In 2012, the developers of a proposed transmission line between West Virginia and Maryland sought to recover $121.5 million the company had spent before grid operators decided the $2.1 billion project was no longer needed.
FERC later told the utilities they were ineligible for at least $7 million of the $121.5 million requested, including $6.2 million in advocacy, advertising and lobbying expenses.

There is significant uncertainty and risk to the Project due to its scope, size and long lead times, and because the Project requires approval from Iowa, Wisconsin and multiple federal agencies. In particular, there is a risk that the federal agencies may select a different river crossing than that authorized by the IUB or the PSCW. If this occurs, there is a risk of additional delay that may threaten the ability of the Project to move forward.
The Project also involves multiple owners which requires coordination. In addition, the Project may face challenges and objections in the easement acquisition process in Iowa.

These approvals and permits are not guaranteed to be granted, and the Project could be delayed or terminated, or the final route changed, if ATC is unable to obtain any of these approvals or permits. In particular, the federal agencies may select a different Mississippi River crossing than that authorized by the IUB or the PSCW, which could delay or result in termination of the Project.

The scope, size, cost, long-lead times and participation by multiple owners pose  inherent risks for the Project. As my description of the Project makes clear, the size, scope and complexity of the Project – involving approximately 102- to 120-miles of new 345 kV transmission line and a new substation and related facilities, spanning multiple states and jurisdictions, crossing the Mississippi River, with multiple owners for a cost of approximately $492 Million to $543 Million – is significant. Further, the easement acquisition process may be contentious, resulting in delays or increased costs.

The MLA respectfully contends that the type of “need” created by Grain Belt in inducing MJMEUC to buy its product is not a true “need” for the service in the sense envisioned in the Tartan case. By analogy, it seems safe to say that not every family in Jefferson City truly “needs” to own a Cadillac. But if a dealer were for some reason to offer a Cadillac to everyone in the City for say $5.00, would the fact that virtually every family in the City was now driving a Cadillac suddenly prove there really was a “need” for those cars after all?

To the contrary, the MLA submits that actual “need” for any product cannot be artificially created by practically giving it away, as Grain Belt has done here. “Need” is not the same as “Want”.

To begin with, the only meaningful means to determine what MJMEUC might have saved by using the Grain Belt line is to compare MJMEUC’s total cost of power from that line to MJMEUC’s next best alternative at the time it signed the contract with Grain Belt. The problem is, before MJMEUC signed the TSA with Grain Belt, it did not bother to solicit bids from any other party to replace the expiring Illinois coal contract. Therefore, neither MJMEUC nor anyone else will ever know what the best alternative would have been to signing the TSA with Grain Belt.

For the above reasons, the MLA respectfully submits that Grain Belt failed to prove that the need for the line in Missouri is anything but an illusion of its own making.

In short, all of the cases cited by Grain Belt on this issue merely support the reliance on the resources of Clean Line, and not those of a third party with no ownership in the Applicant.  Thus based on Grain Belt’s own analysis, it is asking the Commission to take a position here for which there apparently is no precedent.

A more fundamental problem with Grain Belt’s argument on this point is that it is once again taking for granted that future decisions of the Commission will be made in Grain Belt’s favor. Specifically, before the sale of Grain Belt to Invenergy may close, those parties need not only the CCN in this proceeding, but also the permission of the Commission for the sale of the Grain Belt project to Invenergy in a case which has yet to be filed. If that sale is not approved, then of course Grain Belt never gains access to the resources of Invenergy. Thus in asking the Commission to decide the two Tartan criteria on the basis of Invenergy’s expertise and stronger financial status, they are necessarily asking the Commission to assume that it will later approve the sale of Grain Belt to Invenergy. And this request is being made by Grain Belt before the Commission has even seen or heard a word of evidence in the case which will decide that issue.

This is particularly presumptuous on Grain Belt’s part, in that they have stated unequivocally that the Commission does not even have the authority to approve the proposed sale which they now take for granted will be approved.

Even if Grain Belt successfully manages to disavow its earlier position, which seems unlikely, it is totally inappropriate for Grain Belt to even suggest to the Commission that it should assume it will approve the sale of Grain Belt to Invenergy before that case is even filed.

Despite the prognoses of what the Commission will do in some unfiled case, as matters now stand there is no basis for granting a CCN to the Applicant on the basis of speculation about its possible access to Invenergy’s resources.

Grain Belt supports its position on this issue primarily with broad generalizations about the market for wind generation. And while it contends that “the economic feasibility of the Project continues to be strong”, it does not even attempt to make a case for the economic feasibility of the Missouri segment of the line, without access to the PJM market.

As the MLA and Show Me discussed in their initial brief on remand, there is a definite possibility that the line will ultimately terminate in Missouri, thereby precluding access to the very markets which could make the project economically feasible.

As the NRDC and Sierra Club suggest, Missouri might be a “loss leader” for Grain Belt. But as they then note, according to the concurring opinion the project relies for its economic viability on the higher prices in the PJM market. But of course if the project cannot reach the PJM market, it is left only with the loss leader segment of the line in Missouri.

We find discrepancies between the General Advertising amounts reclassified by PATH in its Compliance Filings compared to the General Advertising amounts the Commission required PATH to reclassify in Opinion No. 554.

On compliance, PATH must eliminate all General Advertising costs from its recoverable amounts, or else specifically justify each item in light of Opinion No. 554.  In making the compliance filing, PATH must provide the journal entries to reflect the adjustments, and workpapers necessary to explain the accounting corrections for that FERC Form No. 1 input that references back to the journal entries; and the revised/corrected draft Form No. 1 inputs.

Did you make a compliance filing, PATH?

No!  We don't need to!  We made an informational filing!

Are you sure you don't need to make a compliance filing, PATH?

No!  FERC meant an informational filing, not a compliance filing!

Where's our $70M?

PATH must submit a compliance filing with the Commission describing either:  (1) its plan for ending its operations and a timeline for when it intends to file a notice of cancellation of its transmission formula rates, or (2) the type of “transmission or sale of electric energy” that requires its rates to stay in effect.  We direct PATH to submit this compliance filing within 30 days of the date of this order.  To the extent that PATH intends to unwind, PATH must make the appropriate filings under FPA section 205, as necessary, to implement this action.  PATH shall notify the Commission within 10 days of the date that the closing out of business is complete.

FirstEnergy is planning to construct a new 69-kilovolt transmission line to connect two substations in the Aurora area.  This new line will improve system redundancy and reliability, allowing much faster restoration times should power outages occur like those in recent years.

The author of The Boom, “the best all-around book yet on fracking” (San Francisco Chronicle), turns his attention to renewable energy pioneer Michael Skelly, whose innovations, struggle, and persistence represent the groundbreaking changes underway in American energy.

Enter Michael Skelly, an infrastructure builder who began working on wind energy in 2000, when many considered the industry a joke. Eight years later, Skelly helped build the second largest wind power company in the United States—which was sold for $2 billion. Wind energy was no longer funny; it was well on its way to powering more than six percent of the electricity in the United States.

In Superpower, award-winning journalist Russell Gold tells Skelly’s story, which parallels our nation’s evolving relationship with renewable energy.

Along the way, we meet Skelly’s financial backers, a family that pivoted from oil exploration to renewable energy; the farmers ready to embrace the new “cash crop”; the landowners prepared to go to court to avoid looking at spinning turbines; and utility executives who concoct fiendish ways to block renewable energy.

“Underground is about 10 times more expensive than overhead,” said Malashenko, who is the PUC safety and enforcement division director. “If we were to underground (throughout) California, all our rates would go up ten times.”

First, the Grain Belt line will not be selling its services to retail customers in Missouri. Second, Grain Belt has been authorized by the FERC to sell 100% of its capacity at wholesale to buyers (such as wind farms or load-serving utilities) at rates which are to be negotiated between the buyer and seller. Third, as an expected outcome of establishing rates through bilateral negotiation, Grain Belt’s customers will be paying different rates for capacity on the line – even for service from the same beginning and end points. Based on these facts, case law in Missouri tells us that the Grain Belt project is not an “electrical utility” in the sense that term is used in the CCN statute, Section 393.170.

In perhaps the key finding by the Court [in Danciger], it ruled that although the statutory definition of an “electrical corporation” includes no specific reference to public use, or to the necessity that the sale of the electricity be to the public, “it is apparent that the words ‘for public use’ are to be understood and to be read therein.”The question, then, was what constitutes the supply of electricity for “public use”, thereby qualifying the entity as an “electrical corporation.” In answering that question, the Court began with an obvious but critical point: a company either is or is not a public utility. If it is, then it is subject to the entire purview and regulation of the Commission, including the authority of the Commission to compel the company to provide service to all residences and businesses in the area where it provided service.

...

...if Grain Belt is indeed an “electrical corporation”, its negotiation of different rates for similarly situated customers would certainly be in violation of this statute, and no doubt others as well.

Perhaps the closest judicial decision on point is from Illinois, in a case which involved the question of whether the Rock Island Clean Line (a sister line of Grain Belt) was or was not a “public utility” under Illinois law. (Illinois Landowners Alliance v. Illinois Comm. Comm’n, 60 N.E.3d 150 2016). In finding that the proposed line was not a “public utility”, the Court held that “A private company that provides public utility services according to its own terms and conditions does not meet the statutory definition of a public utility.”Furthermore, the court found that in order to qualify as a public utility, the entity must offer its assets for public use without discrimination. The Rock Island line “is not for public use without discrimination.”

Finally, in reaching its decision, the Court relied in part on an earlier case which had found that the Mississippi River Fuel company did not qualify as a public utility. That company sold natural gas through individual contracts with 23 private industrial retail customers, as well as to 2 public utilities which resold the gas to its retail customers. In relying on the Mississippi River Fuel case, the Court noted the following: the company’s contracts were not based on fixed rates, and instead varied as to terms and conditions; and that the company’s act of selling gas to a limited group of customers could not be characterized as “public use.”

However, it is another matter altogether to decide this issue on the basis of the qualifications of Invenergy. That company is not the Applicant here. Nor does it have any ownership interest in the Grain Belt project at this point. And as discussed later under criterion (4), it would be speculative to assume that Invenergy will ever own the Grain Belt project – at least in the form it has been described to the Commission over the past 5 years or so.

Only two conditions must be met before Invenergy is obligated to purchase the Grain Belt project: approvals of the Kansas Commission and this Commission. Closing is not dependent upon approval by the Commission in Illinois. So Invenergy could well end up owning the Grain Belt project, yet never receive permission to build the section of the line providing access to the PJM market. What happens then? According to Mr. Zadlo, Invenergy would need to come back to this Commission with a new plan, which most likely would mean the line would terminate somewhere in Missouri. And of course without the ability to reach the PJM market, Grain Belt has provided no evidence to prove that the line is economically feasible.

In order to go north of Illinois, the line would presumably be rerouted north in Missouri, then pass through Iowa, Wisconsin and even Lake Michigan, necessitating numerous additional consents and routing studies along the way.

Going south of Illinois presumably would mean rerouting the line south within the state of Missouri to a point somewhere near Cairo, Illinois, then going north through Kentucky and Indiana, until finally reaching a point near the converter station in Clark County, Illinois – a total distance of roughly 450 miles. And without a certificate from Illinois, presumably the converter station would need to be redesigned, and moved out of that state. And that in turn would seemingly require starting anew with the process of gaining permission for the interconnection with PJM.

Given that fact, it seems fair to assume that Invenergy must have a more realistic “Plan B” in mind in the event it cannot obtain consent to build the line in Illinois. For example, it must have crossed their minds that if Invenergy cancels its contract with MJMEUC, it could try to sell that 200 MW at a rate which might exceed any damages it could owe to MJMEUC. Another possibility would be for Invenergy to develop its own wind farms in Kansas, and use the Grain Belt line to move its energy into the MISO market. There are certainly inviting possibilities for combining the generation and transmission functions on the Grain Belt line for Invenergy’s own benefit.
While the MLA does not claim that either scenario is being considered by Invenergy, it has unveiled no logical plan of its own if it is denied entry into Illinois. And Invenergy appears much too sophisticated an organization not to have already developed a realistic plan to deal with that possibility. If it has, we have been given no clue as to what to expect.

Expedited approval of the Transaction is warranted here because the Transaction does not involve the merger of two public utilities that are rate-regulated by the Commission; rather, it involves a transaction at the holding company level of GBE, a public utility that is not rate-regulated by the Commission, that will improve the capability of GBE to complete the Project. Therefore, many of the traditional state and local concerns with regard to public utility mergers are not implicated by the Transaction.

For purposes of the authority to appropriate property through eminent domain, the term "public utility" shall not include any activity for the siting or placement of wind powered electrical generators or turbines, including the towers.

The proposed Transaction will benefit consumers by improving the ability of GBE to complete the Project. In granting GBE a certificate to operate as a public utility, the Commission found that completion of the Project would be in the public interest.

In addition, given its responses to data requests and Transource’s filings in the Pennsylvania proceeding, it appears that Transource is modifying its position as to the need for and benefits of the Project from a straightforward purpose of lowering some customers’ electricity costs as a “market efficiency project” to now asserting other benefits associated with emerging reliability concerns. However, if PJM has now determined that there are reliability concerns and an associated need for transmission system enhancements, it would be more appropriate to first investigate reasonable alternatives within the relevant PJM processes rather than latching solutions on to this discretionary market efficiency project.

Furthermore, even though PJM’s market efficiency processes do not incorporate Maryland statutes, it is incumbent on the Applicant to meet the State’s requirements for a CPCN by presenting alternatives to the Project that use existing lines. The PJM process is not a substitute for Maryland’s statutory requirements and its determination that a project is the most effective solution should not allow that project to circumvent Maryland’s comprehensive siting process.