But after running out the clock with years of study, TVA President Bill Johnson said the utility would back out of the plan — leaving the Clean Line project twisting in the wind.

Late last month, TVA decided not to buy the wind energy it had been window shopping for nearly six years.

The deal was sealed after it became apparent to Clean Line that TVA had little appetite to complete a six-year-old memorandum of understanding to purchase the project’s wind power.

In the meantime, Clean Line founder and president Mike Skelly told RTO Insider, the company will focus on its four other long-haul HVDC projects.
“We’re adapting to the headwinds,” Skelly said. “You have to adapt.”

In response to several queries from Talk Business & Politics, Clean Line on Wednesday (Jan. 3) issued a statement saying a recent decision by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to drop its six-year-old interconnection agreement with the Texas partnership has put the project on hiatus.

“The need for low-cost renewable energy in Arkansas remains and the benefits the Plains & Eastern Clean Line will deliver to the state have not changed. Clean Line Energy is retaining all permits and acquired rights-of-way in Arkansas while we continue to evaluate energy markets and will respond accordingly,” said Clean Line Founder & President Michael Skelly. “Unfortunately, TVA’s reluctance to enter into an agreement with Clean Line … at this time has delayed our ability to deliver low-cost, renewable energy to the Southeast U.S. and jobs and investment to Arkansas.”

No terms of the deal were disclosed, but regulatory and court filings show that Clean Line appraised the value of its Oklahoma assets north of $1 billion.

But it was exactly two years ago Clean Line cleared its biggest regulatory hurdle in Tennessee when the TVA board unanimously voted to approve the Texas partnerships’ application for a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity to operate as a wholesale transmission-only public utility in Tennessee. At the time, TVA said there was a need to connect the supply of thousands of megawatts of new wind energy in the Oklahoma Panhandle with the increasing demand of utilities in the Mid-South and Southeast.

Clean Line has often touted TVA’s “letter of interest” stating that the project presented a valuable option for affordable energy for the Tennessee utility conglomerate, whose largest customer is the city of Memphis.

The nation's biggest wind generator, NextEra Energy Resources, has bought the Oklahoma portion of the proposed 700-mile-long Plains and Eastern Line to serve Oklahoma and Midwest customers. But for now, plans to bring wind energy from the windy areas of Oklahoma and Texas into the less-windy Tennessee Valley and Southeastern part of the United States are stalled and unlikely to be resurrected for years.

"Unfortunately, this represents a significant delay in our ability to deliver this energy in the Southeast," Skelly said of the decision not to actively pursue the project at this time. "TVA's lack of interest has certainly not been helpful."

Skelly said other utilities want to buy wind-generated power, and Clean Line is now focusing on its four other transmission projects in the Midwest and the Western part of the United States. NextEra will use the Oklahoma part of the Plains and Eastern line to begin serving parts of Oklahoma, Kansas with wind-generated power that NextEra plans to develop.

"We are hanging onto our permits and rights of way in Arkansas in the event TVA in the future says it might like this power somewhere down the line, " Skelly said. "But at this point it would take considerably more effort to get this project moving for TVA again."


"TVA obviously has to make its own decisions about its future power supply, and we understand that," Skelly said. "But for now, we've stopped the process [of pursuing an interconnection agreement with TVA] because TVA required a whole lot of money to continue in this process but they have not wanted to make any commitments to buy the energy off of this line."

But Skelly said other utilities have found that their projections about the costs of using a variable source of power like wind have often proven more than expected "and as battery and other storage methods become better, wind will prove even more attractive."

"We think we gave TVA a very good offer, but apparently they did not," he said. "We're still getting a lot of interest from other utilities that want to increase their renewable energy and see wind as a good way to achieve that at a reasonable cost."

Skelly said Duke Power and other Southeastern utilities have expressed interest in buying more wind-generated power, but TVA was needed to buy and/or readily transmit the 3,500 megawatts the line was designed to deliver to Memphis.

Skelly said he and his partners have been working on the Clean Line transmission project for more than eight years and have had to battle local landowners who didn't want to sell their land and regulators in Arkansas who balked at permitting the transmission line rights of way to a developer from another state.
"We've been able to overcome those obstacles, but we always knew when we started it wouldn't necessarily be easy or quick," he said. "But we do think it is the right choice in the long run."

The electric utility supply of the United States is based on a sharing of facilities and energy sources for both purposes of supply and reliability. There are two transmission corridors whose final sections exist for the benefit of Sudbury, Maynard, and Concord. One begins in Medway and passes through Sherborn, Natick, Framingham, and Wayland. The second, which begins in Waltham, passes through Weston. In effect, the citizens of Medway, Sherborn, Wayland, Weston, Waltham, Framingham, and Natick have had to sacrifice some of their environment for the benefit of Sudbury.

A large group in Sudbury, Protect Sudbury, opposes this line, either overhead or underground, if built along an existing MBTA right-of-way. The group also opposes any overhead line through any route in Sudbury. If only the citizens of Wayland and Weston could have successfully opposed the construction of transmission towers in their towns that supply Sudbury! No tower, no power!

Emotional challenges to a project can cause projects sponsors to respond with facts, but those facts are often drowned out if the parties are unwilling to compromise. In this presentation, we will have an in-depth analysis of how to respond to exaggerated or false claims and how to manage project opposition explained with real-life case study/scenarios.

Grain Belt’s case seeks to have the PSC divested of its role in exclusive role of deciding on whether utility projects are in the state’s best interest. “The urgency in answering this question is driven by a statewide financial impact on hundreds of thousands of Missouri electrical consumers who will pay higher power prices if the Grain Belt Express wind transmission line is not built,” the company said in its announcement.

No party to this proceeding is contesting the fact that before Grain Belt may build the line, at some point it must obtain the necessary County Commission consents under § 229.100. In fact, Grain Belt has conceded that point throughout these proceedings.

Thus the basic issue in this case is whether Grain Belt must obtain the county consents before the CCN may be issued, or whether it is allowed by law to obtain those county consents after the PSC issues the CCN. In either event, as Grain Belt concedes, the County consents are required before the line may be built.

Grain Belt Express has entered a transmission service agreement (“Services Agreement” or “TSA”) with the Missouri Joint Municipal Electric Utility Commission (“Joint Municipalities” or “MJMEUC”) to purchase up to 250 MW of capacity from the Project, which would save hundreds of thousands of electrical consumers millions of dollars annually.

The Project has received regulatory approval from the relevant utility commissions in Kansas, Illinois and Indiana. Each state independently determined the Project is in the public interest and issued certificates for construction of the Project across those states. Missouri is the final state in which regulatory approval is needed for the Project to proceed.

The Commissioners identified numerous benefits the Project would have had in the public interest: “lowered energy production costs in Missouri by $40 million or more”; “a substantial and favorable effect on the reliability of electric service in Missouri”; “positive environmental impacts”; “supported 1,527 total jobs over three years, created $246 million in personal income [including easement payments], $476 million in GDP, and $9.6 million in state general revenue for the state of Missouri, and $249 million in Missouri-specific manufacturing and personal service contract spending”; and resulted in “a total of approximately $7.2 million” in yearly property tax benefits to affected counties.

In contrast, § 229.100 is a non-PSC law that relates to county roads. It requires those who wish to erect poles and power wires, or lay pipes across public roads of any county to obtain the assent of county commissioners under rules established by the county engineer.

The Court should accept transfer to secure for all Missourians the full extent of the benefits identified by the PSC, including substantial and proper leasehold payments to landowners, and to allow Missourians to begin enjoying these benefits immediately.

The Services Agreement between Grain Belt Express and the Joint Municipalities allows the Joint Municipalities to purchase up to 250 MW of from the Project.

The savings expected under the Services Agreement are indicative of what other energy purchasers throughout the state would realize and will ultimately be passed on Missouri energy consumers.

The availability of these PTCs substantially lowers overall development costs of wind-generation projects, which allows Grain Belt Express to pass on the cost savings to its customers. Grain Belt Express, like many other industry members, is relying on the availability of PTCs to complete the Project as cost-effectively as possible to deliver maximum cost-savings to energy consumers. Without the benefit of the PTCs, the completion of Project is in jeopardy and the savings to Missourians at risk.

The goal is to alleviate congestion on the high-voltage electric grid, and benefit customers in the region, including parts of Pennsylvania and Maryland, Transource said in a news release. 

Abby Foster, a community affairs representative for the company, said typical farming practices in both counties will be able to continue in the rights-of-way. She also said that based on the feedback from the community, Transource will use a monopole structure for the towers, instead of the lattice structure which was in the original proposal. 
“By including community members in the siting process, rather than engaging them after decisions were made, we were able to consider and accommodate many landowner requests,” said Transource Director Todd Burns.

Foster added that over the next couple of weeks the company will contact  landowners with property on the proposed route. She said during this time, owners can raise issues like potential crop loss during construction or access roads that need to be built, and negotiate compensation.
 
"They're really looking to minimize and reduce any impacts that might occur to any agricultural practices," Foster said on behalf of Transource.

The company, which has almost 40 employees, has no current source of revenue.

“You would think in eight years, you would have sort of a lull, but it’s a sort of a mad dash every day to move these projects forward,” Skelly said. “It’s more like an Ironman [Triathlon], not a marathon. It’s more like a decathlon, but it goes on for eight years.”

... neither TVA nor any other utility has signed a contract to buy the power the project would transmit.

Skelly said that while landowners’ opposition to transmission projects is “understandable,” the pushback from within the industry is more frustrating.
...................
Pointing to Commonwealth Edison’s opposition to the Rock Island project in Illinois, he said, “Why are they doing that?..."

Clean Line has worked hard in Missouri to gain community support for Grain Belt.

“You have to build alliances,” Skelly said. “We’ve got support from labor groups, environmental groups, business groups, from political leaders … doing these projects without building those types of alliances would be really, really difficult.”

Skelly has said seeking DOE authority for the Grain Belt and Rock Island lines is an option but not his first choice because it is slow and costly.

Clean Line spokeswoman Sarah Bray said Bluescape is now the company’s “principal investor,” although National Grid, ZBI and the Zilkha family have retained equity stakes.

Rock Island Clean Line: The Illinois Supreme Court opinion said that Rock Island Clean Line is not a public utility, and therefore may not use eminent domain to acquire land for its project. The Court reasoned that since RICL had claimed it has not asked for eminent domain authority, that it didn’t need it and should proceed to build its project without eminent domain authority. I urge you to read and report on the actual Opinion, instead of taking the loser’s view of the case as a fact. See http://www.blockricl.com
In addition to not being a public utility in Illinois, RICL has also been denied the ability to ever use eminent domain in Iowa through new legislation passed last year. See https://www.iowastopricl.com

Grain Belt Express: The Illinois Supreme Court opinion on RICL determined it was not a public utility. If RICL isn’t a public utility, than neither is GBE, which is an identical project that also runs through Illinois. There is currently an appeal in the Illinois 5th District Court, an opinion can come at any time. The issue in that appeal is whether GBE was a public utility at the time it applied for its CPCN at the Illinois Commerce Commission. If RICL cannot be a public utility even after receiving a (since vacated) CPCN, than GBE cannot be a public utility before it even applies. GBE is denied for the third time in Missouri, and the opponents also filed an appeal in the Western District Court of Appeals. It is unclear which court will hear the appeal, and unlikely that the Western District will be overturned. Remember, the Western District’s opinion has already been examined by the Missouri Supreme Court and let stand. These are all fatal issues for GBE.

Plains & Eastern: The Arkansas delegation met with Rick Perry again just recently. Maybe you should ask them what they think, instead of asking Skelly what they think? While Skelly reports they have bought right-of-way, he failed to mention that right-of-way acquisition stopped months ago, and a land agent told a landowner that Clean Line was stopping all land acquisition because it had “bought too much right-of-way.” Skelly also forgot to tell the reporter about the recent rejection of Clean Line’s offer of $80M to the Cherokee Nation in exchange for rights to cross the Arkansas River. Without the Cherokee Nation’s permission, P&E is sunk. The reporter also completely failed to mention the ongoing Federal court challenge to DOE’s presumption that Section 1222 gives it condemnation authority. An important hearing is coming up next month.

Who benefits from the project? For this project, PJM projects $622 million in cost savings for consumers in 10 power zones. Those zones are listed below and displayed on the map to the right. Generally speaking, when low-cost electricity is introduced into the market, it helps drive the overall competitiveness of the electric grid for all power zones.

Benefiting Power Zones Identified by PJM:

American Electric Power Co., Inc, Allegheny Power Systems, Baltimore Gas & Electric, ComEd, Dayton Power and Light Company, Duke Energy Ohio and Kentucky, Duquesne Light, Dominion, East Kentucky Power Cooperative, Potomac Electric Power Company.

The high-voltage electric grid operates across towns, counties and state boundaries. As such, the benefit of this project is not confined
to geographical boundaries. Customer-driven improvement projects in one area of the grid can benefit customers on another part of the electric grid. For example, recent improvements made in Indiana and Westmoreland counties, more than 100 miles away, improved how the grid operates in York County.

TITLE XIV ROADS AND WATERWAYS Chapter 229 Provisions Relating to All Roads
Section 229.100. Improvements along public roads--location--control.
229.100. No person or persons, association, companies or corporations shall erect poles for the suspension of electric light, or power wires, or lay and maintain pipes, conductors, mains and conduits for any purpose whatever, through, on, under or across the public roads or highways of any county of this state, without first having obtained the assent of the county commission of such county therefor; and no poles shall be erected or such pipes, conductors, mains and conduits be laid or maintained, except under such reasonable rules and regulations as may be prescribed and promulgated by the county highway engineer, with the approval of the county commission.

The proposed Chokecherry Sierra Madre wind energy project could face challenges selling power in the desert southwest, officials told lawmakers in Casper last week.

The energy generated from the proposed 1,000-turbine site will be carried along a high power transmission line to California and the desert southwest.

California, however, is being difficult.

“We have a huge issue in California in that Californians would like to keep all of the development and buy all of their power from within their borders,” she said.

“We call it the missing buyer syndrome. The need is still there … we believe the market is there, but we are right now caught in a limbo.”

Clean Line Energy Partners, a Houston-based company that proposes to bring wind-generated power from Oklahoma and Texas to the Southeast along a $2.5 billion transmission line, says it could deliver power to TVA at less than 2 cents per kilowatt-hour.

But the utility has yet to commit to buying any of the 3,500 megawatts of wind-generated power Clean Line Energy will bring to the western edge of TVA's territory along its 720-mile transmission line from near Diamond, Okla. TVA said it doesn't need more power generation because of the stagnant demand for electricity in its seven-state region, and Johnson said TVA still would have to maintain or build other generation capacity to make up for the Clean Line energy when the wind doesn't blow.

"The price [from Clean Line Power], in and of itself, is a good price for wind," Johnson said. "But it actually costs us a lot more to import it and to make sure we have gas plants running or capable of running in case the wind doesn't show up."

Johnson estimates having the additional capacity to make up for when the wind doesn't blow or the sun doesn't shine typically adds at least 2 cents per kilowatt-hour to the quoted price of such renewable energy.

"At the moment, we have yet to conclude that [buying power from Clean Line Energy] is the right fit for what we are doing," he said.

"But I am mostly pro consumer, so we want what is the best price, the most reliable and the cleanest power for the consumer," he said. "Given our demand projections, we actually don't need any additional generating capacity at this time."

The Trump administration could help by pushing for an infrastructure package that would see the government “buying down a portion of the capacity” on big transmission projects so they can enter construction more quickly, or perhaps through an investment tax credit, Skelly suggests.

“All the ideas come down to a temporary underwriting of the project so you can get these things over the top, or some sort of tax mechanism.”

Dozens of developers are competing to offer Massachusetts the best price for long-term contracts to supply clean energy to hundreds of thousands of homes. But many of the projects face a challenge: convincing residents of northern New England that it's in their interest to host the Bay State's extension cord.

Offshore wind is still a relatively costly technology, but here's one advantage: You can build ocean-based windmills pretty close to the demand centers, and avoid all those long transmission lines.