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PJM's Board Approved New Transmission Projects - Now What?

12/12/2023

Yesterday, PJM's Board of Managers quietly approved over $5B of new transmission designed to import electricity created by coal, gas, and nuclear to Virginia's data center alley and the Baltimore area, where thousands of megawatts of coal-fired power plants are set to close next year. New industrial load and closure of dirty generators is being solved by importing dirty generation from other states to the DC-metro area, an area that likes to pretend it's embracing clean energy and lowering its carbon emissions. Hardly. Clean energy policy is all smoke and mirrors... literally.

First, let's look at PJM's announcement.

The proposed solution includes new substations, new transmission lines and improvements to existing facilities. A majority of the project components use existing facilities and rights of way (through either repurposing/rebuilding existing assets or paralleling existing rights of way, which can reduce costs and minimize impacts to local areas). There are sections that would be new construction on land without existing transmission lines, known as greenfield development.

Well, that's a complete and total lie. Apparently I have found the weak spot. Paralleling existing transmission lines with new transmission lines on greenfield ROWs does NOTHING to reduce costs. How so, PJM? A new greenfield project would cost the same no matter where it is sited. In addition, wreck and rebuild projects that expand existing ROW have additional costs of tearing down the existing line before a new one can be built. As far as "minimizing impacts" that is also a huge lie. Transmission lines are not like Lay's Potato Chips where you can't just have one. Continuing to expand existing transmission corridors is the antithesis of environmental justice. Nobody who lives with one (or more) transmission line across their property wants another one. Impacts can actually be GREATER when paralleling existing ROWs because ROW expansion further intrudes into the host's land and gobbles up things built outside the current ROW, such as fences, barns, playsets, swimming pools, and water wells and septic fields. Loss of water and sewer makes a property uninhabitable. Expansion of existing corridors is like living next to an active volcano... they slowly expand until they overtake you altogether. Just remember, if a utility builds transmission through your property, you are subject to another, and another, and another. Not fair for you, not fair for anyone else.

PJM does not site the facilities or transmission lines nor determine their routes. This is the next step in the process and will be completed by the developers designated by PJM to construct the projects.

That's right. I've been saying this over and over, but here's one more for the road. The next thing the transmission company assigned the project will do is a detailed routing study that attempts to avoid homes and other structures, parks, historic resources, public land and environmental constraints. What comes out of that process is a collection of competing short route segments that can be pieced together to form the actual proposed route. The transmission company expects you all to fight with each other over these route segments in order to push it out of your own backyard and into your neighbor's. The company asks you to comment on individual segments with the hope of finding the ones with the least objections. Tough luck for you if you live on one of them. Once the proposed route is established, the transmission company will file an application with the jurisdictional state utility commission. The company asks that the commission approve the route and issue a permit to build the project. This is a long, court-like process in which impacted parties can participate, either with or without a lawyer. It is recommended that you do participate, if nothing else simply to preserve your right to appeal a decision you don't agree with.

And take a look at those cost allocation tables in the attachments to PJM's announcement (Page 55). The lion's share (44%) of the more than $5B cost will be paid for by Dominion's customers. However, more than 10% will be paid for by customers in PJM's APS region, which includes not only portions of northwestern Virginia, but also more than half of West Virginia and big chunks of Pennsylvania. Why are struggling communities in rural areas paying for a giant chunk of transmission that benefits some of the richest corporations in the world, such as Amazon, Google and Facebook? West Virginia and Pennsylvania are not getting any benefit whatsoever, except what little bit of "reliability" leaks out from keeping the data centers and plant closures from crashing the grid altogether. Why do others have to pay to shore up something that someone else broke? This is not like historic load growth that came in small and widely dispersed increments and therefore affected the region at large. This is like plunking a large city down all at once and plugging it in. We can (and PJM has) point right to the cause of the new transmission. Least they can do is pick up their own costs. It is no longer just and reasonable to expect everyone to pay for the damage done by the few. And if you think that's bad, check out the regional load ratio share allocations -- a portion of the costs that is allocated across the entire PJM region.

These are all the other utilities who have to pay a portion of the costs for new transmission to serve data centers. You can locate these utility acronyms on this map.

Check out the ComEd region, for instance. This utility in northern Illinois will pay for 13.39% of the shared costs, a larger load-ratio share than Dominion (13.32%). Imagine how they feel about paying for transmission that supports new data centers in Northern Virginia and closing coal plants in Baltimore.

If you're totally confused by PJM's cost allocation system, just wait... there's bound to be some fireworks when PJM asks for FERC approval to allocate the cost this way. More about that when it happens. For now it's enough to know that PJM's historic cost allocation system does NOT work for these projects and therefore must be changed in order to remain just and reasonable.

PJM's White Paper (that they managed to hide until AFTER the Board meeting) pretends that your participation mattered. Look what it said:

Project needs and recommended solutions as discussed in this report were reviewed with stakeholders during 2023, most recently at the October 31, 2023, and December 5, 2023, TEAC meetings. Written comments were requested to be submitted to PJM to communicate any concerns with project recommendations. All correspondence addressed to the PJM Board are available at the Board communications page.

All your letters to the Board got filtered through the TEAC and summarized. The Board didn't read any of them. I'm thinking that muzzling of stakeholders is NOT in PJM's beloved Manual of procedures. Therefore, it most likely violates the rules it is supposed to follow that have been approved by FERC. Anyone can file a complaint about that.

So, despite our best efforts, the PJM Board has approved the Window 3 projects. Now what?

The real battle is just beginning. Buckle up... it's likely to last for years. Delay is our friend. The enemy of our enemy is also our friend. All of this will become crystal clear in due time.

But what should you do right now? Reach out to your neighbor, ask them to reach out to their neighbor. Form neighborhood groups that coalesce into town groups that coalesce into county groups that coalesce into state groups that coalesce into multi-state groups. We're all family now. Gather your people.

And then circle the wagons. Transmission opposition is as much a strategy battle as any other. Keep your strategy discussions private. The transmission companies will be desperate to know what you're planning so they can try to beat you to the punch. They will infiltrate your groups and stalk you online in the creepiest way possible. But don't be so paranoid that you aren't accessible to new folks. There are layers to transmission opposition information dissemination. After you meet a few of the utility wonks at transmission company public meetings you may be able to recognize them for what they are when they manage to infiltrate meetings. I think after 15 years, I can practically SMELL them when they sneak into the room. Once, I was guest speaking at a public meeting for a group when I noticed a guy way in the back row that positively screamed "utility guy" to me. It wasn't so much his look as it was his behavior. After I was done speaking, I pointed him out to the host leader and she told me he did work for a utility, but that he was secretly on their side. Lesson: not all utility nerds are bad guys, but there are plenty that are going to frustrate you and try your patience. Take a deep breath. Find the humor in the situation. It helps.

When you've got your group together, feel free to ask me, "What's next?" However, let's keep that out of public social media groups and out of public blogs. I'm always available to answer questions or provide advice.

WE CAN DO THIS!

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PJM Thinks It Has You Handled

11/30/2023

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PJM Interconnection has never been good at interacting with the regular people its projects impact. Part of the problem is that the place is chock full of engineers and socially inept geeks, and the other part is that they think they don't have to explain themselves to you or anyone else. Back around 2008, during the PATH transmission line fight, some public relations guy from PJM named Kerry Stroup told a local reporter here that "PJM answers to no one." But PJM is NOT an omnipotent dictator. PJM answers to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. All the power PJM possesses comes courtesy of FERC. If PJM doesn't follow its own FERC-approved planning rules, anyone can file a complaint at FERC.

After decades of digging a moat around itself in order to keep regular people out of its planning process, PJM's efforts have failed and they are now positively terrified of the ruckus you're about to cause.

Public relations has never been PJM's strong suit. In fact, PJM's public relations effort has been almost non-existent. PJM depends on the utilities it orders to build the projects to interact with the torches and pitchforks crowd later on, after there's no chance to influence the plan. But now, because impacted people have found out about PJM's plans before the projects have been awarded, PJM has made a feeble attempt to inform you about its "role" in ordering the new transmission projects that concern you.

Here's PJM's recently released Role in Regional Planning/2022 RTEP Window 3 document. You are supposed to read it and accept it, even though you may not agree, and even though PJM may have left out some important things. Here's PJM again telling people that it answers to no one and that PJM must build these things ASAP or your lights are going to go out. It's going to say the same things to your state utility commission when it appears as a witness for the utility that is assigned to build the project.

Our analysis shows without doubt that there are going to be real reliability impacts without further transmission reinforcements. These solutions are required to maintain the reliability of the system. If the transmission is delayed, load has to be dropped. We currently don’t have anything in the new services queue planning to come online in time. We are working with Talen Energy, the owner of Brandon Shores, on keeping those units in service past their proposed deactivation date of June 1, 2025, in order to ensure reliability.

PJM may provide supporting evidence on the need for a project from the perspective of grid reliability to help local officials better understand the project and its impacts.

Think about that... PJM says it cannot deny service to a new customer (data centers) but if new transmission to serve these customers isn't built on PJM's timeline, then "load has to be dropped." In other words, PJM will shut off service to certain customers. You can bet it won't be the data centers. So what PJM is really saying is that it is going to serve the new load and drop the old load.... unless you gladly welcome new transmission across your property, you selfish NIMBY. Kind of makes your head hurt, right? Remember, I said that PJM lacks public relations skill.

Here's the real answer that PJM isn't telling you... when a new customer asks the local utility for new service, the utility could certainly build new generators to produce the electricity for the new customers. Building new generation is something that the state could require the utility to do. Let's use Dominion as an example here because Dominion is the utility that serves the data centers. Dominion could decide to build a new generator (or generators) near the data centers and ask the Virginia State Corporation Commission to approve it and assign costs to Dominion's customers. But, with Virginia's "clean energy" goals enshrined into law, the chances that the VA SCC would approve a big, new baseload generator that could satisfy the data center's insatiable thirst for electricity are slim. Nobody wants a new electric power plant in their neighborhood and solar, wind and other renewables can't supply the kind of on demand 24/7 power needed for data centers. So Dominion and the Commonwealth of Virginia simply shrugged and passed the buck to PJM to find a solution to the reliability problem the new data centers have caused. And this is the result. You probably didn't envision this when Virginia passed its clean energy laws, but this is what happened because Virginia passed environmental goals that were NOT achievable when combined with the building of new energy-intensive data centers. This is Virginia's problem and it's about time they own it, don't you think?

PJM handled the hot potato it received according to its existing rules. PJM did not acknowledge that this is a new problem caused by state clean energy laws and out-of-control building. PJM pretended that it was a transmission problem, not a generation problem. Therefore, PJM sought out any usable generation in its region to solve Virginia's lack of power and designed new transmission line extension cords to plug it into the data center load. PJM cannot order new generation to be built, it can only order transmission. Therefore, when the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Virginia could order new generation, but it chooses not to because new generation could make it impossible to achieve its clean energy goals. Even the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission recently questioned whether new infrastructure caused by energy policies of certain states should be fully paid for by those states. If Virginia had to pay for the entire $5B cost of this new transmission, perhaps building generation might be a cheaper alternative. But Virginia thinks it can do it cheaper by choosing transmission that is cost allocated to other states that will not benefit from the data centers or clean energy laws.

Ten years ago, PJM's independent Market Monitor suggested to PJM that it create a process by which new transmission is forced to compete with new generation to evaluate who would pay the costs and accept the risks of each alternative. If PJM had only listened to the advice of its own expert, we'd be having a very different conversation right now. It wouldn't sound like PJM's "Role" paper, it would sound more like this blog.

So, what can you do to change PJM's preferred plan? The document gives you several options in the last couple of paragraphs. The first is to participate in PJM's Transmission Expansion Advisory Committee meetings. Been there, done that. It's frustrating and exhausting. At every turn, you are faced with the virtual moat PJM has constructed around its processes designed to keep regular people out. PJM wants to make it really hard on you to participate. If you do manage to get in, share your thoughts, and not give a damn what PJM thinks about you, prepare to be thwarted at every turn. This is what many of us have experienced since August of this year. The TEAC process for these projects is done. PJM has made its recommendations despite everything that was said in its meetings. Let's move along.

PJM's second suggestion is to send your comments to its Customer Service and Planning Departments. Don't waste your time here, either. PJM says it will "compile" these comments for the Board of Managers' perusal. In other words, PJM will sanitize your comments so that they support its recommendations. PJM only wants you to communicate with its Board of Managers through a filter it controls. You might as well not even bother.

The third option is the one you should use.

Any stakeholder may also provide written communication directly with the 10- member PJM Board on issues regarding PJM markets, operations or planning. This communication will be made public, consistent with rules related to “ex parte” communications as outlined in the PJM Code of Conduct. All such communications should be sent to the PJM Members Committee Secretary ([email protected]), who will ensure delivery to the Board of Managers. Notice of Board communications and documents are posted and available on the Board Communications page of PJM.com.

Write directly to the Board. Don't let PJM's TEAC filter your comments. All that nonsense about "ex parte" communications is meant to scare you away from this option, but it doesn't mean anything. So what if your comments are made public and posted on PJM's website? SO WHAT? Complete instructions for composing your letter to the Board of Managers can be found here. Remember, you are writing to the Board -- Dave Anders is just the mailman. Do not address your comments to Anders.

Deadline for comments to PJM's Board of Managers is Monday, December 4 (one week before the Board meets to consider approval of the projects on December 11). PJM "forgot" to tell you about that in its "Role" paper. Another Freudian slip that can derail your efforts. It seems that PJM is more about trying to keep people out of its processes than it is about inclusion. PJM doesn't care what you think and is going to do what it wants despite your best efforts. If PJM is trying to steer you away from a letter to the Board of Managers, then you can bet that's your best option. Maybe PJM is a little transparent after all... but not in a good way.

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PJM's Altered Reality

11/1/2023

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Yesterday, PJM Interconnection held its monthly Transmission Expansion Advisory Committee (TEAC) meeting. At the meeting, PJM revealed its plan for massive transmission expansion around the Mid-Atlantic region to fix electric reliability issues caused by the closure of 11,000 megawatts of fossil fuel generation combined with 7,500 megawatts of increased demand from the out-of-control building of new data centers in Northern Virginia. It doesn't take a mathematician to realize that these numbers add up to a need for increased electric generation close to 20,000 megawatts. For reference, a good sized coal, nuclear or gas-fired electric generation station amounts to around 800-1000 megawatts. We need 20,000 megawatts of what's known as "baseload" power, generation that can be counted on to generate when called and is not dependent upon weather or other factors to produce electricity. Also for reference, a good sized solar farm may have the capacity to produce up to 100 megawatts, if it has the fuel (sunshine) necessary to generate. We're going to need 20-25 new baseload generation plants, or 200 new large solar farms. PJM does not order new generation to be built. It can only order new transmission to move existing generation around. And that is the purpose of PJM's new transmission plan. PJM plans to import electric generation to Northern Virginia from West Virginia and Pennsylvania, the only two states in the PJM region that still produce excess electricity from fossil fuels. In order to do so, PJM has planned numerous new extension cords from WV and PA that will connect with the "needy" areas in the DC - Baltimore metro areas. On PJM's map, it looks like this:

As shown, much of the burden of importing generation into the DC - Baltimore area is placed on rural areas to the north and west, who are expected to sacrifice their homes, businesses, and communities to make way for these new transmission extension cords.

One such project begins in WV's northern panhandle along the Ohio River at the Kammer substation and meanders southeast for hundreds of miles through 4 states before connecting to a new substation in Northern Virginia's "data center alley." PJM's map of this project looks like this:

At the western end, the extension cord is surrounded by old coal and gas electric generators in WV and SW PA. Look at them all! That's where the power will be produced. At the eastern end, the extension cord is surrounded by data centers. That's where the power will be used. This project proposes to build a new 500kV transmission line on new right-of-way adjacent to an existing line. People who have one line on their property will now have two. In some areas, it proposes to veer off the existing lines and create new rights-of-way in areas without transmission lines. In Jefferson County, WV, the proposal is to demolish and rebuild an existing 138kV transmission line on an expanded right-of-way to create a double circuit 500/138kV transmission line on new lattice steel towers up to 200 feet tall. In some areas of Jefferson, the project will veer off the right-of-way and create new right-of-way in areas that currently do not have transmission lines. Once the project crosses the Appalachian Trail and enters Virginia, it proposes to veer sharply south/southeast and create a new 500kV transmission line through areas that currently do not have transmission lines, such as Waterford. At its end point, it will connect with a new substation along the Dulles Greenway in Ashburn.

To the northeast, PJM proposes a new 500kV transmission line on new right-of-way in areas that currently don't have transmission lines in order to bring power from Pennsylvania produced by gas and nuclear to an existing substation in Frederick County, MD called Doubs. From Doubs, the project will create two new 500kV lines into data center alley built mostly on existing transmission line routes. On PJM's map, that project looks like this:

The major new lines that will require new transmission rights-of-way are in the west and north. Worse yet, PJM has assigned these greenfield projects to competitive transmission builders from other states. Much of the western line is assigned to NextEra, a company from Florida. The northern line is assigned to PSE&G, a company from New Jersey. These companies don't know our communities or how impossible it will be to plow through them with new transmission lines. And at the end of the day, they may not care... they won't be seeing it from the windows of their own homes.

Only in Jefferson County will the west project be assigned to incumbent FirstEnergy/Potomac Edison because it is a expansion and rebuild of a line they already own. These are the same guys who brought us the Potomac-Appalachian Transmission Highline, or PATH, project between 2008-2012. Won't we have fun the second time around?

And with that rough description of the plan presented, here's my report of yesterday's TEAC meeting.

The meeting was kicked off with a brief speech from PJM's Vice President of Transmission, Ken Seiler, who read from some canned speech about how this transmission plan is the result of transitioning to clean energy. You can read more about that here. PJM's can also included that article. But things didn't quite go as planned. I spoke up to state that PJM's plan is nothing more than a giant extension cord importing fossil fuel power from WV and PA into Northern Virginia. I asked how this comports with Virginia's "clean energy" laws. Are Virginia's clean energy goals nothing but a sham they hide behind while actually importing more fossil fuels from surrounding states?

PJM personnel tried to push back that its plan would connect "new resources" but it was half-hearted at best. There are no "new resources" anywhere near these lines.

PJM TEAC leaders explained how their plan would be read twice at TEAC meetings and then submitted to the PJM Board of Managers for approval. Once approved (because *gasp* that can be the ONLY outcome!) the projects would be assigned and the utilities would take it from there. PJM explained it would allow a whopping six, count 'em 6, days from second read to Board meeting. Because being boxed into a time crunch isn't my favorite thing, I asked how we could contact PJM's Board of Managers right now. PJM said it would send me the information, but that only poked the hornet's nest. Many other attendees also wanted the information so they could contact the Board. A gentleman from the Maryland Office of People's Counsel told PJM they should be running this more like a public hearing. Bravo! PJM's "transparency" with stakeholders leaves much to be desired. Many people have tried to sign up for meetings and found themselves in an impossible maze. Even if they finally do manage to sign up, they have to sit in the meeting for hours just to get an opportunity to comment on this plan, which is always the last item on the agenda. Ain't nobody got time for that! PJM offered up that it would take email comments, something I had to force them into months ago. PJM tried to direct comments to some "customer service" email that is nothing but a black hole. I know how to contact the Board directly and it was confirmed yesterday after much discussion. More to come on that front, but get your pencils sharpened and be ready to send your comments!

I asked PJM what would happen if this plan and all its separate parts are not approved and built by the "in service" date selected (June 2027). Will the lights go out? Will the utilities in No. Va. have to tell the new data centers that they cannot supply them with electricity? PJM's answer was long and winding about how much these new projects are "needed" but at its core I saw a glimmer of reality. Yes, they would have to stop serving new load so the lights won't go out. This is where PJM's reality diverges from the one the rest of us live in. PJM thinks these projects (all of them) will be built on time and on budget. PJM won't even entertain the reality that the vast majority of these projects won't be built on time, and several of them won't be built ever.

After the PATH failure, I've worked with landowner groups on at least a dozen other transmission projects around the country that were hotly opposed. Not one of them has ever been built. I know a transmission failure in the making when I see it, and I know how to push it off the possibility cliff. PJM is not being realistic, despite losing a lot of major transmission battles in recent memory.

I asked why PJM changed its plan to allow FirstEnergy to build the west project in Jefferson County at the very last minute before yesterday's meeting. It's because FirstEnergy owns the line that will be rebuilt. That's something I questioned at the last TEAC meeting where PJM insisted that NextEra would be doing the rebuild.

And speaking of FirstEnergy and the project in Jefferson County, I also asked whether the new solar "farms" in Jefferson that are being built adjacent to the existing line that will be rebuilt will lose service for an extended period of time while the rebuild is happening. These projects have waited years to interconnect to the existing line and now they may not have service after all until the project is completed. It could be many months because the existing line has to be shut off and torn down before the replacement is built. PJM's answer, if you can believe it, is that FirstEnergy did not come prepared to answer that question. In other words, we don't know or care. I thought PJM was a planner?

I asked what would happen if one of the segments of the West project was not approved by one of the 4 states that have siting authority. Would changes be made or would the project be cancelled? After all, if the little greenfield segment in Loudoun County is not approved, there's no need for the rest of it because it cannot connect to the data centers and we have no need for it here. PJM's answer is that would be up to the utilities building it. Another non-answer! It's up to the state regulators to condition any approval on the entire project being approved before any building starts.

PJM announced that the cost of all these projects would be more than $5 Billion. The cost would be added to the electric bills of every electric customer in the PJM region (that means you!). I asked if that cost included financial incentives granted by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which can increase costs significantly. PJM said no. The utilities building these projects can apply with FERC to increase their profits with higher returns (interest) and other accounting treatments that allow them to start charging ratepayers right away for projects that may or may not be built until later. In addition, FERC can (and probably will) grant the abandonment incentive, which means ratepayers will pay for these projects WHETHER THEY ARE EVER CONSTRUCTED OR NOT. This "plan" is going to cost us a lot more than $5B.

PJM did agree to share the "constructabilty report" it created before selecting these projects. The report evaluates the risks and costs of each project, as well as the feasibility of actually constructing it when faced with opposition, and compares the projects to find the one with the greatest chance of success at the lowest price. Last month, I asked PJM to make this report public and it flat out refused. Now it says its report will be included in its recommendation paper to the Board of Managers. Baby steps...

Yesterday's TEAC lasted 6 hours and 49 minutes, according to the timer on my WebEx. It was a giant time suck that produced little new information, but we can't let them win because we don't show up.

PJM will recommend these awful transmission ideas to its Board of Managers on December 11. It is up to all of us to convince the Board to reject this ill-conceived plan and demand that TEAC come up with something better. How about something that will not place burden on communities that will receive no benefit?

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Grain Belt Express Asks For Loan From Shady DOE Office

10/22/2023

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During a hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee last week, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley questioned Jigar Shah, Director of the U.S. Department of Energy's Loans Program Office. Senator Hawley's questions revolved around Mr. Shah's apparent conflict of interest in attending pay-to-play invitation-only industry conferences where he was accessible to companies that wanted to get loans from his office. At one point, Senator Hawley rendered Mr. Shah speechless. Watch this brief exchange here:

Senator Hawley's questions stemmed from this Congressional report which revealed that Mr. Shah founded a clean energy trade group called The Cleantech Leaders Roundtable before he was appointed Director of the Loans Program Office. Once he was appointed, he continued to attend and speak at the group's private functions. These are the paid conferences that Senator Hawley was referring to. The Cleantech Leaders Roundtable is a shady organization that keeps its membership secret, and its functions are invitation-only for members. Who attends these functions in order to hobnob with Mr. Shah, who controls the purse strings of billions of dollars of taxpayer-backed government loans? Do you think Grain Belt Express parent company Invenergy is a member? It would be odd if it was not.

After Mr. Shah went from CleanTech Leaders to the DOE's Loans Program Office, the organization made this social media post:

It appears to me that this group was positively chortling over its good fortune to have one of its insiders in charge of doling out billions of taxpayer dollars for "clean energy" loans. Hundreds of Billions $$$$$$ of your tax dollars!

Senator Hawley was spot on with his questioning. But what Senator Hawley seemed to miss was Mr. Shah's connection to something happening in the Senator's own backyard in Missouri. Grain Belt Express has applied to Mr. Shah's office for a government-guaranteed loan for up to 80% of its cost to build the project. With GBE's costs estimated to be around $7B, this means a $5.6 BILLION dollar loan to Grain Belt Express backed up by your tax dollars, if Mr. Shah approves.

Furthermore, Grain Belt Express currently only has one customer for less than 5% of its project capacity, and that customer received below-cost pricing. Grain Belt Express does not currenty have the revenue needed to make necessary payments on a government-backed loan.

Senator Hawley should demand that DOE make sure that Grain Belt Express has the necessary signed customer contracts to provide enough revenue to pay back any loan it receives, and under no circumstances should the DOE loan money to GBE before it has sufficient revenue in place in the form of signed and verified contracts.

If DOE loans money to GBE based on its PLAN to sell its service at some time in the future it could turn into a nearly $6B boondoggle, 12 times worse than Solyndra!

While Senator Hawley's questioning of Jigar Shah made great theater, it is up to you to make sure he takes the next step to tie Mr. Shah to the loan application of Grain Belt Express that is currently under Mr. Shah's review. Help Senator Hawley make this connection by contacting him here or by calling his office at 202-224-6154.

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U.S. DOE Box Checks EIS Scoping

9/27/2023

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Remember at the beginning of this year when the U.S. Department of Energy held public meetings to gather scoping comments for the Environmental Impact Statement it must prepare before it decides whether or not to grant deep-pocketed energy conglomerate Invenergy a loan of more than a BILLION dollars to finance its no-revenue Grain Belt Express transmission line? Did you know that DOE has prepared its Scoping Report that will guide the EIS? You didn't? That's because there was no public notice. DOE didn't send out a mailer, or even an email to the persons on its electronic mailing list. It simply updated its website and didn't give any notice whatsoever. If I had not stopped by there to look for something, we'd still be in the dark!

But since the cat is out of the bag, let's talk about DOE's Scoping Report. The scoping report sets the parameters for the EIS. It determines what will be studied in the EIS. Here's what DOE says it will study:

Air Quality and Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions
Geology, Soils, and Paleontology
Water Resources
Noise
Vegetation
Wildlife
Cultural Resources
Transportation and Access
Land Use
Recreation
Environmental Justice
Public Health & Safety
Visual Resources
Social, Economic, and Community Resources

But according to DOE, these are the most common topics that the public asked to have studied:

Limitations on land uses that could potentially result from the Project’s construction and operation
Consideration of alternatives to the Project as currently proposed
History of the Project, including previous routing studies and past interaction with landowners
Concerns about the Project’s proposed route and infrastructure placement
Potential impacts on wildlife; social, economic, and community resources; geology and soils; health and safety; and vegetation

The DOE didn't listen to a damned thing you said. It simply checked the "public participation" box and went on its merry way.

The most popular comment was for DOE to study alternatives to Grain Belt Express. Siting new transmission on existing rail and road rights-of-way was the most common form of this scoping suggestion. However, DOE has absolutely NO INTENT to study any alternatives. The only "alternatives" DOE chooses to consider are to build, or not to build.

It's wholly debatable whether DOE's excuse for not studying any alternatives will pass legal scrutiny. I think it went something like this... DOE is only considering whether to loan money so it's either yes or no and does not involve selecting an alternative. Pretty lame, right? That same excuse could be used by any federal agency contemplating using federal resources for a project that could impact the environment. We're either going to participate or not, we're either going to construct it or not, etc. See how it goes? DOE's refusal to study viable alternatives (or any alternatives at all) is NOT legal.

The EIS is for the purpose of notifying the public of the environmental impacts caused by a government action. It doesn't mean there can be no impacts, it just means that the public needs to be "aware" of them. The EIS should rightly study different alternatives that would have differing degrees of environmental impact so that it selects the one with the least impact. There simply is no legal wiggle room to refuse to study any alternatives.

In addition to the Scoping Report, DOE also published a list of comments it received. See Appendix J. In addition to making sure your own comments were received and correctly transcribed into the appendix, you may want to browse and read some of the other comments. One that stood out to me is the comments of Stephen Jeffery, Counsel for Callaway Concerned Citizens Against Solar beginning on page 68 of Appendix J (the comments are arranged alphabetically by last name, look under "J"). He did an excellent summation of all the mistakes DOE has made so far, and why the mistakes are not legal. I wonder how much better it could get if he found out how merchant transmission works? At any rate, he's the one I would hire to sue DOE when their box checking exercise concludes with a fait accompli loan approval.

When will that be? It looks like the rush, rush hurry up EIS schedule has been a bit delayed. Originally, DOE said it would publish the draft EIS this fall, open a comment period, and have a decision on the loan by summer 2024. Now the draft EIS won't be published until winter 2024, and comments are expected to continue into summer. Looks like the GBE EIS is already around 6 months behind schedule. Expect further delays.

Here's the big question... will DOE bother to notify anyone when the draft EIS is published, or will it just make another quick upload to its website and stay mum? DOE has tured NEPA into a travesty. Shame on them!

3 Comments

How the Community Consultation Sausage is Made

8/23/2023

0 Comments

Utilities, regulators, elected officials, grid planners, environmental groups, and pretty much everyone else not personally affected by a new transmission line or substation tell us that "early consultation" with impacted communities makes projects better. You're supposed to go away happy with the new infrastructure clogging up your backyard because you were "consulted."

Consultation is a chimera. It's an act. They make a big deal out of pretending that your input and concerns matter, but they really don't. You don't matter one bit and nothing you say, or any suggestions you make, have even a ghost of a chance of changing their predetermined plans. Oh, sure, they give you a bunch of busy work to do, maybe a committee or other place to be creative, or just vent, but nothing you produce will ever be good enough to pass muster. Why is that?

It's because utility planning is done behind closed doors. The utilities and the grid planner, like PJM, create a fully-formed project before informing the public and beginning their fake "community consultation." The community is approached with a fait accompli and the only options for the community is where to put it. This is intended to cause community clashes between neighbors over siting, while the real enemy, the utility, gets no pushback at all. Don't fight with your neighbors over where to put new transmission, direct your ire toward the real enemy.

When utilities finally roll out their set-in-stone proposals to the community and pretend to "consult", the community will set to work finding new routes, new ideas, new sources of energy, new ways to build transmission without community impact. The community is industrious, creative, and usually right. But when the community's suggestions are presented to the utility, the utility has 1,001 excuses why none of these solutions can ever work. Where's the "consultation"? It's a one-way street and the utilities simply bat away any new ideas. They don't have to accept, or even consider, your ideas. They're betting they can convince regulators that their ideas are better than yours because they are "experts" and you're just an uneducated peon.

The utilities then present documentation of their fake "community consultation" to regulators and say that the community prefers their plan to other alternatives. The conclusion is that, after consultation, the community is on board with the utility's original plan and therefore regulators should approve it.

This exact scenario is played out in this recent article about a new substation in Fayette County, West Virginia. The utility planned a new substation along Rt. 60 at one of two sites. One of these sites was the desired site all along, but to pretend to give the community a choice, a second dummy site was added to the mix. The community didn't want a new substation at either site. It wanted the utility to put the substation somewhere away from the highway. But, "...the company determined the other suggestions were not viable for the scope of what the project needed to house." Gee, imagine that! None of the other suggestions were viable at all. There was absolutely no way to make them work, or for the utility to compromise at all with what the community wanted. The utility's community consultation consisted of "...outreach and providing simulations of the project’s infrastructure." The utility showed the community photoshopped representations of how the project would look next to the highway if they built it their way. That is not "consultation." It's propaganda. The utility pretended that its picture show made the community happy.

“I think that sort of input that we got from the community and then also doing that modeling to show folks what it was going to look like when it’s constructed both helped along the project,” he said.

And the PSC said that the utility's preferred site was favored by more community members.

The commission observed that while many residents were still opposed to both the Garage Site and the Post Office Site, which is adjacent to the Victor Post Office on Route 60, they seemed more accepting of the Garage Site over the Post Office location.

Oh, they "seemed" more accepting? Was that finding based on some hard evidence? That's like asking the community if they would rather be flooded or burned. Neither one is an acceptable option. The community wants to be left alone and not put in "pick your poison" position. The community actually chose neither of these options, but how would they prove the PSC's conclusion was wrong?

Community consultation is a performance. Unfortunately, it's one in which the community must participate. But a smart and cohesive community knows how the sausage is made and plays their own games with the utility during community consultation simply to document the community's road to victory in the regulatory process. The utilities are not your friends. The regulators are not your friends. The only ones you can trust are your fellow impacted landowners, your friends, and your neighbors. That's where grassroots action starts and succeeds.

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Game on, PJM!

8/9/2023

1 Comment

I just sent the following to PJM TEAC facilitators Sami Abdulsalam and David Souder.

PJM’s Reliability Analysis presentation at the August 8, 2023 TEAC demonstrates a marked concern for routing/siting/permitting/scheduling risks of certain component segments submitted in 2022 RTEP Window 3. I appreciate that PJM is considering these factors. After all, what good is a transmission project that cannot be built due to opposition?

My review of the projects submitted in Window 3 finds that several of these projects are reinvention of old projects, either in whole or in part, that PJM approved years ago and then later abandoned or suspended. Three of these historic projects are the Potomac-Appalachian Transmission Highline (now FE-23 and FE-837), the Mid-Atlantic Power Pathway (now Exelon-691), and the Independence Energy Connection (now Transource-487). These projects have cost PJM ratepayers hundreds of millions of dollars in development and legal fees despite never being built.

No matter what reason PJM recorded for the suspension and abandonment of these three transmission projects, the fact remains that each of these projects was met with a wall of resistance from landowner groups, state/local governments, elected officials, public interest groups, and impacted communities. Opposition to PATH, MAPP and IEC prevented approval and construction of these projects and added considerable delays to their schedule. Entities that opposed these projects the first time around are knowledgeable and prepared to oppose them again. The impacts of these projects, which made them objectionable in the first place, have not changed. The only difference now is that the opposition is better educated and better prepared to win this battle.

I asked during the TEAC how PJM could receive comments from impacted communities to consider as part of their constructibility studies for the projects. I heard from you that stakeholders could voice their concerns during TEAC meetings, as I was doing, or contact something called “Stakeholder Engagement Group.” Neither option actually incorporates the stakeholder comment into the constructibility report outcome.

I have read some of PJM’s “constructibility reports” in the past. The one for the Independence Energy Connection particularly stands out in my mind, as that constructibility report found significant opposition would not occur because the project was routed on “undeveloped land.” That “undeveloped land” is prime farmland, important to its owners and the community it supports. The owners of this “undeveloped land” are highly educated, well connected, and capable of preventing this project from being constructed as originally ordered by PJM. In conclusion, PJM’s constructibility report was dead wrong because the entity that prepared it was woefully uninformed about transmission opposition and real conditions on the ground. These are areas where public comment and consultation can be incorporated into the constructibility report to improve its historic lack of accuracy.

The presentation at yesterday’s TEAC mentioned “Utilization of existing ROWs and brownfield development/expansion.” Existing ROWs include more than just transmission or utility ROWs. New technologies and policies are opening existing transportation ROWs to new transmission infrastructure. These ROWs are ideal for burying HVDC for the purpose of transporting electricity from one market to another, not serving communities along the way. Window 3 seems to concentrate on importing new power supply to the data centers. HVDC buried on transportation ROWs may be a solution supported by impacted communities. See more: https://theray.org/technology/transmission/

Expansion of existing transmission ROWs by adding parallel lines is NOT a solution to routing issues. PJM needs to re-think this unworkable approach. While existing transmission built in the last century may have been routed on agricultural land, aka “undeveloped land”, the land use conditions that existed when the transmission line was built in 1950 will not be the same in 2023, especially in the growing PJM region. Many former farms have been sold and re-developed into new housing communities and other uses. The community has built itself up around the existing transmission line, often with new homes, schools, and other expansion right up to the edge of the existing ROW. Expanding the existing ROW cannot happen without destroying this new development. This was one of PATH’s biggest problems in Jefferson County, West Virginia. Housing developments had sprung up to surround existing transmission lines and expansion of the ROW would begin to destroy portions of these communities. This problem has not changed in the 15 years since. In fact, it’s gotten much worse. However, FirstEnergy’s submitted projects depend on expanding these ROWs to build new lines parallel to existing ones. While I recognize PJM does not design the routes for its projects, it still must be cognizant of the project’s shortcomings and risk in order to be successful at what it does do.

There’s a lot that PJM (and its member utilities and constructibility report contractors) do not know about the dynamics of transmission opposition. Much can be learned from study of scholarly research on the social aspects of opposition. It is not simply a “NIMBY” issue that can be solved by routing elsewhere. Impacted people need to examine the problem and be involved in the creation of a solution. PJM has historically ordered transmission and left the designated entity to approach the community with a pre-determined transmission solution and consult with them about where to put it. This is not a choice for the impacted community and they will reject it every time. While investigating the basis of the need for the project, the community will develop other solutions to solve the problem, such as use of existing rights-of-way, upgrading of existing lines, burying lines, allowing the market to demand new generation before building transmission, as well as other demand side solutions such as energy efficiency and distributed generation. The designated entity and PJM have resisted any and all suggested modifications to their plans, and as a result the project never gets built. Is PJM about building workable solutions, or spending eternity trying to foist its will on a public that doesn’t want or need it?

PJM prides itself on its “transparency”, but lacks any avenue for true stakeholder participation. Stakeholder consultation should begin in the project planning phase so that PJM doesn’t waste time and money pursuing projects that are not constructible. Allowing stakeholders to make comments that are never considered or acted upon is a parody of democracy. I ask that PJM create a way to accept public comments and incorporate them into its planning, particularly for such an enormous undertaking as Window 3. I have tried to find the “stakeholder engagement group” you suggested during the TEAC, but cannot find anything like that on PJM’s website. I would appreciate a substantive response to this comment/suggestion, not just an acknowledgement it has been received (and ignored).

As you might have guessed, I participated in yesterday's TEAC by telephone. It has been many years since I attended a PJM meeting or raided its free M&M dispensers (plain or peanut?). But PJM is now at the beginning of a new initiative that makes yesterday's Project Mountaineer look like child's play. PJM wants to import insane amounts of power from the east and the west to power new data centers in the DC-metro area. PJM received more than 70 proposals from greedy transmission developers to make this happen. Many of them simply recycled old projects (or parts of them) that were cancelled years ago, such as the old PATH project in Virginia, Maryland and the West Virginia eastern panhandle. Take a quick browse through these maps to get an idea of the magnitude.

As you read above, I asked where PJM might consult with the public about some of these projects while evaluating them to see how feasible they are before we waste another 10 years and hundreds of millions trying to build something impossible like PATH or MAPP or IEC. I was pretty much blown off and told that PJM does its own constructibility evaluations. In other words, comments from impacted communities are not part of the process. Because I continued to push, I was told to send a follow up email. This is the result.

Currently, anyone concerned about a PJM proposal is welcome to make comment at PJM TEAC meetings. You get unlimited time to speak over the phone at a PJM meeting, where you have a captive audience for your thoughts and ideas. What a great opportunity! All you have to do is sign up for a PJM account and register for the meeting of your choice. Call the phone number, and when the question part arrives, push a button. Instant audience. Of course, hearing unlimited public comment from hundreds of concerned people at each PJM TEAC is going to make the meetings just a bit longer. Soon, it's just going to be one long, continuous meeting where the commenters never stop making comments and the party never ends.

Or, PJM can find a constructive way to welcome and make use of public comment.

Next TEAC is September 5. Are you in?

1 Comment

Did You Comment on NIETCs?

8/1/2023

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We called for comments on the U.S. Department of Energy's new program to designate National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors. The deadline to submit comments was yesterday, and it looks like a lot of people responded to the call!

Here are the comments I submitted yesterday.

doe_nietc_comments.pdf
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This morning, the comment portal shows that 94 comments have been received on the NIETC docket. However, DOE has a real problem with publicly sharing information and documents. Sometimes your comments go into a black hole and you never see them again. Sometimes, DOE relents and allows comments to be publicly available. On this docket, DOE has approved some of the earliest comments to be available for public viewing, but not the ones it received yesterday. Maybe they will... and maybe they won't.

Keep your eyes here to see if your comment actually shows up.

Thanks to everyone who commented and spoke truth to power. Together we can make a difference!

0 Comments

Don't Be A Federal Eminent Domain Victim

7/24/2023

2 Comments

There's still time to get your comments in to the U.S. Department of Energy on its plan to let transmission developers request National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors (NITECs) that coincide with financially lucrative transmission projects. Once the DOE designates a NIETC at the request of a project developer (merchant or otherwise), the project owner will have FEDERAL EMINENT DOMAIN to take your property against your will. Don't go quietly without a fight! Tell the DOE that you object to its plan to allow greedy transmission developers to decide where, when, and why to build new transmission. The back yard you save may just be your own.

New transmission has been juiced by government giveaways of taxpayer cash.

DOE says it intends to use designation of NIETCs as a pedestal for its cash giveaways. A transmission project with an NIETC is suddenly eligible for piles of taxpayer cash. Funny how that works, when the enabling statute actually says NIETCs should be designated for the purpose of benefiting electric consumers.

Once a developer requests a NIETC for its project and DOE approves, permitting for the transmission project shifts to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. FERC wants to open a separate permitting process for such a project, to run at the same time as your state permitting process. That way, if your state denies a permit, FERC is standing there poised with its rubber stamp to overrule what your state utility experts decide.

Don't miss your opportunity to let DOE know what you think online so that you don't have to stand outside FERC's building and sing a song like this some day.

Ready? Go here.

Just fill out the form. You can even check a box to remain anonymous. You don't have to give your name (although, personally, I always prefer to own my words).

The deadline for comments is just a week away on July 31!

Don't know what to say? If the information in this blog isn't enough for you to compose a comment, then you may find inspiration reading some of the comments that have already been submitted. They cover a wide range from obsequious greedy transmission developers, to other government agencies, to citizens just like you.

Get your comments in now before time runs out!!!

2 Comments

Big Green Groups Pretend They Represent Landowner Interests

6/21/2023

1 Comment

After watching the spectacle of all the environmental groups aligned with renewable energy company Invenergy taking up space and advocating for Grain Belt Express at the Missouri Public Service Commission a couple weeks ago, it's hard to imagine these groups are "protecting" landowner rights. But that's just what they are currently purporting to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

FERC has opened a Rulemaking proceeding in order to update its rules for permitting interstate transmission projects. Although this ability was originally granted in the Energy Policy Act of 2005, several court decisions nullified it for more than a decade. However, the Investment and Jobs Act (aka Bipartisan Energy Bill) nullified the court decisions and reinvigorated FERC's authority by directing FERC to permit transmission lines that are denied by state regulatory commissions. The time to oppose this provision has passed. It's been signed into law. Now we have to deal with reality.

And reality is in shaping the existing rules to make a federal permitting (and eminent domain) process as fair as possible for landowners. A group of transmission opposition group leaders from across the country submitted initial comments to FERC last month. We recommended several steps FERC could take, and things it could add to its review, in order to level the playing field for landowners who find themselves involved in pitched battles to save their property through no fault of their own. Nobody asks to have a transmission line sited on their property. It just happens. And then these unfortunate landowners suddenly find themselves having to hire lawyers and get involved in energy permitting. Nothing at all fair about that. FERC should not be making participation harder for landowners.

But a bunch of other groups also filed comments at FERC, including a whole bunch of environmental, policy and partisan political groups who think we should build a whole bunch of new transmission in a big ol' hurry. When we wrote our comments, we didn't dwell on environmental policy and environmental requirements for FERC's new rules. That's not in our wheelhouse. We are not the experts at environmental policy. We left that to the environmental groups to file comments advising FERC how it should write its environmental rules. However, those environmental groups did not give landowners the same courtesy. After telling FERC how they love new transmission "for renewables" and demanding that FERC enable a quick and expensive transmission building renaissance, these environmental policy and political groups proceeded to weigh in on creating fair rules for landowners and local community opposition groups. What do these groups know about transmission opposition and landowner concerns? Turns out nothing at all. What do these groups know about transmission permitting cases? Turns out nothing at all. These groups don't know diddly about landowner concerns because it is not in their wheelhouse. They are not groups whose mission is protecting landowners from electric transmission companies. In fact, their missions are to "help" the environment by building more wind + solar + transmission.

Isn't that the fox watching the hen house? You betcha!

This week, the Impacted Landowners group filed reply comments telling FERC that it should ignore the claims of environmental policy and political groups that they represent the interests of landowners. The landowners asked FERC to hold a listening session exclusively for landowners so they could hear our concerns without us being drowned out by a bunch of know-nothings who have their own interests at heart, not ours.

rm22-7_reply_comments_final.pdf
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What logic is there to FERC ignoring the concerns of landowners who might participate in FERC permitting cases, while shaping them to give advantage to big green political groups? We are being marginalized by a bunch of blowhards who claim to be representing our needs but in actuality are doing nothing more than helping themselves by mowing us down. If FERC wants to fairly issue transmission permits that are not bogged down by landowner opposition and appeals, then it must listen to landowners, not clueless policy groups who have never been involved with transmission permitting or even spoken with a rural landowner targeted by transmission.

MYOB, big green groups. We don't want or need your "help."

1 Comment

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PJM's Board Approved New Transmission Projects - Now What?

PJM Thinks It Has You Handled

PJM's Altered Reality

Grain Belt Express Asks For Loan From Shady DOE Office

U.S. DOE Box Checks EIS Scoping

How the Community Consultation Sausage is Made

Game on, PJM!

Did You Comment on NIETCs?

Don't Be A Federal Eminent Domain Victim

Big Green Groups Pretend They Represent Landowner Interests

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