Regarding “public utility,” the relevant statutory definitions contain no explicit requirement that an entity be operated for a public use in order for it to constitute a public utility. However, Missouri courts have held that such a “public use” requirement was intended.

Here, the evidence showed that when the Grain Belt project is constructed and begins operation, it will transmit energy from wind farms in Kansas to wholesale customers in Missouri. In the case of MJMEUC, those customers are Missouri cities and towns that serve as electric providers to approximately 347,000 Missouri citizens. An entity, such as Grain Belt, that constructs and operates a transmission line bringing electrical energy from electrical power generators to public utilities that serve consumers is a necessary and important link in the distribution of electricity and qualifies as a public utility.  Therefore, Grain Belt’s project will serve the public use, and Grain Belt qualifies as a public utility.

“We vigorously disagree with the court’s ruling upholding the Public Service Commission’s decision authorizing the use of eminent domain for the Grain Belt Express merchant transmission line. Grain Belt Express is not a public utility. Investors who want to negotiate rates privately and enter into contracts to sell electricity to the highest bidders should not be able to condemn land in order to build their dream project. Contrary to the court’s assertion, the Missouri Supreme Court has not suggested otherwise.”

One more potential obstacle that GBE faces is at the capitol. Legislation was recently pre-filed in both the Missouri House and Senate on our behalf. The House bill was filed by Representative Hansen and the Senate bill was filed by Senator Brown. We came very close to passage of the bill last session before time ran out. Since this year’s bills have been pre-filed in both houses with continued strong support from the Speaker of the House and other key leaders, we are optimistic the bills will be passed this session which begins at the first of the year. Stay tuned as we may be announcing a rally in Jeff City for the bills sometime this winter or early spring.

It is important to note that if Project 9A or Alternative Project 9A were to be removed from further consideration, PJM’s RTEP analysis has previously identified a number of reliability criteria violations starting in the 2023 study year. Some of these reliability criteria violations include conductor overloads on 500 kV transmission lines which, in PJM’s experience, are likely to be resolved only through the construction of additional greenfield transmission. Should these combinations of projects inclusive of Project 9A or Alternative Project 9A be removed from the RTEP, resultant reliability criteria violations would be identified during the 2020 RTEP analysis, and potential solutions to such reliability criteria violations would not be identified to the Board until late 2020 or early 2021. Furthermore, removing these combinations of projects from the RTEP would fail to address the congestion that would be re- introduced into South-central Pennsylvania and Northern Maryland. Any proposal window to address this re-introduced congestion would not be held until 2021, with solutions not likely to be presented to the Board until late 2021. In light of this timing, and based on the likely need for greenfield transmission, PJM predicts that new CPCN applications for not-yet-identified reliability and market efficiency drivers would not be filed until 2022 or 2023. Conservatively assuming one to two years for state siting proceedings, reliability and market efficiency solutions likely could not be constructed sufficiently quickly to remediate reliability criteria violations, and further would leave customers subject to significant congestion for a number of years to come.

Under the cost allocation formula attached as Exhibit B to the October 17, 2019 Petition
for Adoption of Settlement, PEPCO zone would be allocated Net Load Payment equal to 20.23% of the total costs for the Independent Energy Connection West (“ICE West”)
project under PJM analysis dated September 25, 2019. This represents a net present
value of $170,915,03, based on current assumptions.

District ratepayers represent approximately one-third of the load in PEPCO zone and
thus would be responsible for approximately one-third of any costs allocated to that
zone. Under current assumptions for the ICE West project, that would amount to a cost
allocation to District ratepayers of more than $55 million.

Significant outreach events in Kansas in the third quarter of 2019 included representatives of Invenergy, on behalf of Grain Belt Express, meeting with various state legislators and county officials to discuss the Project; additional, similar meetings are planned for the fourth quarter of 2019. Further, a representative of Invenergy presented at the Kansas Renewable Energy Conference, hosted by the Kansas Department of Commerce, on October 4, 2019 to discuss the Project.

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.

Market Efficiency Process The MMU recommends that the market efficiency process be eliminated because it is not consistent with a competitive market design. (Priority:  Medium. New recommendation. Status: Not adopted.)

The MMU recommends that, if the market efficiency process is retained, PJM modify the rules governing benefit/cost analysis, the evaluation process for selecting among competing market efficiency projects and cost allocation for economic projects in order to ensure that all costs, including increased congestion costs and the risk of project cost increases, in all zones are included and in order to ensure that the correct metrics are used for defining benefits. (Priority: Medium. First reported 2018.  Status: Not adopted.)

Fenwick Island resident Tom Brennan asked why consideration isn’t given to putting windmills closer to Indian River Inlet, and “continuing the commercialization up there instead of ruining of what we have down here?”
Ms. Dudley Eshback referred to periodic flooding at Fenwick Island State Park. “Should the proposed major power transmission plant be flooded following one of these regularly occurring and increasingly frequent storms imagine the public safety impact. It could be very disastrous,” she said. “We must explore alternative, clean sources of energy. And I’m not an expert on wind energy, turbines or transmission stations but I do know it is folly to consider further developing and destroying what little open space is left.”

• 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.

Transource Energy’s alternative configuration for its Independence Energy Connection project doesn’t pass PJM’s cost-benefit test, LS Power said last week.

Sharon Segner, vice president of LS Power, told the Transmission Expansion Advisory Committee on Thursday that her company’s review of the newly proposed path for the eastern segment of the project only carries a benefit-cost ratio of 1, far below PJM’s 1.25 threshold.

Segner said PJM’s base case used to calculate the ratio doesn’t consider the impact of a nearby project that would alleviate congestion on the Hunterstown-Lincoln 115-kV line. PJM plans to present both projects to the Board of Managers in December for inclusion in the Regional Transmission Expansion Plan, Dumitriu said.

Meanwhile, PJM must update its RTEP to include the alternative plans for the IEC.

“We are going to give the board the complete picture of what’s going on,” said Ken Seiler, PJM’s vice president of planning. “There’s a lot of moving parts and a lot of variables, and we will make sure the board has the right information.”

Seiler added that “at some point,” the plans must move forward. “The area is congested and will be congested until we get some of these projects built,” he said.

Nucor selected Sedalia because of its shorter time and lower freight costs to ship rebar to Kansas City and the upper Midwest and Plains markets as current cargoes "travel long distances," the company said in its November 2017 announcement.
The steelmaker also highlighted ample scrap supply available in the immediate area for deciding on the region.

Missouri also has easy access to some of the very best wind resources in the US — or it would, if the 4,000 megawatt Grain Belt Express long distance wind transmission line ever gets done.