Clean Line Energy, which is in negotiations to sell the project to sustainable energy developer Invenergy, is seeking permits from state regulators in Kansas and Missouri to build the power line.

Invenergy bills itself as North America’s largest privately held renewable energy provider. The Chicago based company has 89 wind projects worldwide that generate 12,814 megawatts of power. The firm and its affiliates claim to have more than $9 billion in total assets.

The Commission’s concerns regarding undue preference and affiliate abuse arise when a merchant transmission owner is affiliated with customers. Applicant does not have any affiliates that currently plan to secure transmission service rights on the Project. Applicant is therefore a purely merchant transmission owner with respect to its proposal to allocate up to 100% of the Project’s capacity pursuant to bilateral negotiations.

Local leaders in the Oklahoma Panhandle are pinning their lingering hopes on the idea that some version can be salvaged. The mostly rural region has struggled to attract employers, and this would have been by far the largest investment in its history, with a projected 4,000 construction jobs and a dramatic increase in tax revenue for local governments.

Its demise is still sinking in for Michael Shannon, director of the region's economic development office. "I'm stunned," he said, adding, "There has to be a Plan B."

4 The KCC granted the Company’s Petition for a siting permit to construct the Kansas portion of the Project on November 7, 2013. Subsequently, on October 4, 2018, the KCC issued an Order Granting Limited Extension of Sunset Provisions (Docket No. 13-GBEE-803-MIS) which extended the term of the 2013 siting permit order to March 1, 2019. Pursuant to this order, Grain Belt Express updated the KCC regarding its financial, managerial, and technical ability to complete the Project, including the pending Invenergy acquisition. On November 21, 2018, the Company and KCC Staff filed a joint motion for stay of procedural schedule and extension of sunset term, seeking extension of the siting permit order until further order of the KCC to accommodate the remainder of the procedural schedule and the future acquisition docket schedule. The KCC granted this request on December 6, 2018 and extended the sunset term to December 2, 2019.

5 On November 12, 2015, the Illinois Commerce Commission (“ICC”) granted the Company a certificate of public convenience and necessity (“CPCN”), and authorized Grain Belt Express to construct the Illinois portion of the line. Pursuant to a decision of the Illinois Appellate Court, this order of the ICC was reversed on procedural grounds. In Concerned Citizens & Property Owners v Illinois Commerce Comm’n, ___ N.E.3d ___, 2018 IL App. (5th) 150551, 2018 WL 1858128 (Ill. App., Apr. 17, 2018), the court held that while Grain Belt Express owned an option to purchase property to be used for the transmission of electricity, it was required under Illinois law to “own, control, operate, or manage” utility infrastructure “at the time of application” before it could qualify as a “public utility,” and remanded the case to the ICC. The court specifically found that applicants like GBX “may seek recognition as a public utility while, at the same time, applying for a certificate of public convenience and necessity ... as long as they have obtained the ownership, management, or control of utility-related property or equipment at the time of the application.” Id. at *5-*7. After the Company receives an extension of its Kansas siting permit to 2023, and after the Company receives a CCN from this Commission, it can acquire utility property or equipment in Illinois that will permit it to file a new application with the ICC.

The utility companies say the project, which they want operational by 2023, could provide Wisconsin customers with “net economic benefits” of between $23.5 million and $350 million over its expected 40-year life. The Midcontinent Independent System Operator, the regional electric grid operator, has endorsed the project as one of 17 across the region that will improve the reliability of the electric system, provide economic benefits to utilities and consumers, and support the use of renewable energy by delivering low-cost wind energy from Iowa to population centers where the power is needed.

“Those drivers have not changed for the project. Those have been consistent since the project was announced,” Freiman said.

Multiple stakeholders said another possible crop of MVPs, if any, will need a new business case process, especially considering the fleet change that has occurred in the intervening years and the transmission cost allocation plan MISO will file at the end of the year.

“What if customers have had enough of transmission expansion? What if they’re tired of having transmission lines going across their farms, yards. … They have more options to bypass us completely. You can talk about MISO’s value until you’re blue in the face. What customers see is rising bills,” Madison Gas and Electric’s Megan Wisersky said.

She said customers might be better served by a reinforced distribution system than more transmission projects.

“We have to remember that these transmission lines do impose on communities,” said Coalition of Midwest Transmission Customers attorney Jim Dauphinais, who agreed that overbuilding transmission will result in more expensive bills.

Opponents say the line is not needed and would damage important conservation areas, disrupt the scenic beauty and harm agricultural businesses dotted along the routes. They argue Wisconsin consumers would be better served by energy efficiency and local renewable-energy projects. And they have no desire to advocate for one route at the expense of those along the other.

Alliant Energy’s Mitchell Myhre said he didn’t think MISO would need an entirely new transmission planning playbook but that it should analyze transmission project alternatives and engage in conversations about them. He said more analysis on transmission project alternatives may have lessened the late-stage disagreements over at least two projects in this year’s Transmission Expansion Plan. (See related story, MISO Board OKs Full MTEP 18 Over Stakeholder Complaints.)

“We ask that those conversations [about alternatives] happen at the front end of the process so they don’t come up in the back end of the process,” Myhre said.

“We think there needs to be a study; we think there needs to be a process” to see if a long-term regional transmission plan makes sense, Missouri Public Service Commissioner Daniel Hall agreed.

MISO’s transmission queue contains 483 projects totaling about 80 GW. Executive Director of Resource Planning Patrick Brown said MISO may be reaching an economic “break point” where the costs of network upgrades render projects uneconomic, especially in the wind-heavy western portion of its footprint. “The general cost of network upgrades is going to drive them out,” Brown said.

However, Kevin Murray, representing the Coalition of Midwest Transmission Customers, said a strong business case can’t be built on a speculative information about where resources might be constructed.

“We need to avoid the ‘build it and they will come’ sentiment. And we’ve seen hints of that in the past,” Murray said. He said some transmission projects might be more appropriately funded by interconnection customers for planned generation.

Clean Grid Alliance’s Beth Soholt said her company will continue to support the Cardinal Hickory Creek line project in Wisconsin, which she said had a “solid as ever” business case.

Soholt suggested that MTEP 15-year future scenarios should account for sustainability goals beyond renewable portfolio standards.

CMP representative John Carroll called the opposition “bizarre” and “shameful,” lamenting  that instead of seeing Hydro-Quebec as a leader in the clean energy movement, “we are immediately suspicious.”
The project would be “a great battery for the Northeast,” he said, adding that this line would help prevent the continued mass spillover of energy that Hydro-Quebec is currently unable to sell. The project is a simple step toward making the region and the nation less dependent on fossil fuels, Carroll argued.

Do not suggest that any person should be ashamed of or embarrassed by his or her opposition to the PATH Project or that such opposition is inappropriate.

TDI, from the very beginning, took important community, environmental and aesthetic considerations into account when designing and siting the NECPL. TDI carefully chose underground technology specifically to minimize impacts on the people, viewshed and environment of Vermont. We recognized that the additional expense related to underground construction for NECPL was worth the alleviation of a multitude of genuine community and environmental concerns, and that the cost of any project can’t only be measured in dollars.