltdown at FERC.  Just like any toddler having a tantrum, its motivation is plain for everyone else to see.  Seems like GBE hates the idea of having competition.  Quick, someone call a WAHHHmbulance.
Despite (1) over three years of discussions with MISO and its transmission owners regarding the Project; (2) GBX acquiring final state siting approvals in all 4 states as well as over 96% of the HVDC route’s right of way among other indicia of Project advancement; and (3) GBX having an effective TCA with MISO in hand, on March 4, 2024, MISO released its initial Tranche 2 Draft Portfolio which again does not consider the impact of advanced-stage merchant transmission and worse still proposes a new 765 kV transmission line that is redundant to the far more advanced GBX Project and will interconnect to the same portion of MISO’s system. Thus, MISO has not only ignored GBX in its planning, but it has intentionally leveraged the lack of clarity in its Tariff to discriminate against it. 

The Commission has long recognized that a lack of transparency and standardization of market rules impedes competition and enables the exercise of market power and undue discrimination, and that exact outcome has occurred here. The lack of a clear standard in the MISO Tariff for how advanced-stage merchant transmission will be considered in regional planning has opened up the opportunity to discriminate against merchant transmission projects, which are sorely needed to provide critical geographic diversity and interregional transfer capability during the energy transition. In the end, MISO’s behavior will not only lead to unjust and unreasonable rates, but it will rob the region of competition, access to geographically diverse resources and potentially important ties to adjacent RTOs. This should be unacceptable to the Commission, to State regulators and to ratepayers. The Commission should act now on this Complaint to protect ratepayers, prevent further delay and waste and to rectify this baffling outcome which is a direct barrier to the development of much needed interregional transmission. Therefore, Invenergy renews its request for the following relief 

Invenergy urges the Commission to issue an order as soon as possible and no later than May 15, 2024, to ensure that just and reasonable transmission practices are implemented and ratepayers are protected at the soonest possible date. 
As that great philosopher Pee Wee Herman once stated... "I know you are, but what am I?".

Does GBE actually think FERC is going to come to its rescue, shut down MISO's planning efforts, and vaporize GBE's competition by May 15?

Fat chance.
1 Comment

I Told You So!

3/7/2024

0 Comments

 
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This may be the first of several blogs with the same title.

I told you so, DOE!

It seems that one of the first merchant transmission projects that DOE gifted with a capacity contract has gone belly up because it couldn't find any other customers.

FACT:  Merchant transmission capacity contracts are NOT like painting Tom Sawyer's fence... just because the federal government is stupid enough to sign a capacity contract for service doesn't mean anyone else is equally stupid.

Last October, the U.S. Department of Energy announced the first three recipients to be granted transmission capacity contracts paid for by taxpayers.  And I blogged about it here.
DOE is buying something that it doesn't need and won't ever use, but will put a lot of money in the pockets of private investors who otherwise would have no buyers for their overpriced service.  Can I just say "I told you so" in advance?  This program is wasteful, illogical, and unfair.
Taxpayer funded merchant transmission capacity contracts for projects that have no other customers DO NOT inspire other buyers to sign a contract.

I've been telling DOE this since the dawn of this stupid idea.

But they didn't listen, being all concentrated on political nonsense and lacking common sense such as they are.

And this week, I was right.  The Twin States Clean Energy Link was cancelled.  It was cancelled because it couldn't find any other customers besides the U.S. DOE.  That's right, even when the DOE put up our tax dollars to support a merchant transmission project nobody needed, it still didn't inspire any other customers to sign up.  This experiment in propping up unneeded merchant transmission projects with taxpayer dollars is a miserable failure.

Undaunted, the DOE recently issued a second solicitation for more loser merchant transmission project contracts.

Sometimes you just can't fix stupid, especially when their pockets are full of Other People's Money.

Speculative merchant transmission projects are not viable.  Quit wasting our money, DOE!

Did I mention I TOLD YOU SO?
0 Comments

FERC Tosses GBE's Negotiated Rate Authority and Issues New One

3/3/2024

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The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has finally gotten around to solving one of GBE's little problems... for now.

Last year, GBE asked FERC to "amend" the negotiated rate authority issued to the project in 2014.  However, FERC conducted a review de novo, as it would have a reviewed a new application.  GBE's original authority is history, but FERC also granted new authority based on GBE's application.  FERC also said that GBE did not need to file for negotiated rate authority before selling capacity (d'oh GBE).  Under Commission policy, a merchant transmission developer can either opt to file in advance to show it has met the Commission's four factor analysis, or it could just submit everything after the fact and hope it got things right.

While FERC said that GBE met the first and forth factor, it is reserving judgment of the second and third factor until after GBE makes a later filing.  But there were some leaps of logic in there that makes me wonder what FERC is up to.

First leap... 
Grain Belt notes that this area is within the geographic footprint of Southwest Power Pool, Inc. (SPP), but the generation will not be interconnected to the SPP transmission system. ​
So, GBE is NOT connecting to SPP and will simply connect directly to the generators?  GBE will not have a connection to the SPP transmission system.

But then FERC turns around and says these things:
The GBE system consists of (in part):  AC overhead transmission lines to connect the converter stations to portions of the SPP, MISO, and AECI managed electrical systems in Kansas and Missouri.  

And that...

Grain Belt contends that Phase 1 will increase resilience for the SPP, MISO, and AECI Balancing Authority Areas (BAAs) by allowing the potential of one BAA to import a large amount of power from another BAA to bolster system reliability and improve the ability of each BAA to recover after a power failure.
That's right... GBE does connect to SPP.  Someone at FERC overdosed on contradiction cookies while writing that order.

​But it doesn't stop there, and the rest of them are not so inconsequential.
In the 2014 Order, the Commission directed Grain Belt “to make a filing disclosing the results of the capacity allocation process within 30 days after the close of the open solicitation process.”  Grain Belt did not submit a compliance filing during the required timeframe and, as such, has not satisfied the conditions of its initial grant of negotiated rate authority.  Grain Belt indicates that it will seek approval of the Initial TSAs in a future compliance filing.  Given the Project changes described in the instant filing and the passage of time, the Commission will conduct a de novo review of the Initial Open Solicitation and the Initial TSAs at such time as Grain Belt submits a filing providing sufficient detail to evaluate whether the capacity allocation process satisfied the Commission’s requirements.
FERC acknowledges that GBE did not follow its order, but says that doesn't matter.  Why even bother with the 30 day deadline if utilities don't have to follow it, but can take 8 years or more to make a required filing under a different order?  FERC has turned itself into a paper tiger.  Anyone can violate any FERC order it likes in the future and suffer no repercussions.  Hear that, market manipulators?  FERC says you can break its rules whenever you like and there will be no penalties.  Ridiculous!  

And here's the worst leap of logic in the whole thing...

GBE says it was not required to get FERC's approval for the sale of the project (and its Negotiated Rate Authority).  The Illinois protestors say that approval was required and made extensive arguments to support their contention.  And what did FERC do?  It chucked that whole argument because it ruled that GBE's prior negotiated rate authority does not exist because they reviewed and granted new authority de novo.  That makes the entire argument moot and FERC does not need to make a decision on whether it should have approved the sale.
Given that we are reviewing Grain Belt’s filing de novo, we find moot protestors’ argument that Grain Belt may not rely on the Commission’s prior grant of negotiated rate authority in the 2014 Order because Grain Belt failed to obtain section 203 approval.  Our findings here are based on Grain Belt’s current ownership structure and project design, and thus do not turn on whether prior section 203 authorization was required for either Invenergy’s acquisition of Grain Belt, or the transfer of Grain Belt’s negotiated rate authority.   ​
And then FERC says:
Grain Belt’s request for continued authority to sell transmission rights at negotiated rates is hereby granted in part, as discussed in the body of this order.
But the Commission tossed its 2014 order finding that GBE met all four factors and its new order only finds that GBE complies with two.  GBE lost serious ground here.  FERC was not snowed that it should simply rubber stamp a renewal of the 2014 order.  GBE is going to have to go back to square one and prove factors two and three all over again... if it can.

And here's another easter egg for FERC... GBE said approval for a sale is only required if the sale was made AFTER the project was energized.  Therefore, GBE won't actually have to get approval of any sales it makes before the project is in service, which includes all the sales it intends to make now during its sale of capacity and undivided interests in the project.  Again... FERC says do whatever the heck you want, GBE, we'll settle up later.  The only hazard there is one for GBE... perhaps a different group of Commissioners and staff is going to be scrutinizing your compliance filing after you finish selling your project, and maybe they don't have such a permissive style of regulating based on one administration's push for "clean energy".  GBE is cocked and ready to make as many fatal mistakes as necessary... well, if anyone is even interested in buying transmission capacity from Kansas to Missouri.  Will they be interested in a $7B project from unspecified generators to a connection point in Missouri that may be ready in 2030 when MISO is building a competing project that costs a lot less and is scheduled to be online in 2028?

Have at it, GBE, but watch your back, FERC's not done with you yet.
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    About the Author

    Keryn Newman blogs here at StopPATH WV about energy issues, transmission policy, misguided regulation, our greedy energy companies and their corporate spin.
    In 2008, AEP & Allegheny Energy's PATH joint venture used their transmission line routing etch-a-sketch to draw a 765kV line across the street from her house. Oooops! And the rest is history.

    About
    StopPATH Blog

    StopPATH Blog began as a forum for information and opinion about the PATH transmission project.  The PATH project was abandoned in 2012, however, this blog was not.

    StopPATH Blog continues to bring you energy policy news and opinion from a consumer's point of view.  If it's sometimes snarky and oftentimes irreverent, just remember that the truth isn't pretty.  People come here because they want the truth, instead of the usual dreadful lies this industry continues to tell itself.  If you keep reading, I'll keep writing.


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