Harlan Electric representatives are securing subcontractors and will be working with local contractors such as Newville Construction of Newville.

"Jim spoke from his perspective as the owner of Eleven Oaks Farm on his experiences with utilities and agriculture. Transource has not yet made a selection of the construction companies that will build (the line), nor has it promised work to Newville Construction." 
Shuster said that is the case. He said he was approached by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers to appear in the video and testify about his experience with power lines and agriculture. He doesn't understand the opposition to the power line. "I wasn't paid a plugged nickel for that," he said. "I was not promised a dime's worth of work for doing it." 
The impact on the land is minimal, he said, and his company operates under the directive to leave the land in better condition than they found it, something that has earned the company awards and praise from conservation groups. 
Transmission and Agriculture video.mp4
"We're not some Ma and Pa operation with a backhoe," he said. "We're a $30 million-a-year business." 
He is angry with some of those who oppose the power line because, he said, they suggested that his farm is a hoax. About the opposition, he said, "It's one of the most hypocritical things I've ever seen." Unless those opposed to the transmission line have their own power plant, he said, the electricity they use flows through a power line on some other farmer's property. 

"I frankly don't understand what their problem is with it," he said. 

“Anytime jobs are created, it’s a win,” said Bernie Kephart, business manager for IBEW Local 126. “Our workers earn family-sustaining wages building the infrastructure that supports our daily lives. We’re proud to build infrastructure that saves customers money and reinforces the grid against power outages in Maryland and Pennsylvania.”
“We support clean, safe and affordable power,” said William C. Tipton Jr., business manager/financial secretary for Maryland IBEW Local 70. “Any conversation around energy comes to a quick halt if we do not have the transmission infrastructure to transfer that power to all who need it.”

Local companies contracted by Transource also completed much of IEC’s geotechnical survey work, which concluded last year.

PJM Interconnection -- a regional transmission organization that coordinates the movement of electricity in 13 states including Ohio -- mandated AEP build a new line in Dublin’s West Innovation District based on energy forecasts and projections, said Dublin Public Affairs Officer Lindsay Weisenauer.

Joe Demaree, a project outreach specialist for AEP, said Dublin residents and businesses -- and future residents and business -- would require more electricity. The summer of 2022 is when projected electrical capacity necessary to support businesses and residents would outpace existing infrastructure, he said.

The proposed transmission line, Demaree said, would fix that problem and avoid putting AEP’s power grid in jeopardy.

AEP has received requests for increased demand in the Dublin, Ohio area. Analysis shows Bethel - Sawmill 138 kV will be a constraint. Consequent inspection identified clearance violations along the Bethel - Sawmill 138 kV line. AEP has de-rated the thermal capacity of the line to mitigate potential safety issues. Brookside-Sawmill -> N-1-1=127%, N-1=117% Bethel-Brookside -> N-1-1=102%, N-1=92% (N-1-1: Bethel - Roberts 138 kV + Davidson - Roberts 138 kV) AEP believes that the loading issues exist today due to the recent 30% de-rate of the line. Newly connected customer loads are scheduled to ramp up, significantly contributing to area thermal concerns.

The Dublin-Sawmill 138kV circuit will experience loading of 116% under N-1-1 conditions involving the loss of Bethel-Davidson 138kV & Davidson-Roberts 138kV circuits. With load growth in the area, we anticipate this line to overload starting in 2022. AEP-Ohio has requested a third 138kV source to Dublin station to maintain acceptable reliability levels for the load at risk. Dublin Station serves 75 MVA of peak demand with minimal load transfer capability. Dublin station serves some critical loads. Newly connected customer loads are scheduled to ramp, significantly contributing to area thermal concerns.

• Policy makers in the United States and its several states and municipalities and in Canada and its several Provinces, Territories, and municipalities are urged to review and improve the regulation of the infrastructure that comprises the electrical grid, to (1) streamline processes governing economic and environmental reviews of projects where possible, (2) promote economic and energy efficiency, (3) deliver important environmental benefits, and (4) ensure equitable sharing of the cost of needed infrastructure, as appropriate;
• As applicable, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the U.S. Department of Energy, and state economic regulators should assess the need to improve upon and revise regulatory processes and corresponding regulations and policies governing the planning and cost allocation of high voltage electric transmission, balancing the public's interest in expedition, cost savings, care of the environment, and an equitable sharing of burdens;
• U.S. States and Canadian Provinces and Territories that adopt renewable electric generation (fuel) requirements for their domestic utilities and other generators should, at the same time, recognize and take into account the extent to which such policies necessitate the development of additional transmission lines and/or the deployment of advanced technologies;
• Canadian and U.S. industry leaders and public policy makers must ensure that investment in grid infrastructure in both countries responds effectively to threats from extreme weather and cyber intrusion.
  

“The turf wars and feuds between RTOs are legendary; MISO and SPP, these people, for reasons that are often lost to the mists of time, they don’t really like each other that much, and they don’t work well together,” Skelly said. “So the notion that FERC’s going to pass something that says, ‘Hey, you guys, coordinate and work together’ … come on. It has not happened, and it’s not going to happen.”

In a later panel, MISO President and COO Clair Moeller disputed that, saying, “I’d submit we don’t actually have a planning problem. We have an objective problem. The reason we don’t get the answers that everybody agrees with is that people’s objectives are different.
“Lanny and I had a fistfight in the bathroom because RTOs don’t get along well,” he joked, referring to Lanny Nickell, SPP senior vice president of engineering, who was in the audience. “Well, that’s simply not true. The simple fact is the objectives are different.

Skelly also described the confusion that state regulators have to endure when being pitched multiple interstate lines. “We need policy mechanisms so that the RTO shows up and FERC shows up. Somebody needs to show up from some sanctioned body to say, ‘Yes, this makes sense.’”
But FERC commissioners “hate telling state regulators what to do,” Gensler said. “That is a fate worse than death for most FERC commissioners.”

“For the United States, the integration with Canada, and the opportunities for getting additional carbon-free electricity is absolutely essential” to reaching the targets under the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, said Ernest Moniz, former secretary of energy under President Barack Obama. “We have to get the infrastructure to support it.”

He talked about “an absolutely beautiful case” under Section 1222 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, Clean Line Energy Partners’ Plains & Eastern Clean Line. “It was a beautiful example to implement, and the only problem was called ‘Arkansas.’”

As a potential solution, Skelly pointed to Sen. Martin Heinrich’s (D-N.M.) announcement that he would introduce bills to create an investment tax credit for “regionally significant” transmission projects and to direct FERC “to improve its interregional transmission planning process.” Heinrich, however, has been introducing similar legislation since 2015 to no success.

“Where this is right now, I have floated this with people across the industry who have done this type of work, and they have said it would make a real difference,” Heinrich told E&E News in a brief hallway interview.

Heinrich said the general framework of his bill would enable an investment tax credit for transmission development that meets a “regionally significant” threshold.
Such an incentive, he argued, would represent a more cost-effective way to help promote transmission development than other measures, although the New Mexico Democrat admitted he’s still working out the exact bar for how much the credit would be worth and what projects would qualify.
The need for additional transmission lines to help move power from rural outskirts to more heavily populated corridors has increasingly come to the forefront of energy planning and the push to add more renewable energy onto the grid.
“It could potentially be a game changer,” Heinrich said. “We are going to have to build a lot more transmission to have a completely green grid. You have to be able to move those electrons from where they are generated to where they are used.”

That infrastructure has hit hurdles, both political and regulatory, that have added years and millions of dollars to development, resulting in the abandonment of more than one high-profile transmission project.
An example is the proposed Plains and Eastern Clean Line project, a $2.5 billion, 705-mile transmission line from Oklahoma to Tennessee to deliver up to 4,000 megawatts of wind electricity. It stalled last year after running into individual state permitting problems.

...the Commission permits RTOs to recover expenses related to RTO informational and educational efforts. Further, in affirming the Commission’s finding that ISO-NE’s external affairs expenses were recoverable, the court in Braintree explained, “it seems eminently reasonable to encourage legislature access to such an informational resource . . . [and] allowing recovery of [ISO-NE’s] costs in monitoring legislative activity, so that it may consider how such activity might affect its operations, appears quite reasonable.”

FERC-regulated industries should understand, however, that FERC’s decision does not mean that all bets are off. The commission appears to acknowledge that ratepayer funds may not be used for political contributions. Unfortunately, however, the commission bought the assertion that the pervasively political governors’ associations are engaged in nonpolitical educational activities and that PJM’s payments related solely to those nonpolitical purposes. Utilities shouldn’t be misled into thinking they have free rein to use ratepayer funds for partisan political purposes.

The topic came up Wednesday in a discussion involving the Public Service Commission and wind industry representatives, who told regulators that the issue is causing companies to think twice about locating a project in the state.

Wind companies are having a tough time obtaining approval from grid operators to build new projects. Proposed wind farms -- and other types of power generators -- must first undergo an engineering study to determine their impact on the grid and identify any necessary updates to power lines or other parts of the transmission system.
Sometimes, developers learn that their projects will prompt upgrades with a hefty price tag in the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, said Beth Soholt, executive director of the Clean Grid Alliance. The cost currently falls entirely to the developers putting forward the projects, though the upgrades can provide benefits to others.

"We felt like this is stacked against the little guy because utilities are not willing to invest in infrastructure.”

But stakeholders for months have been criticizing those estimates as seriously underestimating the widespread adoption of renewables. Several have said the RTO’s predictions are resulting in inadequate new transmission projects and leaving renewable developers with prohibitively expensive interconnection upgrades as system patches.
.................
That existing process is blind to the fact that many others in MISO benefit from interconnection upgrades, she said.
“We all know transmission will bring a variety of benefits to a variety of beneficiaries,” McIntire said, calling for a “more holistic” cost-benefit analysis on interconnection upgrades.

For example, the Commission could permit applicants to request the recovery of specified O&M expenses as capital costs for ratemaking purposes in the area of forestry and vegetation management to encourage best-in-class practices. Effective vegetation management is vital to the reliability of the Bulk Power System, as evidenced by the 2003 Blackout.*
Extreme weather conditions, whether it be excessive rainfall, drought or heat, is making traditional vegetation management more challenging while simultaneously increasing its
importance. Vegetation management is an on-going and evolving challenge facing transmission owners as extreme weather conditions intensify, which only heightens importance of vigilance in preventing encroachment of vegetation to ensure the reliability of the grid.  The NERC Reliability Standards applicable to vegetation management do not apply to facilities that are
below 200 kilovolt. Vegetation management, therefore, should be considered as one of the most critical components to maintaining system reliability, and should be prioritized in a way that puts it on equal footing with transmission investment. Best-in-class vegetation management creates long-term system benefits by reducing outages. The Commission could provide a greater incentive to adopt and implement state-of-the-art vegetation management practices by allowing transmission-owning entities to book the costs
that currently would be categorized as O&M expense as a capital cost to be amortized over an appropriate period. Treating these costs as capital would allow transmission owners to earn a return on the unamortized balances and thereby create an incentive to these entities to focus funds in this reliability-critical function. This incentive rate treatment would support the Commission’s reliability goals and benefit customers by reducing outages over the long term. By permitting applicants to capitalize certain O&M expenditures, the Commission could incent best practices for grid security and reliability that benefits all customers.

*And the East Texas issue!

Invenergy’s investment will support three of the organization’s central programs:

• The Blue Jacket Program, which Invenergy will donate 125 signature jackets annually.
  
• Career and Leadership Development Events.
  
• Building out the FFA national alumni network.
  

More than half of Invenergy’s U.S.-based renewable energy projects are located in the same zip code as an active FFA chapter.

“FFA is important to the communities where Invenergy projects operate..." said Mick Baird, SVP of Renewable Development at Invenergy.

The Court of Federal Claims held that none of the developer fees were includible in the applicants’ qualified grant basis because the fees had not been substantiated to the satisfaction of the court. The court applied as its legal basis for this disallowance, the so-called “sham” transaction doctrine applied under the tax law.

The development agreement was a three-page document, according to the Court of Federal Claims, wherein Bishop Hill agreed to pay IWNA a $60 million development fee. The government’s requested findings suggest that the development agreement disclosed that this amount was intended to compensate IWNA for development services that it had already performed for Bishop Hill. The development agreement was signed by two officers of Invenergy Wind and was terminable by construction lenders if the exercise of their remedies resulted in Bishop Hill being no longer controlled by IWNA. According to the government, another single member disregarded entity of Invenergy Wind, Invenergy Wind Development North America LLC (IWDNA), transferred $60 million to Bishop Hill’s construction account in July 5, 2012. On the same day, the $60 million amount was transferred to IWNA’s operating account. And, on the same day, the $60 million amount was transferred back to the same IWDNA account from which the amount originated. According to the government: “Thus, on July 5, 2012, $60 million travelled through three bank accounts and in each account, the debit and credit of $60 million cancelled each other out.”