Grain Belt Express Seeks Government Subsidies

I'm not surprised.  Are you?  Grain Belt Express has never had any signed customers except for the below cost MJMEUC contract for less than 10% of the capacity it wants to make available in Missouri.  But yet GBE's owners are purposefully trying to build an electric transmission line that does not have enough contracted customers to be economic.  No customer, no need....

... your federal tax dollars to the rescue!!!

In its recent application to the Missouri PSC for "amendments" to its current Certificate, Grain Belt finally tells everyone who, exactly, it expects will pay for this ginormous transmission line without sufficient customer contracts.

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.

That's right... Grain Belt Express cannot begin to build its project until it has adequate financing to pay for the construction.  Invenergy wants the Missouri PSC to hurry up and approve the "amendments" so that it can secure financing from "governmental sources".  I see they casually toss in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill transmission program being put together by the U.S. DOE.  That program allows the DOE to become a transmission "customer" by purchasing transmission capacity that nobody else wants.  DOE isn't going to actually USE the capacity, it's just going to pay for it using your tax dollars in order to prop up a transmission project that doesn't have enough customers to be economic, like Grain Belt Express.  DOE says it will sell the transmission capacity to other entities so that it can replenish its transmission slush fund, but let's think about that a bit.  If nobody wants to buy transmission capacity from GBE, why would they want to buy the same capacity from DOE?  The whole scheme should make a freshman economics student laugh.

It's not really government "financing"... in the case of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, it's a subsidy paid for by your tax dollars in order to build a transmission line to nowhere that nobody will ever use.

And for this they want you to give up your private property?  Tell the PSC not to approve Tiger Connector and clear the way for Invenergy to apply for federal government subsidies to build a project without sufficient customer interest!  Without enough customers to make the project economic, it's nothing but a useless parasite sucking Missourians dry.  The PSC needs to stop approving speculative transmission projects without signed customers and interconnection agreements and enabling rich investors to fill their pockets with our hard-earned tax dollars!