Protect Our Winters, a group formed to safeguard outdoor recreation from the effects of climate change, is advocating a draft bill that would increase fees on Energy Department loans for transmission lines, with the new revenues going for infrastructure projects in communities where the new lines are built.

In doing so, the group is hoping to dispel a “not in my backyard” mentality that has been common in some rural communities, where transmission lines were seen as detriments to the aesthetics of the wilderness frequented by skiers, climbers and outdoor enthusiasts.

The group’s staff, along with outdoor athletes, are seeking support for the draft they partnered on with Rep. Ann McLane Kuster, D-N.H., hoping that it will garner bicameral, bipartisan support when it’s formally introduced. The group came to Washington last week to drum up support.

I saw and heard many statements today that a grant project must “be connected to”, “nearby”, or “have a nexus to” a transmission project.  In order to determine if applying for funding is even worthwhile, I need to have this explained.

1. DOE has not specifically defined a geographic distance from the project for eligibility purposes.  We anticipate that each project may differ in its scope and impact, therefore we have requested that each applicant should explain how their proposed project is eligible for support under this program. In addition, please note that the merit review criteria listed in the FOA at Section V states that applications for economic development activities will be assessed in part based on, “The extent and clarity of the connection described in the Application between the proposed activities and economic development benefits in communities that are likely to be impacted by a covered transmission project.”
   
   

How will “communities that may be affected by the construction and operation of a covered transmission project” be defined for eligibility purposes?  How far from the centerline of the transmission project does such a community extend?

1. As we anticipate that impacts may vary by project and by community, DOE has requested Applicants for Area of Interest 2 address how the project will promote economic development in areas that may be affected by the construction and operation of a covered transmission project. See Section IV.E.iii of the FOA.
   
   

What is considered an “affect” of construction and operation of the project?

1. For an understanding of how grants will be awarded, please refer to the merit review criteria for Area of Interest 1 (siting and permitting) and Area of Interest 2 (economic development) listed in the FOA at Section V. You may also refer to the “Standards for Application Evaluation” and “Other Selection Factors” including “Program Policy Factors” that are also referenced in Section V of the FOA. 
   
   

How will an economic development grant be expected to speed up siting and permitting?

1. While the funds associated with an economic development grant can only be disbursed once either the siting authority has approved the covered transmission project (if the applicant is a siting authority) or construction has commenced (if the applicant is a state, local, or Tribal governmental entity other than a siting authority), DOE may select awardees for economic development grants prior to a decision to site and permit the relevant transmission project and obligate federal funds for such awardees.  To the extent that the activities, if awarded, would accelerate transmission siting timelines and/or increase the chance that a transmission project would be developed, DOE will consider that as part of the established Merit Review Criteria.

Kuster, a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, noted in a statement that the U.S. may need to triple energy transmission capacity by 2050 to meet the target of net-zero carbon emissions by bringing more renewable electricity generation on line.

“In order to make that a reality, we must ensure that communities where transmission projects will be built are excited to host these lines,” Kuster said.  “By securing tangible benefits for the towns and cities that host these projects, like new schools, roads, or outdoor recreation facilities, in addition to improved electricity reliability, this legislation will help build support for transmission projects across the country.”

“There’s been this move afoot in which markets have become something closer to a mechanism by which to harvest … subsidies, rather than what they were intended to do, which is ensure least cost dispatch of available resources and to incentivize new investment.”

For the most part, RTOs have embraced the goal of economic efficiency for the past 23 years (since Order No. 2000). However, some RTOs have begun to include the “clean‐​energy transition” and “environmentally sustainable power system” in their mission statements. Advocates of economic efficiency should be concerned that the IRA will push RTOs further into a new era in which the goal of economic efficiency is secondary to environmental goals or ignored entirely.

The value of the PTC today is $27.50 per megawatt‐​hour. In the price contour map above, several of the indicated hubs were trading below that amount (in the range of $25–26 per megawatt‐​hour). Again, in most other industries, a federal subsidy larger than the price of the commodity would be unimaginable—people familiar with the industry would sound alarms about the distorting effects of large subsidies. People would be justified in losing their temper, for example, if Congress implemented a new federal subsidy of $70–90 per barrel of crude oil produced in the United States (the going rate over the last year or so). With subsidies larger than the commodity price, will RTOs trade as much (or more) in federal subsidies as they do in electricity?

Coal and natural gas are dispatchable generation resources that presently provide 60 percent of our electricity. They are also essential if grid operators are to maintain reliability. Subsidies for intermittent generation will lead to the retirement or bankruptcy of dispatchable resources, which will not only create challenges in maintaining grid reliability but will open the door for subsidies for dispatchable resources (whether or not they are truly needed for reliability). Such a subsidy spiral could be endless and could pit federal subsidies in the IRA against state subsidies for preferred resources, all paid for by American taxpayers or electricity customers one way or another.

Counting the many reasons to repeal the energy subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) has become my favorite activity.

If care is taken to make sure that host communities benefit in the short and long term from the energy projects in their backyards, they will be less inclined to oppose them, leading to faster timelines for clean energy and transmission projects. 

Community opposition to large-scale wind and solar projects is growing across the United States. There are many reasons for this trend, including misinformation about renewable energy, concerns about project impacts, and concern that most of the benefits flow outside of the community while the burdens fall within. Communities often see hosting renewable energy projects and transmission (which touches multiple communities) as an impediment to their goals, such as preserving community identity, land preservation, and in some cases ensuring ecosystem conservation. While some landowners see these projects as a potential source of revenue from leases, others worry that the projects will reduce the value of their land. Finally, in many communities, while there may be both supporters and opponents of clean energy projects, the opponents are often more vocal, better resourced, and more passionate than the supporters. Because of all these factors, an alarming number of communities are adopting restrictive zoning and land use ordinances that effectively ban the siting of clean energy projects.

​This rise in opposition highlights the importance of ensuring that developers and local officials disseminate accurate information about potential projects and that the permitting process allows engagement from a broad range of voices so that decision-makers can accurately assess the environmental impacts as well as benefits of projects. Furthermore, it is important to ensure that host communities share in the benefits of projects in their own backyards.

Several states, including New York, California, Illinois, and Washington, have enacted laws that improve the siting process for large-scale renewable projects and provide potentially powerful models for similar legislation in other states. Among other things, these laws modernize the permitting process and explicitly provide benefits to host communities via mechanisms like utility bill discounts. States should be encouraged to adopt model siting and permitting laws that expand community engagement while limiting the ability of localities to unreasonably ban all wind and solar projects.

​Bringing communities from opposition to support—or at least to open-mindedness—is a major challenge to renewable energy growth that needs sustained effort, engagement, and thought. Our recommendations provide a starting point.

Coalitions should work together to build support for well-sited projects that benefit the host community. In cases where developers have done their due diligence as outlined in the preceding recommendations, environmental and conservation groups, labor groups, local landowners and businesses, and other stakeholders—including, where relevant, environmental justice and tribal groups—should form coalitions and work together to support the project. A key part of this support should be highlighting the community benefit agreements, payments in lieu of taxes or other mechanisms for benefit sharing, the creation of local jobs, and addressing other ways to compensate local landowners for any perceived or actual diminution in property values.

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Those who are actually affected by a covered transmission project will not stop opposing and delaying that project because the federal government bought fake support from unaffected groups or individuals. Purchased fake support does not fool regulators. It doesn’t fool anyone in the community, either. It will only fool the fools in D.C. who purchase it.

"The purpose of the pre-filing process is to facilitate maximum participation from all stakeholders to provide them with an opportunity to present their views and recommendations with respect to the environmental impacts of the facilities early in the planning stages of the proposed facilities."

...an applicant may demonstrate that it has met the statutory good faith efforts standard by complying with an Applicant Code of Conduct in its communications with affected landowners.

...the term “environmental justice community” includes disadvantaged communities that have been historically marginalized and overburdened by pollution. The term also includes, but may not be limited to, minority populations, low-income populations, or indigenous peoples.

... whether the proposed rule constitutes good policy, such as, for example, whether it will be beneficial in determining whether to site electric transmission projects when the states have not done so, or whether the rule will tend to ensure almost nothing is ever sited.

State regulators are much better prepared to deal with that myriad of local concerns, including concerns over routing and costs, than FERC. Furthermore, state processes are far more convenient and user-friendly than processes at FERC, if for no other reason than geographic proximity. So, waiting one full year to allow a state to “go first” and make its decision makes sense for a lot of reasons. One obvious reason is that if the line is truly needed, the state regulators will in all likelihood approve it, and no FERC staff time and resources will need to be expended at all. The whole mantra that goes “the states are blocking needed transmission all over the country!” is simply a political and special-interest narrative. The steadily mounting increases over the past decade in transmission rate base nationally, with concomitant skyrocketing increases in transmission costs to consumers, blows up the narrative that states are systemically blocking needed transmission lines. Contrary to the narrative, states need more authority to scrutinize transmission projects for need and prudence of cost, not less, to protect consumers.

Perhaps the most noteworthy transmission project in NextEra's portfolio is the Oklahoma/Arkansas portion of the Plains and Eastern Clean Line high-voltage direct-current, or HVDC, project. The project has had a tumultuous history, with the Tennessee Valley Authority backing away from the project in 2017 and the Energy Department terminating its participation in 2018. NextEra acquired Plains and Eastern Clean Line Oklahoma LLC in late 2017. Connecting Oklahoma and the state's formidable wind generation to Tennessee, the line would help alleviate growing wind curtailment in SPP while delivering potentially low-cost wind energy to the Southeast region. The project's status is up in the air.

HVDC transmission lines such as the Plains and Eastern Clean Line could emerge as a crucial piece of the clean energy transition. Although typically more costly than their AC counterparts, HVDC lines can carry more capacity across long distances while mitigating electricity losses, allowing for the transfer of wind and solar power from sparsely populated regions to urban metropolises hundreds of miles away. The Plains and Eastern Clean Line would run 720 miles and carry more than 4,000 MW of energy.

Additionally, a handful of major HVDC transmission projects are in planning, with renewable integration and transmission serving as a major driver for their development. The 550-mile SunZia Southwest Transmission Project being developed by Pattern Energy Group LP would connect Arizona to New Mexico, which has become a hub for renewable energy development. The 780-mile Grain Belt Express transmission line runs from Kansas to Indiana, eventually hooking up with the Pioneer Transmission project. Being developed by Invenergy LLC, the $7 billion project is expected to have a potential capacity of 5,000 MW.

MISO recently announced a major transmission upgrade project expected to cost $10.3 billion. The undertaking involves upgrading 18 different transmission lines and will reportedly help support 53 GW of new wind, solar and battery storage capacity across the region.

The remaining phases of the Project ("Segments 2 and 3") are under evaluation by MISO and PJM as part of the next planning review cycles.

Major transmission projects, particularly those that span multiple states, get caught up in arduous siting and permitting processes. The Grain Belt Express project, for instance, has been in the making for over a decade now. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is taking steps to ameliorate these preliminary planning hurdles. Still, without continuous diligent efforts to expedite grid infrastructure upgrades, industry stakeholders will struggle to meet state and federal clean energy goals.

As stated above, Grain Belt Express then intends to raise debt secured by the revenue stream from the transmission capacity contracts to raise the capital necessary to complete the remaining development activities, construct the Project and place it into operation. Grain Belt Express anticipates utilizing a combination of commercial and governmental sources of financing, and at this time is still evaluating all potential options for financing. Options for governmental sources of financing include the Western Area Power Administration (“WAPA”) Transmission Infrastructure Program (“TIP”); and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill Transmission Facilitation Program; Department of Energy loans to non-federal borrowers for transmission facilities pursuant to the Inflation Reduction Act and potentially other government funding options. Additional equity capital may also be raised to help finance construction of the Project, or Grain Belt Express’ existing investors may make additional equity investments in the Project.

Low-cost modeling process market consultants assuming estimated wind generation projected average reduce expected potential forward-looking wholesale market impacts revenue requirement controllability assessment aggregates combined impacts lower inclusion utility investment the collective partial revenue requirement average approximately production capacity factor flat production profile evening peak electric demand SPP MISO regions wholesale electric costs region spanning prices price spread opportunity arbitrage nodes average annual basis off-peak price differences translate Kansas and Missouri.  Billions.