...and other fairy tales from Invenergy's clueless Vice President of Transmission. Why does he talk so much?
I watched this a couple weeks ago.
I watched this a couple weeks ago.
It's a virtual "public meeting" on the Grain Belt Express Environmental Impact Statement required by the U.S. Department of Energy in order to evaluate Invenergy's application for a taxpayer loan to build its project that doesn't have enough customers to be economic.
Since it's inception, Grain Belt Express has been proposed as a merchant transmission project. That means that it has not been approved or ordered by regional grid planners who allocate the costs of their projects among captive ratepayers that use the project. A merchant project is an extraneous transmission proposal for which there is no actual demand or need but that its owners want to risk their own cash to build it in the hope that it will attract voluntary customers who find it useful.
There are two distinct transmission rate schemes:
Since it's inception, Grain Belt Express has been proposed as a merchant transmission project. That means that it has not been approved or ordered by regional grid planners who allocate the costs of their projects among captive ratepayers that use the project. A merchant project is an extraneous transmission proposal for which there is no actual demand or need but that its owners want to risk their own cash to build it in the hope that it will attract voluntary customers who find it useful.
There are two distinct transmission rate schemes:
- Regionally planned and cost allocated to captive ratepayers and paid for in their electric bill.
- Merchant projects with Negotiated Rate Authority granted by FERC that sign contracts with voluntary wholesale customers that pay a contracted rate to use the project.
There is no third rate scheme, just those two. Anything else is a privately owned and operated line that is not offered for public use and its owners pay for the project themselves. No public use, no public utility, no eminent domain, no rate, remember that.
So what happened when Brad from Invenergy got a question asking to explain merchant transmission and whether or not Grain Belt Express was a merchant project at 1:09:30 of the above video?
So what happened when Brad from Invenergy got a question asking to explain merchant transmission and whether or not Grain Belt Express was a merchant project at 1:09:30 of the above video?
Grain Belt Express is exploring various different ways for the energy to be transmitted across the lines that we're proposing to build here. It's not finalized.
What? Grain Belt Express no longer considers itself a merchant transmission project? Grain Belt has been "finalized" as a merchant for years, and its state approvals are premised upon it being a merchant project offered for public use at Negotiated Rates. As a matter of fact, FERC approved Negotiated Rate Authority for Grain Belt way back in 2014. But now, all of a sudden, its rate is no longer certain. So what are the other options?
Regionally approved and cost allocated? This is never going to happen. The regional transmission organization carefully plans the system it needs and then approves and orders it to be built. It doesn't go around searching for merchant transmission projects to allocate to ratepayers, especially ones that cost over $7B.
The only other option is a privately-owned line that is not offered to the public and does not charge a rate. End of story.
Brad, who must have fallen asleep in rate class, says there are different ways to generate revenues for a transmission project. One is a merchant project. Another is where other entities could buy a "non-divided interest" (Brad means undivided interest) in the project and own a dedicated portion of it. However, the second method does not generate revenue through a rate. It has no regulated rate. It's just an ownership sale. In order to recognize revenue from a third party, that owner would have to have a rate. What's the difference between GBE owned by Invenergy and not having a rate and GBE owned by other parties and not having a rate? Absolutely nothing! There is no revenue. And without revenue, GBE would be unable to repay the taxpayer loan from the DOE.
Is DOE really this stupid about electric rates that they are buying this nonsense?
But let's move on... to the long and winding story of how an electron generated in SW Kansas ends up back in Kansas. Around minute 52:00 of the video, Brad gets a question about whether the energy on GBE will also be delivered to customers in Kansas. The simple answer here is "no", but Brad so enjoys the sound of his own voice (and those annoying sucking sounds he uses to punctuate his sentences) that a simple "no" won't do. Brad goes on for a full 5 minutes trying to help those electrons generated in SW Kansas get back to Kansas.
He says GBE brings power to substations and "markets" in Missouri owned by MISO and AECI, who are "served" by it. Sorry, Brad, but as we know the only power injected into the grid in Missouri would have to be contracted with a buyer and a seller. If there is no contract to purchase it, then it goes nowhere. What's more, GBE is a transmission line, not an electric generator. Brad says that since all alternating current substations are connected to the grid, they all get GBE power because it's like dumping a 2500 MW bucket of electricity into the grid swimming pool. But that's not how GBE works... it is only "dumped" in the amount it is purchased. GBE is not dumping buckets of free electricity into the electric grid. It's all being sold to a particular customer, or in the case of GBE, one customer for less than 5% of its transfer capacity. Brad thinks that after GBE dumps free electricity into the MISO swimming pool, utilities in Kansas are draining the pool because it's all connected and power automatically goes where its needed. So, Brad, the electric grid is just one big free pool of electricity? We don't pay for what we use? Brad claims "they" say they are seeing a need for the power in these areas. What areas? Kansas? If Kansas sees a need for this power, then it would use it when it's generated in Kansas, not ship it to Missouri and hope some energetic little atoms swim home. It would make no sense for a Kansas utility to buy power from GBE because the only access point is in eastern Missouri. As a direct current line from SW Kansas to Eastern Missouri, there are no entrances or exits from Grain Belt Express until it gets to the converter station in Missouri.
Brad must have been hysterical near the end because he suggested that if any utilities in Kansas are a member of MJMEUC (it stands for Missouri Joint Municipal Electric Utility Commission, Brad, but has recently been re-named the easier to remember Missouri Electric Commission, or MEC) that they would receive Kansas power from Grain Belt Express through Invenergy's contract with MEC. Brad acted like he understood that the "M" in the acronym stood for Missouri. Missouri, Brad, Missouri! It's membership is MISSOURI municipalities, not Kansans.
Thankfully, Brad ran down after 5 minutes of blithering idiot babbling and sucking. But then he asked Invenergy's engineer Aaron White if he could add to that. Aaron looked quite amused. He should have passed. But no, he proceeds to tell actual lies. Aaron said that GBE could reverse flow and deliver power from Illinois and points east to Missouri and SW Kansas during an emergency. Except it can't. Well, technically it could, but it really can't because GBE has no permission to withdraw energy from Illinois or Missouri. GBE can't just reverse the suction on its pool hose and black out Illinois or Missouri on a whim. Only the grid operator could do that, and guess what? GBE has not applied to withdraw power in Missouri. Not sure about Illinois, but I seriously doubt it. Also, let's consider that GBE has contracted customers or other owners who have bought a certain amount of capacity on the line. It is up to the owners to use or sell that capacity when they aren't using it. If a city in Illinois signs an agreement to purchase power from a wind farm in Ford County Kansas and that power is delivered on a dedicated portion of GBE, what would happen to that city in Illinois if GBE suddenly changed direction and started sucking electricity out of that city? GBE won't control something it does not own. Aaron is just a straight up liar. GBE won't reverse direction unless it has withdrawal rights and the owners of its capacity resell it to someone else who wants to use it to ship power to Kansas. Chances of that happening are slim to none.
I'm wondering with all this misinformation being belched out at "public meetings", what has the DOE Loans Program Office been told in private? Are they being fed these lies, too? Do they believe them? LPO better sort this stuff out before loaning these liars my tax money.
Regionally approved and cost allocated? This is never going to happen. The regional transmission organization carefully plans the system it needs and then approves and orders it to be built. It doesn't go around searching for merchant transmission projects to allocate to ratepayers, especially ones that cost over $7B.
The only other option is a privately-owned line that is not offered to the public and does not charge a rate. End of story.
Brad, who must have fallen asleep in rate class, says there are different ways to generate revenues for a transmission project. One is a merchant project. Another is where other entities could buy a "non-divided interest" (Brad means undivided interest) in the project and own a dedicated portion of it. However, the second method does not generate revenue through a rate. It has no regulated rate. It's just an ownership sale. In order to recognize revenue from a third party, that owner would have to have a rate. What's the difference between GBE owned by Invenergy and not having a rate and GBE owned by other parties and not having a rate? Absolutely nothing! There is no revenue. And without revenue, GBE would be unable to repay the taxpayer loan from the DOE.
Is DOE really this stupid about electric rates that they are buying this nonsense?
But let's move on... to the long and winding story of how an electron generated in SW Kansas ends up back in Kansas. Around minute 52:00 of the video, Brad gets a question about whether the energy on GBE will also be delivered to customers in Kansas. The simple answer here is "no", but Brad so enjoys the sound of his own voice (and those annoying sucking sounds he uses to punctuate his sentences) that a simple "no" won't do. Brad goes on for a full 5 minutes trying to help those electrons generated in SW Kansas get back to Kansas.
He says GBE brings power to substations and "markets" in Missouri owned by MISO and AECI, who are "served" by it. Sorry, Brad, but as we know the only power injected into the grid in Missouri would have to be contracted with a buyer and a seller. If there is no contract to purchase it, then it goes nowhere. What's more, GBE is a transmission line, not an electric generator. Brad says that since all alternating current substations are connected to the grid, they all get GBE power because it's like dumping a 2500 MW bucket of electricity into the grid swimming pool. But that's not how GBE works... it is only "dumped" in the amount it is purchased. GBE is not dumping buckets of free electricity into the electric grid. It's all being sold to a particular customer, or in the case of GBE, one customer for less than 5% of its transfer capacity. Brad thinks that after GBE dumps free electricity into the MISO swimming pool, utilities in Kansas are draining the pool because it's all connected and power automatically goes where its needed. So, Brad, the electric grid is just one big free pool of electricity? We don't pay for what we use? Brad claims "they" say they are seeing a need for the power in these areas. What areas? Kansas? If Kansas sees a need for this power, then it would use it when it's generated in Kansas, not ship it to Missouri and hope some energetic little atoms swim home. It would make no sense for a Kansas utility to buy power from GBE because the only access point is in eastern Missouri. As a direct current line from SW Kansas to Eastern Missouri, there are no entrances or exits from Grain Belt Express until it gets to the converter station in Missouri.
Brad must have been hysterical near the end because he suggested that if any utilities in Kansas are a member of MJMEUC (it stands for Missouri Joint Municipal Electric Utility Commission, Brad, but has recently been re-named the easier to remember Missouri Electric Commission, or MEC) that they would receive Kansas power from Grain Belt Express through Invenergy's contract with MEC. Brad acted like he understood that the "M" in the acronym stood for Missouri. Missouri, Brad, Missouri! It's membership is MISSOURI municipalities, not Kansans.
Thankfully, Brad ran down after 5 minutes of blithering idiot babbling and sucking. But then he asked Invenergy's engineer Aaron White if he could add to that. Aaron looked quite amused. He should have passed. But no, he proceeds to tell actual lies. Aaron said that GBE could reverse flow and deliver power from Illinois and points east to Missouri and SW Kansas during an emergency. Except it can't. Well, technically it could, but it really can't because GBE has no permission to withdraw energy from Illinois or Missouri. GBE can't just reverse the suction on its pool hose and black out Illinois or Missouri on a whim. Only the grid operator could do that, and guess what? GBE has not applied to withdraw power in Missouri. Not sure about Illinois, but I seriously doubt it. Also, let's consider that GBE has contracted customers or other owners who have bought a certain amount of capacity on the line. It is up to the owners to use or sell that capacity when they aren't using it. If a city in Illinois signs an agreement to purchase power from a wind farm in Ford County Kansas and that power is delivered on a dedicated portion of GBE, what would happen to that city in Illinois if GBE suddenly changed direction and started sucking electricity out of that city? GBE won't control something it does not own. Aaron is just a straight up liar. GBE won't reverse direction unless it has withdrawal rights and the owners of its capacity resell it to someone else who wants to use it to ship power to Kansas. Chances of that happening are slim to none.
I'm wondering with all this misinformation being belched out at "public meetings", what has the DOE Loans Program Office been told in private? Are they being fed these lies, too? Do they believe them? LPO better sort this stuff out before loaning these liars my tax money.
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