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Landowners Are Not a Problem That Needs Solving

6/16/2024

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Academics who have never had a transmission line proposed across their property are at it again, writing their idiotic "reports" that claim to find the reason why transmission projects draw opposition and are not successful.  I've seen many versions of this "save the transmission world" report, and exactly none of them have gotten it right.  I think it's because they are inherently biased to think that transmission is "good" and "desperately needed."  They believe, deep down in their highly educated souls, that impacted landowners are simply speed bumps on the road to transmission "progress" and that they can figure out new ways to make landowners either acquiesce, or advocate for new transmission to cross their properties.  It's nothing but a psy op.

Nobody likes new transmission across their property.  NOBODY!  Anyone who said transmission was a great idea is either not affected, or their advocacy is being purchased with favorable treatment and ego-stroking (and cash helps, too!).

This new report (see "How Grid Projects Get Stuck" at the bottom of the page) makes conclusions about why the Grain Belt Express stalled out for so long and thinks it has now been successful.  Complete lack of accuracy!  GBE is in as much trouble now as it's ever been.  It's got its corporate head shoved too far up the Biden administration's rear end, hoping for government favors to pull itself out of the dumpster.  How much of our tax dollars will the federal government waste on a project that has never been needed?

And, speaking of need, the researchers did not seem to understand what they were told about lack of need for GBE, no matter how much people tried to educate them.  GBE, as a merchant transmission project, has not been found needed by regional transmission organizations for reliability, public policy, or economic reasons. If it had any of those benefits and its cost was less than the benefits it offered, a RTO would have ordered the project.  No RTO ordered GBE because there was no need for it, not because they are biased against outsiders.  If it's not found needed by an RTO, it is not needed.  Everyone (but the researchers) understands that.  GBE was a speculative venture, a value proposition that never could find any customers who thought it provided enough value to sign a contract.  When a project is not needed by a regional transmission planner, and it can't find any customers that think it's an economic value, then it's a completely unnecessary project.  It is like McDonald's eyeing your front yard -- GBE wants to take your front yard so it can build a transmission project for one simple reason -- PROFIT.  Not because it's needed, or because it provides economic value.  Incumbent utilities may be for profit, but they are also public utilities with an obligation to serve.  GBE is not a public utility.  GBE is only trying to create profit, not serve consumers who need electricity.

The researchers honed in on the disrespectful way Clean Line treated landowners, even mentioning the "Marketing to Mayberry" episode.  Skelly gets faulted for his approach to local governments and elected officials before landowners were even notified.  That pretty much set the tone, didn't it?  How different things might have turned out if Skelly approached landowners first and actually paid attention to their desire for the project to be sited along transportation corridors and buried.  It would be operating right now, if it had attracted customers.  Instead, Skelly and then Invenergy, just kept dumping hundreds of millions of dollars into a plan that was badly conceived from the beginning.  GBE didn't listen to landowners.

The things the researchers think GBE did wrong ultimately don't mean anything though because they picked up on the wrong things, things that wouldn't have made a difference in the long run.
  • Regulatory institutions are stacked against new players.
  • Public and regulators' understandings of public interest and public need enable parochialism. 
  • This case highlights a fundamental mismatch between the scale of costs and benefits for long-haul transmission infrastructure. 
  • The traditional model of community engagement, centered around mass meetings and evaluation of alternatives, failed to satisfy either the developer or the community. 
  • Community members are aware of alternative process models and technologies, and they anchor their judgments to their knowledge of these alternatives.
  • Public opinion favors incumbent entities and processes.​
What?  Poor, poor, rich little Michael Skelly.  Everyone was against him!  As they should have been!  He was only interested in plundering for profit.  Landowners have no use for him, and sent him packing back to Houston.  And did our slick willie friend learn anything from his failure?  I doubt it, judging from this article about his new company trying to build a transmission line through Montana.  SSDD.  You can almost smell the failure wafting its way from that article,

State regulators have a duty to consider the public impacts of new transmission.  That's not parochialism, that's doing their job.  State regulators don't work for merchant transmission companies, or electric consumers in other states.  They only work for the public in their jurisdiction.

Projects without benefits will never be accepted by impacted landowners.  Even projects with some supposed benefit for "the public" don't matter when it's your home and your money on the line.

Yes, the utility model of keeping the public uninformed until the project and its routes are set in stone is unhelpful.  Transmission developers that operate in secret fail in public.  But what's the alternative?  Would developers approach communities and ask them upfront what kind of project they should build?  That is unlikely because the whole public engagement process is built on an enormous misconception.  Developers (and researchers) believe that if they can only "educate" (propagandize) impacted communities, that they can turn opposition into support.  That is NEVER going to happen.  Nobody wants a transmission line. NOBODY.  Self preservation is always stronger than bullshit.

The road to success is staring transmission developers, big green transmission advocates, and their government flunkies right in the face.  It's a transmission project that does not need any new land.  No new land, no eminent domain, no impacts, no opposition.

First of all, we should build new power generation near the power load.  When new transmission is needed, it must be routed on existing linear easements, such as road, rail, or underwater.  Building a gigantic network of transmission lines for the sole purpose of connecting wind and solar projects to load in distant cities, and trying to use transmission to make up for the intermittent nature of these unreliable sources of electricity is not going to save them.  Remote wind and solar is an infeasible money pit.  The only thing it's been successful at is making the rich richer.

Landowners who don't want new transmission lines on their property are not a "problem" to be solved.
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Transmission Turf War in Oklahoma

7/10/2023

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New government giveaways have created a land rush in the Oklahoma panhandle to build a forest of wind turbines.  Greedy energy speculators have arrived to exploit Oklahoma and plunder its riches for their own gain.

The Oklahoma panhandle has long been a wind energy speculator's holy grail due to its wind speeds, however it has also been impossible to develop due to its remote location far from gigantic transmission lines for export to other states.  First there was Clean Line Energy Partners, who thought if they built a 700-mile transmission line from the panhandle to Memphis that other companies would build wind turbines in the panhandle and energy consumers in Memphis would eagerly buy whatever electricity was delivered.  Oops!  That didn't work out so swell.  There never were any customers for that idea and Clean Line went belly up after wasting $200M of its investors' money.  However, on its way to dissolution, Clean Line sold the remnants of its project idea to NextEra Energy Resources.  NextEra bought only the Oklahoma portion of the project.  The purchase included rights-of-way that has been acquired by Clean Line.  NextEra has been sitting on this purchase like a chicken on an egg since 2017, waiting for the political tides to change.

And then there was WindCatcher, which wound up about the time Clean Line wound down.  In fact, Clean Line tried to get WindCatcher interested in buying its Oklahoma assets, instead of taking a different route.  WindCatcher was a scheme by American Electric Power subsidiary Public Service Co. of Oklahoma and renewable energy company Invenergy to build the country's largest wind farm in the panhandle and then connect it to eastern Oklahoma via a new transmission line built by PSO.  PSO's first route went just north of Tulsa and was refused by the Osage.  PSO's alternate route went just south of Tulsa to connect near Jenks, but a little town named Bixby formed a tornado of opposition and gave WindCatcher a run for its money.  The project was eventually cancelled when Texas failed to approve its costs being charged to ratepayers.  However, Invenergy sort of jumped the gun on the wind farm part of the project and began minimal construction in order to preserve its federal tax credits for the project.  After WindCatcher was cancelled, Invenergy found itself with a stranded, partly constructed wind farm that it couldn't connect.  Like all creepy critters, Invenergy crawled back under the baseboard and waited patiently until opportunity was ripe to give it another go.

Invenergy and NextEra were finally rewarded for their patience by the current administration's tax money giveaway to anything with "clean" or "transmission" in its name.  The time to strike is now. 

Word has it that NextEra is approaching landowners to get permission to survey for a 500-mile extra high voltage transmission line from Texas/Cimarron Counties to Muskogee/Sequoia Counties, and other areas in the southeast.  (Check a map... it's only 400 miles from the panhandle to Muskogee, at best.  Where is this line really going?).  The route of NextEra's new transmission project sounds almost exactly the same as Clean Line's route through Oklahoma.  NextEra has kept its cards extremely close to the vest, avoiding any media or online presence.  Maybe it's hoping nobody finds out about it yet?  NextEra is certainly not being transparent about its plan and that doesn't bode well for affected landowners and communities.

Invenergy has recently put out its own feelers in a much more public way to build what it's calling the Cimarron Link transmission line.  This transmission project proposes a route from Texas/Cimarron Counties to a substation near Jenks, which almost exactly matches AEP/PSO's WindCatcher route.  Invenergy claims it is reaching out to landowners to negotiate easements.

As if the people of Oklahoma along these very same routes haven't already played this game with either Clean Line or PSO.  There's a thing called "transmission fatigue" which describes a group of landowners who have already battled one transmission line on their properties and are experienced enough to do it again.  No real utility would stupidly try to use the same failed route for another project.  It's like trying to roll a ball uphill.

Do we really NEED two nearly identical transmission lines from the Oklahoma panhandle to the eastern part of the state?  These projects will run more or less parallel within 50 miles of each other.  How many turbines could they realistically build in the panhandle?  Are both sets of these transmission lines and wind farms needed, or will landowners pop some corn and sit back watching these two energy conglomerates from other states duel to the death in order to claim the panhandle?  I wouldn't even think of signing up with either one of them until they finish their duel.
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About As Sneaky As A Herd Of Elephants

3/18/2023

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Well, hey now, what's that noise?  Is it a herd of elephants thundering through private property across the west?

This lovely article says:
John Arnold, a billionaire from Houston, is making a big bet on modernizing the outdated transmission infrastructure in the United States to transport electricity to areas where it is needed, including the distribution of wind and solar energy to towns and cities nationwide for the clean-energy transition. 
Arnold told Bloomberg he has invested "several hundred million dollars" into Houston-based Grid United, a company he co-founded with transmission line developer Michael Skelly, to purchase land, easements, and the necessary permits for constructing electric highways that can stretch hundreds of miles.
Mikey's got a new sugar daddy!  You might be wondering how he found another mark to give him a couple hundred million dollars to play transmission.  If you figure it out, let me know.

Here's the plan:
Arnold and Skelly are planning long-haul transmission lines across multiple states on private land that might be very difficult to achieve because failing to win over every landowner could quickly scuttle the entire project.

"We are trying to break this chicken and egg cycle by acquiring the land position first."
How do you acquire the land first if you're honest with landowners about what you intend to do?  If they want to sell their land, they'll do it.  And if they don't, they won't, no matter how "early" you plan to hustle them.  Does Skelly think he can sneak up on landowners and acquire their "land position" before telling them he plans to build a ginormous overhead transmission line on it?  That's about as subtle as a herd of elephants.  The landowners aren't stupid.  That was Skelly's problem last time... he thought landowners were "just a bunch of farmers" that he could easily bamboozle.  And the next thing you know, he'd pissed away $200M of investor's money and his company folded.  Good times!

Maybe Skelly doesn't know that eminent domain exists for a reason?  It is so that land can be acquired for public use, particularly for long, linear infrastructure that requires the buy-in from hundreds or thousands of landowners.  There's bound to be a fly or two thousand in the ointment.

And, hey, would you look at that?  Skelly is "developing" five new projects, just like last time.  It's like throwing spaghetti on the wall and hoping a few pieces stick.  Didn't work last time.  It just wasted a whole bunch of money that could have gone to better use.

And what do either of these yahoos know about where power is "needed"?  Their knowledge thimble may be only half full.

You'd think after his last spectacular transmission failure Skelly would have learned at least something... like burying transmission on existing highway rights of way is faster and cheaper and doesn't require any landowner participation.

How much money is going to be wasted this time?  Keep your ear to the ground... there may be a herd of elephants approaching.
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Swamp Creature Skelly Uses Government Committee To Score Cash

2/4/2023

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The DC Swamp has gotten bigger than ever.  There are literally billions of dollars in taxpayer funds being tossed around like Monopoly money.  If you're part of the "in" crowd it's time to belly up to the bar and fill your pockets.

Case in point... our old pal Michael Skelly, who has created a new transmission company after he drove Clean Line Energy Partners into the ground.  The new company is called Grid United and has created a suite of five new above ground transmission projects.  Deja vu, anyone?  Now, I'm not sure what kind of an idiot would give this man money to play a new round of "transmission developer" but I think it's a very special kind.  Maybe even a fawning government bureaucrat with your money in his hands?

Michael Skelly seems to have learned absolutely NOTHING from the Clean Line failure, except to avoid the Midwest.  Unfortunately for him, Mayberry is everywhere.  His new "project" brain farts don't stand any higher chance of success than the last ones did.  Nobody wants Skelly's electric obstructions on their land and he's probably in line for a large Deja Vu Daiquiri himself.

But here's something a bit different this time around.  Skelly was rewarded for his Clean Line failure with a choice appointment to a special government committee.  The Secretary of Energy Advisory Board.
The Board provides advice and recommendations to the Secretary of Energy on the Administration's energy policies, the Department's basic and applied research and development activities, economic and national security policy, and on any other activities and operations of the Department of Energy, as the Secretary may direct. The duties of the Board are solely advisory.
The Secretary of Energy, of course, is the political figurehead at the top of the U.S. Department of Energy.  And who is giving out all those billions in "infrastructure" and "clean energy" funds provided by taxpayers?  The U.S. DOE.  And what has Michael Skelly and his committee advised the Secretary to do lately?
For all aspects of DOE transmission funding, prioritize projects which will enhance the interregional ties that will help regions support one another during times of extreme load or generation shortages(e.g., extreme weather events and challenging market conditions).

Prioritization of interregional projects will help compensate for lack of interregional planning, though such projects should not be seen as full substitutes for robust planning.

Ensure that interregional transmission and distribution solution projects are meeting Justice 40 Initiative (e.g., community engagement) and Just Transition (e.g., community benefit agreements) priorities (e.g., preferential weighting criteria within RFP).

Screen all projects against interregional criteria, in part to ensure that there are no interregional projects which would create similar benefits at a lower cost.
And what is Grid United trying to build?  Interregional interconnections, such as North Plains Connector, "...an approximately 385-mile, up to 600 kilovolt high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission line connecting the Eastern and Western Interconnections in Montana and North Dakota."  Or perhaps Pecos West, "...an approximately 280-mile, 525 kilovolt HVDC intertie line stretching from Bakersfield in Pecos County to El Paso, providing a valuable link between ERCOT and the Western Interconnection."   Etc., etc., etc.

Skelly seems rather eager to cash in.
After years of development, the United States is poised for a boom in long-distance transmission, Skelly said, pointing to projects such as Champlain Hudson, SunZia and TransWest Express.

The long-term expansion and extension of renewable energy tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act led to increased certainty that has flowed through to transmission development, according to Skelly.

“The easiest job in America right now is selling HVDC equipment,” he said.

So, to sum it up, Skelly sits on a federal committee that just recommended DOE prioritize giving money to just the kinds of transmission projects Skelly's new company is building.

You'd think there should be laws against that kind of corruption.
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Creepy Time

10/19/2022

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You may recall a blog I did last week regarding the sicko-creep factor of an article that suggested that "big ass" power lines are "sexy." 

You were probably asking yourself... who gets turned on by transmission lines?

Here's your answer.  This little blurb appeared in trade publication "RTO Insider."
Transmission’s Moment

Michael Skelly, founder and CEO of Grid United, marveled at the attentiveness of the audience at his panel discussion Oct. 11.

“It may be that this is because transmission is one of the most legally intense aspects of the energy transition. Or as we say — ruefully — in our company, ‘No lawyer left behind,’” he said. “Or maybe we’re just having a moment with transmission. ... Transmission was in Esquire magazine. Come on.” Esquire’s article was titled, "The Sexiest Part of the Clean Energy Transition Is Big-Ass Power Lines.”

So begins another round of inapt and downright weird analogies from Michael Skelly.  How I've enjoyed the past 4 years while he was curled up underneath the couch licking his wounds, quiet as a mouse.

Halloween may come, and Halloween may go, but Michael Skelly is creepy all year around.

P.S.  If you really want to scare yourself, click the link to the RTO Insider article to see a recent photo of the creepiness.  You are each probably responsible for a particular wrinkle or sag.  Just where is my copy of the Picture of Dorian Gray anyhow?
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FERC Complaint Changes Everything You Thought You Knew About Grain Belt Express

9/8/2022

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Isn't it high time to stop Invenergy's posturing about how "advanced" Grain Belt Express is, or how much of a "sure thing" it is.  Here's the reality I've been continually serving up for years, now bolstered by both MISO and MISO transmission owners:  Grain Belt Express is a speculative project that can't be completed because it doesn't have enough customers.  Here, I even created a fresh one!
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Invenergy is so full of themselves lately that maybe now they even believe their own exaggerations about how "needed" they are?  What else could explain the recent Complaint Invenergy filed against Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)?  At any rate, filing that complaint could begin a new section of Invenergy's Grain Belt Express scrapbook entitled "The Beginning of the End."  Well, if Invenergy is keeping a scrapbook, that is....

Invenergy filed its complaint in the beginning of August, claiming that MISO wrongly excluded GBE from its recent Long Range Transmission Plan (LRTP).  Invenergy said that although MISO's rules require a merchant transmission project to have a signed interconnection agreement (IA) or to be included in a utility's state-approved integrated resource plan in order to be a part of the plan, Grain Belt should also be included because it is an "advanced stage merchant transmission" project.  Invenergy said that by failing to include a completed and operating GBE in the model of the MISO transmission system that is used to identify new projects, MISO was hurting ratepayers by making them pay for projects that might not be necessary if GBE was included.  In plain English -- some of the projects that MISO approved in its LRTP may be a better deal for GBE's prospective customers!!!

Here's a map of MISO's recently approved Tranche 1 LRTP.
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As MISO confirmed in its Answer to the Complaint, Invenergy's problem is the series of lines beginning at "Orient" Iowa (its the name of a substation, not necessarily a town) connecting to Fairport, Missouri, connecting to Zachary, Thomas and Maywood, Missouri, and ending at Meredosia, Illinois as shown on the above map.
On March 17, 2021, MISO laid out its initial roadmap for LRTP transmission solutions based on the Futures analysis. The initial roadmap included a proposed line from central Iowa, through northern Missouri, with two offshoots further south into Missouri with one in a similar area as the proposed Point(s) of Connection for the GBX Line, and finally into central Illinois.
 
It was announced during that meeting that the analysis had been completed on the proposed Transmission Solutions linking central Iowa to Northern Missouri to central Illinois and that those upgrades would be included in the LRTP portfolio. It was only after this announcement that Invenergy approached MISO to express its views regarding the GBX Line and how it interacted with LRTP.
Or, as Missourian Norman Fishel said in his Comments on Invenergy's complaint filed at FERC:
In comments to MISO, Invenergy claimed that “[f]ailure to account for the GBX Line may cause economic harm to GBX.”

Grain Belt Express acknowledges how it intends to edge out new MISO projects by taking their place:

“Across the Midwest and Great Plains, several potential transmission projects have been proposed over the next decade to address regional reliability needs, enable the delivery of power to load centers, reduce congestion, and unlock renewables potential. While there still may be a need for localized upgrades, given that the Project addresses these broader goals, it stands to logically reason that the Project could plausibly defer/eliminate the need for certain future major transmission developments."
Well, talk about overestimating your own importance!  Invenergy must think that it can control MISO's planning the same way it has grabbed various state politicians by the scruff of their neck and owned them.

A merchant transmission project cannot just horn into a regional transmission plan and claim it's accomplishing the same goals and therefore make the regional transmission organization cancel its own projects.  It just doesn't work that way.  MISO plans its own system.  MISO also manages generator connections like GBE to make sure they don't compromise the system.
Invenergy also compares the expected timeline of its proposed projects to the expected timelines of the LRTP Tranche 1 projects, but that comparison does not help Invenergy’s argument, even if taken on its face value. Under the Tariff, the MTEP is “developed to facilitate the timely and orderly expansion of and/or modification to the [MISO] Transmission System.

Including projects without sufficient certainty, regardless of timeline, does not advance system reliability.
In other words, MISO cannot count on speculative merchant transmission projects to ensure reliability.

Couple other things MISO said in its Answer, which I urge you to read carefully:
  1. GBE kept changing its interconnection requests in both size and location.
  2. GBE still has an interconnection position in Ralls County.  MISO doesn't know what its intention is with this.
  3. GBE's interconnections are all unidirectional -- they have asked for permission to inject energy into MISO, not withdraw it.  Beware any entity that has been promised service from MISO to PJM (MJMEUC).  Or any entity that has been told how GBE could reverse directions and move power from east to west in an emergency.  It just can't happen.
  4. "Invenergy has only requested to operate the GBX Line as a long generator lead line."  That's a quote.
  5. "Adopting Invenergy’s proposals will reduce the precision of MISO’s planning models by making them subject to an MHVDC [merchant] Connection Customer’s changes or withdrawals." and "Invenergy’s proposals may inappropriately assign costs driven by the GBX Line to MISO load. The Commission should not allow Invenergy to unilaterally mold MISO’s MHVDC connection and planning processes to fit its commercial proposals."
  6. No load serving entity (electric utility) in MISO said it was "planning on the GBX Line as a resource to meet their plans/goals."
  7. Invenergy told MISO that Ameren was ordered to include GBE in its Integrated Resource Plan by the MO PSC, but "Ameren’s 2022 IRP update does appear to not mention the inclusion of the GBX Line."  Sounds like another case of Invenergy using stale information to misleadingly bolster its project.  Be sure to verify everything Invenergy says from now on (more on why in the section of this post about Norm Fishel's comments).
  8. MISO's rules "protect MISO customers from unjust and unreasonable rates that could result from the incorporation of premature or incorrect assumptions about future projects without sufficient certainty."  Here's the thing... GBE can be cancelled at any time due to lack of customers.  If MISO counts on it and that happens, MISO would have to quickly plan projects to take its place that may be less efficient and more expensive.
  9. "The reality, however, is that projects and business plans change and the GBX Line proposal is a prime example..."
  10. "[Invenergy's] proposed definition of “Advanced Stage Merchant Transmission” is completely unsupported."  Read Norm's comments to see why "Advanced-stage merchant transmission has no definition, and even seems to change depending upon the venue in which Invenergy finds itself.  In its recent Missouri Application, Invenergy claims that its project has not yet reached an advanced stage..."
  11. MISO explains how adding a speculative merchant transmission project to the models before the interconnections are approved causes new lines to support those interconnections to appear in the plan earlier, where they are paid for by captive ratepayers, instead of the merchant that caused them... "...relieving Invenergy of its obligations to pay for upgrades needed to accommodate its interconnection." 
  12. "MISO is concerned that the Complaint is merely a vehicle to address one entity’s commercial preferences or use MISO’s processes to enable a specific project rather than an identification of a genuine need."  And if Invenergy was looking for MISO to support building GBE, it can now be sadly disappointed.  All the malarkey about reliability, need, lower prices can now be chucked out the window.  Reliability, need and cheaper electricity prices are what MISO does.  MISO says GBE is not needed for any of those purposes.  Who are you going to believe?  An impartial grid planner or a self-interested profit-seeking corporation?
And if you think the MISO Answer is derisive towards GBE, don't miss the Protest of MISO Transmission Owners (TO).  This entity consists of a large group of utilities that own transmission lines that serve MISO and who have fully participated in MISO's planning process which came up with the new lines Invenergy objects to, including Ameren.  The TOs don't mince words.  You should probably read this to yourself using a sneering voice:
Invenergy also fails to show that the GBX Line should receive special treatment and circumvent the MISO planning process. As a project that is not yet certain, MISO properly excluded the GBX Line from the planning studies for LRTP projects.
The TOs go on to point out why GBE is speculative.
Invenergy claims that its GBX Line, a merchant high voltage direct current (“MHVDC”) transmission project designed to carry up to 5,000 megawatts (“MW”) of energy, should have been accounted for in MISO’s transmission planning analyses even though it has not yet obtained all necessary approvals and interconnection agreements, and its prospects for achieving such statuses are not at all certain.
The TOs make other points too righteous to ignore:
  1. "In the instant proceeding, Invenergy asks the Commission to render MISO’s transmission planning process null by compelling MISO—after MISO’s Board approved LRTP Tranche 1 Portfolio on July 25, 2022—to conduct a sensitivity of the Tranche 1 projects that accesses the potential impact of the GBX Line assuming it is ever finished, based solely on an unsubstantiated allegation that the Tranche 1 benefits metrics may be flawed because they did not account for this speculative project."
  2. Invenergy's attempt to disrupt MISO's planning is "particularly egregious."
  3. "Unless and until the firm generation and load customers are identified by Invenergy, the GBX Line cannot be modeled..."
  4. "Invenergy had multiple opportunities to participate in the numerous stages of the process whose outcome it now seeks to upend."  But it did not until it thought the process might hurt its project.
  5. "Invenergy repeatedly describes how much money it has expended toward completion of the GBX Line as evidence that the line is at an advanced stage near completion. However, a developer can spend many years in development and millions of dollars on an MHVDC project that will never be completed. For example, the Rock Island Clean Line project (“Clean Line”) failed to reach completion despite its half-decade and multi-million dollar efforts.  Had MISO assumed the Clean Line project would be constructed in its long-term planning processes based simply on the time and money that had been invested in the project, there is no telling how many changes and new plans would have been needed once it became clear the project would not go forward."
This quote deserves to be highlighted:
While Invenergy explains the status of the GBX Line noting the number of approvals and permits it has obtained, the prospects for the project are far from certain. For example, as Invenergy concedes, permits are still required in one state. In addition, on August 24, 2022, Invenergy submitted an amended Certificate of Convenience and Necessity Application in Missouri to request significant changes in the GBX Line.   Invenergy also has not yet executed interconnection agreements with half of the transmission systems it proposes to interconnect—MISO and PJM.
Speculative... far from certain... not advanced enough to be included in regional transmission planning.  So, you might ask youself, what the living spit is the Missouri Public Service Commission doing allowing such a project to CONDEMN and take land from the good people of Missouri?

And, let's end this section with the following quote from the TOs:
The Commission should deny Invenergy’s attempt to obtain preferred treatment for the GBX line.
Don't miss the Comments of Missouri's own Norman Fishel asking that FERC deny Invenergy's complaint.  They were written for "real people" and are perfectly understandable.  Norm gathers information from Invenergy's various applications, comments, and permits to show, "Grain Belt Express seems to be like a chameleon, its description changing depending upon the venue it finds itself in, and the goal of its filing." 
Norm says that GBE doesn't even consider itself to be an "advanced-stage" project.  He also points out that GBE  has NO state approvals, since all the state permits will have to be re-approved due to changes in the project.  He points out that GBE only has one valid interconnection, since it has proposed changes to its SPP interconnection in Kansas that have not yet been approved.  And, perhaps my favorite part is where Norm baldly demonstrates that Invenergy might be a... well... a liar.
In its Complaint, Invenergy claims “Grain Belt Express has secured voluntary easements for over 75% of the necessary right-of-way in Kansas and Missouri.” However, in its Application in Missouri, Grain Belt claims it has “[a]cquired 72% of all easements required for the Kansas and Missouri portion of the Project.” While only a difference of 3%, it is notable that the percentage of easements acquired went down in the two weeks between the filing of this Complaint and the filing of the Missouri application.
So Invenergy told FERC on August 8 that it had secured over 75% of the easements, and then on August 24 told the MO PSC that it has 72% of the easements.  Did a bunch of easements get unsigned in that 2 week period?  If not, Invenergy is a flat out liar.  You can't believe anything a liar tells you.  Word to the wise.

Another section of Norm's comments deals with all the inconsistencies in GBE's Negotiated Rate Authority from the Commission and questions whether Invenergy has invalidated the Commission's approval to negotiate rates with potential customers.  Without Negotiated Rate Authority, Grain Belt Express cannot sign contracts with customers.

And maybe that's what Invenergy intends?  Norm clips this quote from GBE's Illinois application:
“Subject to additional oversight and approval by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”), Grain Belt Express may sell and/or lease an undivided interest in the project to potential buyers and/or lessees, and Grain Belt Express and those buyers/lessees may seek to provide transmission service over the line to eligible customers as defined by FERC on a non-discriminatory basis under a FERC-approved open access transmission tariff (“OATT”). Any co-owner or lessee of Grain Belt Express that seeks to provide transmission service will be required to operate pursuant to an OATT on file with FERC that will meet the requirements of the Federal Power Act and FERC’s regulations. Grain Belt Express may also sell a cotenancy interest or lease a long-term leasehold interest in the transmission line, in which case it is not providing transmission service to such buyer/lessee because the buyer/lessee has control over that undivided interest”.
Invenergy says it may sell "interests" in the projects to other private parties for their own private use.  Those parties who buy an "interest" may sell service to other parties for public use, but they may also keep all the transmission service for themselves.  If they kept it to themselves, it would be nothing more than a private-use generation lead line, which is a private electric roadway for a generator to connect to the transmission system.  The BIG HUGE problem with this is that without offering its transmission service to all entities through a public offering, Grain Belt Express is no longer "for public use."  And if GBE is not for "public use" then it is not entitled to use eminent domain to condemn and take property.

It sure looks to me like GBE is only using FERC's Negotiated Rate Authority as a fig leaf to cover its real plan to use the project for private use without opening it up to public bidding.  Looks like it's going to take land now under false pretenses, and then privatize its project later once it has all the land it needs.  This is a GIANT stopper for both the Missouri PSC and the Illinois Commerce Commission (and the Illinois Supreme Court, who had serious questions about RICL's "public use" that were never addressed in that case).  Without being for "public use" the project CANNOT USE EMINENT DOMAIN.

So, to sum up this exceedingly long blog...  We've got a whole new ball game, folks! 

MISO has approved new projects that will bring Iowa wind electricity to Missouri and Illinois, most likely for a much cheaper price that GBE has been offering.  This happened because GBE has failed to be built when it said it would be built.  A stone rolling downhill, or a grid with hungry customers, waits for no man/project.  MISO says that GBE is not "needed" for reliability, economics, or any other reason.  MISO and its TOs think GBE is far from certain to be built.  This is quite refreshing because for so long Invenergy has been trying to gaslight regulators, legislators and landowners about how it is needed for reliability and economic purposes and is ready to be built.  Turns out none of that is true.  It's all been a house of cards.  Reject everything you thought was true about Grain Belt Express and embrace the new reality this complaint demonstrates.  Grain Belt Express's reign of terror across the Midwest is about to end.  The sooner Michael Polsky realizes this, the less money he will lose at the end.  Let's hope he's not as stupid as Michael Skelly was... dumping his last penny into projects that never become reality.

When you poke a stick into the lion's cage, sometimes the lion bites your head off.

The End.
1 Comment

Well, Well, Look What Crawled Out of the Woodwork

8/23/2022

2 Comments

 
A report in RTO Insider says, "Skelly's Grid United Eyes HVDC Intertie in West Texas."
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That's right... after his spectacular failure and wasting of $200M on his "Clean Line" projects, Skelly has crawled back out from under the baseboard where he fled to lick his wounds and dream some new impossible dreams to waste more investor money on new transmission projects that will likely never happen.  What kind of a fool gives this guy more money?  No, don't answer that.  I know which fools, but not why they don't simply invest the money in lottery tickets instead.  Probably better returns.

Anyhow, our pal Skelly has assembled a new "team" that looks surprisingly like his old "team" and has finally filed an application for his first Grid United project.  Well, it's just an application to interconnect to the Texas grid and find such an interconnection necessary in the public interest for now.  Skelly may come back later and ask for an order to construct and operate a transmission project.  Gosh, this all sounds so incredibly familiar.  Didn't Skelly ask the Illinois Commerce Commission for some sort of necessity finding prior to filing an application for the Rock Island Clean Line?  His full name must be Michael Bifurcation Skelly.  It's like inching into a room where you're not wanted.  Bit by bit, and hoping nobody notices you slinking inside.

Skelly claims in his application to the Texas PUC:
Grid United Texas was created as an electric corporation in 2021. Grid United Texas is
wholly owned by Grid United LLC (Grid United) with a mission to unite the U.S. electric grid by
building new long-distance, interregional transmission lines to ensure that Americans have access to low-cost power when and where it is needed.
We, as Americans, say "no thank you."  Or maybe it's more like "no way, get outta town!"

So, where is Skelly brain fart 6.0 going to be located?
The Pecos West Intertie Project (Proposed Project) is a proposed 1,500 MW HVDC interconnection between ERCOT and the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC). The Proposed Project is proposed with an HVDC converter station at the LCRA TSC Bakersfield Switching Station in Pecos County, Texas, and an HVDC converter station at an EPE Station in El Paso County, Texas. Grid United Texas has evaluated interconnection at EPE’s Caliente Station and Newman Station, but the EPE interconnection will be determined following further consultation with EPE and the U.S. Army regarding a potential crossing of Fort Bliss (for the Newman Station interconnection). An approximately 250 to 300 mile ±525 kilovolt (kV) overhead HVDC tie line (Tie Line) will connect the HVDC converter stations at each end of the Proposed Project.
Looks like Skelly has learned absolutely nothing at all from his first routing failure, and wants to add not crossing a military base to his resume. 

Oh hey, would you look at that?  Part of Skelly's old "team" ended up on the Public Utility Commission of Texas.
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Revenge is a sweet, sweet dessert, isn't it, Jimmy?  I certainly hope Jimmy isn't going to recuse himself from this case.  After all, I like a good laugh now and again.

But wait... there's more...  Grid United is also in the "initial planning phase" of a completely different project, the North Plains Connector, that plans to rip through some of the most beautiful scenery in this country in Montana and North Dakota.   I was just there.  Is nothing sacred?

And, say, remember when Skelly recently bought a parcel of land in Tennessee located adjacent to an electric substation?

Yup.  He's crawling among us again.  Where's my flyswatter?
2 Comments

    About the Author

    Keryn Newman blogs here at StopPATH WV about energy issues, transmission policy, misguided regulation, our greedy energy companies and their corporate spin.
    In 2008, AEP & Allegheny Energy's PATH joint venture used their transmission line routing etch-a-sketch to draw a 765kV line across the street from her house. Oooops! And the rest is history.

    About
    StopPATH Blog

    StopPATH Blog began as a forum for information and opinion about the PATH transmission project.  The PATH project was abandoned in 2012, however, this blog was not.

    StopPATH Blog continues to bring you energy policy news and opinion from a consumer's point of view.  If it's sometimes snarky and oftentimes irreverent, just remember that the truth isn't pretty.  People come here because they want the truth, instead of the usual dreadful lies this industry continues to tell itself.  If you keep reading, I'll keep writing.


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