a) Appropriation.--In addition to amounts otherwise available, there is appropriated to the Secretary for fiscal year 2022, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, $760,000,000, to remain available through September 30, 2029, for making grants in accordance with this section and for administrative expenses associated with carrying out this section. (b) Use of Funds.-- (1) In general.--The Secretary may make a grant under this section to a siting authority for, with respect to a covered transmission project, any of the following activities:

(2) Economic development.--The Secretary may make a grant under this section to a siting authority, or other State, local, or Tribal governmental entity, for economic development activities for communities that may be affected by the construction and operation of a covered transmission project, provided that the Secretary shall not enter into any grant agreement pursuant to this section that could result in any outlays after September 30, 2031.

(3) Economic development.--The Secretary may only disburse grant funds for economic development activities under subsection (b)(2)-- (A) to a siting authority upon approval by the siting authority of the applicable covered transmission project; and (B) to any other State, local, or Tribal governmental entity upon commencement of construction of the applicable covered transmission project in the area under the jurisdiction of the entity. (d) Returning Funds.--If a siting authority that receives a grant for an activity described in subsection (b)(1) fails to use all grant funds within 2 years of receipt, the siting authority shall return to the Secretary any such unused funds.

As stated above, Grain Belt Express then intends to raise debt secured by the revenue stream from the transmission capacity contracts to raise the capital necessary to complete the remaining development activities, construct the Project and place it into operation. Grain Belt Express anticipates utilizing a combination of commercial and governmental sources of financing, and at this time is still evaluating all potential options for financing. Options for governmental sources of financing include the Western Area Power Administration (“WAPA”) Transmission Infrastructure Program (“TIP”); and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill Transmission Facilitation Program; Department of Energy loans to non-federal borrowers for transmission facilities pursuant to the Inflation Reduction Act and potentially other government funding options. Additional equity capital may also be raised to help finance construction of the Project, or Grain Belt Express’ existing investors may make additional equity investments in the Project.

Have you entered any new agreements with any potential partners or “customers” who will use the Grain Belt and the connector?
We have an existing contract with a consortium of 39 Missouri communities to take power from the Grain Belt Express at an annual savings for $12.8 million, and we see very strong market interest in transmission capacity from the line, which is one factor in the recent announcement to expand local delivery capacity.
Will you move forward prior to an agreement or wait until you get enough before beginning construction?
Kuykendall: “We will begin construction after acquiring the necessary easements and approvals from regulators.”

So, to clarify customers that pay into Grain Belt Express through money or service, who, if anyone, have you entered into an agreement with? If you have no one paying into the line - a customer - you are saying you would build anyway? Or do you want to expand on this?
Kuykendall: ““Grain Belt Express will be bringing power to 350,000 electric consumers across Missouri through a signed transmission service agreement with the Missouri Joint Municipal Electric Utility Commission (MJMEUC) representing 39 Missouri municipal utilities. Grain Belt Express has seen strong interest in the market and expects to secure additional customer agreements prior to construction beginning.”

What measures will the company actually take to minimize negative impacts for affected landowners?
Kuykendall: “Missouri stakeholders have urged Invenergy to develop solutions to deliver more power to Missouri from the Grain Belt Express project. The Tiger Connector is necessary to meet that request, and in doing so provide billions in energy savings to Missourians.

What will the company do to avoid condemnation, which is likely the biggest issue?
Kuykendall: “This is always a last resort for us. We’ve already acquired 84 percent of the parcels needed along the Phase I portion of the Grain Belt Express HVDC route, with nearly all of them coming through voluntary easements.

Can you confirm that Invenergy intends to honor the 7-year Sunset revision on easements as stated in the law?
Kuykendall: “The company is still reviewing that provision of (House Bill 2005) and expects this issue to be addressed in any regulatory filings before the Missouri Public Service Commission. As you know, HB2005 does not apply to Grain Belt Express and any commitment to comply with portions of the law would be voluntary in nature.”

We will engage further with the Missouri Farm Bureau, other ag groups, and the Missouri Public Service Commission to implement these commitments to balance energy affordability and reliability and landowner interests in Missouri.”

Will Invenergy move lines from the middle of fields? Bury lines?
Kuykendall: “We will propose a route that takes the input gathered from these public meetings into account. We understand the desire for some or all parts of the Tiger Connector line to be buried.  Undergrounding the Tiger Connector would require burying two separate transmission systems to meet safety and reliability requirements. This makes undergrounding a non-starter.

“The Tiger Connector line will have one circuit for MISO and one circuit for AECI.
“Overhead line maintenance can be performed by shutting down one circuit while the other continues to deliver power.
“This is not possible underground because workers cannot work with a live circuit present, and federal reliability requirements prohibit a system design that would shut down power delivery to multiple markets at once. This would require two separate buried systems.
“Undergrounding would also have much greater impacts on ag operations, including:
Eight times as much land permanently taken out of production.
Over 80 times the excavation that can reduce yields from compaction and soil mixing.
Permanent “call before you dig” requirements for landowners in easement areas.
Ag impacts result from:
Excavating two buried cable trenches across the entire length of the line – with the trenches separated sixty feet from each other. Recent studies of other buried infrastructure projects have shown reduced yields for corn and beans between 15-25 percent due to compaction and the mixing of topsoil and subsoil caused by trenching.
Installation of permanent access bunkers which are like U-Haul trucks parked in the ground every 2,000 feet in pairs, one along each set of buried cables. Crops cannot be grown over these, and each set would be farmed around.
“In addition to the significant land impacts, this request could set a precedent for other future transmission lines in Missouri, representing billions of dollars in added costs for Missouri electric consumers over time.
“Stakeholders have cited the importance of balancing energy affordability and reliability while also serving landowner interests. Burying any part of Grain Belt Express would fail both of these goals.”
Kuykendall added these statistics to the response:
1.3 acres permanently out of production, vs. 0.16 acres
484,853 total cubic yards of soil excavation for undergrounding, vs. 5,759 cubic yards for monopole foundations

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.

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.

On the supply side in PJM, "we're seeing dramatic retirements" of coal-fired generation, with PJM retiring about 15 GW of coal in the next two years that it is not being replaced on a one-to-one basis, Thomas said.
The Midcontinent System Operator is experiencing a similar trend, with incremental generation resources being added that do not have the same reliability attributes as those being retired. "They are adding megawatts that are less valuable than the megawatts being retired, meaning they need to add significant multiples to replace what's being retired," he said.
In MISO, the accredited capacity being added goes down out to 2041, while the future load scenarios continue to go up.

"This is kind of a fascinating trend, and arguably not a sustainable trend, because what all these other regions are counting on is importing power from other areas of the country to make up the difference and that's a house of cards waiting to fall," Thomas said.
PJM is not one of the areas identified by the North American Electricity Reliability Corporation, an international regulatory authority, as having reliability concerns, but "they're coming in a big way," he said.
The PJM interconnection queue of resources planning to connect to the grid is 95%, if not more, wind and solar power resources, which is where the economic signals are right now.
"There is going to be very little to no new natural gas coming into the system and coal is going to continue to retire" with the nuclear power resources remaining because they are subsidized at the state and federal level, Thomas said.

One of the core tenets of the PJM capacity market is that in order to have capacity it must be deliverable. A megawatt of power on the system only has value if it can be delivered at peak demand periods, Thomas said.
PJM has been giving capacity accreditation to intermittent resources above their approved capacity injection rights levels, so these resources were selling capacity that was not deliverable, and that is a problem, he said.

The problematic aspect is consumers have been paying for capacity that has no value at peak, and suppliers "are getting boxed out of the market by these undeliverable megawatts," Thomas said.