Well, hey there, Corporate America! The companies that stand to profit from building more wind, solar and transmission projects want you to whitewash their fence!
Come one, come all, step right up and grab a paintbrush! Your regional transmission planning organization is ready to take your membership money and waste your time!
Come one, come all, step right up and grab a paintbrush! Your regional transmission planning organization is ready to take your membership money and waste your time!
Honestly, the renewable energy industry has no shame. Their greed knows no bounds! They need to keep building renewable energy projects and new transmission to fill their pockets. Its a parade of trade groups and self-serving "organizations" who want to find someone, anyone, to champion their goals. They tell you that you must purchase more renewables from far off places, and that you need to pave the road to get them. And Corporate America is their latest target.
The recycled Wind Energy Foundation is now the Wind and Solar Alliance, and they want corporations to join regional transmission planning organizations and demand new transmission to fulfill corporate renewable energy goals. Except this idea is crap. Regional transmission planning organizations don't care about your corporate renewable energy goals. Sure, you can spend money joining, and then waste a bunch of time sitting through meeting after meeting, demanding new transmission, but it's a completely wasted effort. RTOs don't even listen to what states want, why should they listen to Corporate America?
I'm going to use PJM Interconnection as an example, since it's the RTO that manages my service area, and one I'm familiar with. Here's how PJM treats requests to build new transmission for renewable energy goals: the requester, or sponsor, must agree to pay for the entire cost of a transmission project it desires to have built to meet its renewable energy goals. In this instance, the requester may be a state with a renewable energy mandate or goal. One state may not visit its laws upon the citizens of another state that may have different goals. Just because, say, Maryland, has a legislative goal to procure more renewable energy does not mean that citizens of West Virginia, with considerably different (non-existent) renewable energy goals must pay a portion of the cost of a new transmission line to meet Maryland's law.
A corporate renewable energy policy may not visit the costs of meeting its goal upon electric ratepayers in any state. The ratepayers had no part in creating the corporate goal, and they shouldn't have to pay for it.
Why do corporations set renewable energy goals? It's nothing more than public relations fluff. "Buy our products because they are created with renewable energy!" It's a marketing ploy. Will consumers choose to buy a more expensive product because it supports the renewable energy business? Maybe, depending on the upcharge. A few pennies here and there may be something consumers are willing to give to the effort. A sizable price increase that comes from renewable energy purchases and new transmission lines supposedly needed to get the energy to end user is not something consumers will support. PR fluff is great when it's cheap, when someone else is paying the cost of creating it, but when it affects the corporate bottom line, even corporations cannot support it. Every dollar a corporation spends on marketing (and energy) must find its way into the cost of the product. Spending several billion dollars on a transmission line (even one cost shared by several corporations) will raise prices way past consumer tolerance. Joining RTOs and demanding new transmission lines is a dead end.
RTOs may consider need when planning transmission. But they're going to be looking at stuff like load, economics, and perhaps state laws. When a new transmission project is approved and ordered by an RTO, the costs of the project are allocated to the consumers served. Corporate energy goals serve corporations. The corporation receives the benefit of meeting its goal through public relations and increased sales. This cost simply cannot be allocated to all ratepayers in a region, who will not benefit from corporate goal fulfillment. Trying to create a scenario where consumers benefit from corporate public relations schemes is an exercise in futility. RTOs aren't going to fall for it, and neither is the agency that regulates them.
Even though the Wind & Solar Alliance has packaged up their fence painting scheme all pretty and created some bogus "report"* that says absolutely nothing, it appears that some big corporations aren't falling for it.
The recycled Wind Energy Foundation is now the Wind and Solar Alliance, and they want corporations to join regional transmission planning organizations and demand new transmission to fulfill corporate renewable energy goals. Except this idea is crap. Regional transmission planning organizations don't care about your corporate renewable energy goals. Sure, you can spend money joining, and then waste a bunch of time sitting through meeting after meeting, demanding new transmission, but it's a completely wasted effort. RTOs don't even listen to what states want, why should they listen to Corporate America?
I'm going to use PJM Interconnection as an example, since it's the RTO that manages my service area, and one I'm familiar with. Here's how PJM treats requests to build new transmission for renewable energy goals: the requester, or sponsor, must agree to pay for the entire cost of a transmission project it desires to have built to meet its renewable energy goals. In this instance, the requester may be a state with a renewable energy mandate or goal. One state may not visit its laws upon the citizens of another state that may have different goals. Just because, say, Maryland, has a legislative goal to procure more renewable energy does not mean that citizens of West Virginia, with considerably different (non-existent) renewable energy goals must pay a portion of the cost of a new transmission line to meet Maryland's law.
A corporate renewable energy policy may not visit the costs of meeting its goal upon electric ratepayers in any state. The ratepayers had no part in creating the corporate goal, and they shouldn't have to pay for it.
Why do corporations set renewable energy goals? It's nothing more than public relations fluff. "Buy our products because they are created with renewable energy!" It's a marketing ploy. Will consumers choose to buy a more expensive product because it supports the renewable energy business? Maybe, depending on the upcharge. A few pennies here and there may be something consumers are willing to give to the effort. A sizable price increase that comes from renewable energy purchases and new transmission lines supposedly needed to get the energy to end user is not something consumers will support. PR fluff is great when it's cheap, when someone else is paying the cost of creating it, but when it affects the corporate bottom line, even corporations cannot support it. Every dollar a corporation spends on marketing (and energy) must find its way into the cost of the product. Spending several billion dollars on a transmission line (even one cost shared by several corporations) will raise prices way past consumer tolerance. Joining RTOs and demanding new transmission lines is a dead end.
RTOs may consider need when planning transmission. But they're going to be looking at stuff like load, economics, and perhaps state laws. When a new transmission project is approved and ordered by an RTO, the costs of the project are allocated to the consumers served. Corporate energy goals serve corporations. The corporation receives the benefit of meeting its goal through public relations and increased sales. This cost simply cannot be allocated to all ratepayers in a region, who will not benefit from corporate goal fulfillment. Trying to create a scenario where consumers benefit from corporate public relations schemes is an exercise in futility. RTOs aren't going to fall for it, and neither is the agency that regulates them.
Even though the Wind & Solar Alliance has packaged up their fence painting scheme all pretty and created some bogus "report"* that says absolutely nothing, it appears that some big corporations aren't falling for it.
As global manager of renewable power for General Motors, Rob Threlkeld speaks often with both RTO and utility managers about transmission. When he depended primarily on power-purchase agreements with wind producers, “That would require a significant amount of transmission to be built.”
While he expects transmission to continue to be a challenge in meeting his company’s renewable energy goals, he is more focused now on green tariffs and sees a new resource on the horizon: the transmission capacity left in the wake of closing coal plants.
“As we shift the generation fleet,” he said, the question is, “How do you repurpose existing transmission?” Wind farms used to rely on all new transmission lines to bring the power to where it was needed, he said. But he sees that changing as coal plants close and reduce the load on parts of the transmission system.
“Don’t build new all the way; build new half the way,” he said. “Those are the types of discussions we have.”
I guess he must be thinking about his bottom line, perhaps GM only wants to pay for half a new transmission line to meet its goals? Or maybe he realizes there is no free lunch here. RTOs are never, and I do mean NEVER, going to plan for corporate energy goals and pass the costs off onto other electric consumers. Trying to "re-purpose" lines that have been paid for by electric consumers, in order to now serve corporations, is just another way to shift the cost of meeting corporate goals off onto others. Obviously Rob doesn't want to PAY to make GM greener.
If a corporation wants to polish its public image with greenwashing, it should be prepared to pay for it. Power purchase agreements are paid for by the corporation. If a corporation has to pretend that its actually using the energy it is paying for (as opposed to the fantasy REC product), then it may purchase capacity on merchant transmission. That's a much cheaper option than paying the entire cost of a new transmission line.
However, the merchant transmission that has been proposed takes too long to build (wahhhh!) That's merely because the merchant transmission that has been proposed in the past is THE WRONG KIND. It's the overhead across private property kind that faces fierce opposition from landowners and regulators. That kind of merchant project is never going to be built. In fact, at least one state has outlawed that kind of transmission, and others have found ways to put a stop to designating these projects as "public utilities" who may wield eminent domain authority. Maybe the corporates should support a different kind of transmission? How about new technology that doesn't require eminent domain and therefore doesn't foment opposition? It's a much better way to spend corporate funds, instead of wasting it supporting dead projects such as Clean Line. Wake up, Walmart, before the people who shop your stores in their jammies find out their prices are increasing because you choose to waste money joining RTOs and testifying in favor of overhead transmission projects before state regulators. They'd probably rather you spend your money paying your employees a living wage... so they can buy real clothes for their shopping expeditions.
The Wind & Solar Alliance is simply looking for someone to paint their fence. They've gotten nowhere lobbying RTOs for new transmission to serve renewable energy goals. Now they want Corporate America to do it for them. You're smarter than that, right?
If a corporation wants to polish its public image with greenwashing, it should be prepared to pay for it. Power purchase agreements are paid for by the corporation. If a corporation has to pretend that its actually using the energy it is paying for (as opposed to the fantasy REC product), then it may purchase capacity on merchant transmission. That's a much cheaper option than paying the entire cost of a new transmission line.
However, the merchant transmission that has been proposed takes too long to build (wahhhh!) That's merely because the merchant transmission that has been proposed in the past is THE WRONG KIND. It's the overhead across private property kind that faces fierce opposition from landowners and regulators. That kind of merchant project is never going to be built. In fact, at least one state has outlawed that kind of transmission, and others have found ways to put a stop to designating these projects as "public utilities" who may wield eminent domain authority. Maybe the corporates should support a different kind of transmission? How about new technology that doesn't require eminent domain and therefore doesn't foment opposition? It's a much better way to spend corporate funds, instead of wasting it supporting dead projects such as Clean Line. Wake up, Walmart, before the people who shop your stores in their jammies find out their prices are increasing because you choose to waste money joining RTOs and testifying in favor of overhead transmission projects before state regulators. They'd probably rather you spend your money paying your employees a living wage... so they can buy real clothes for their shopping expeditions.
The Wind & Solar Alliance is simply looking for someone to paint their fence. They've gotten nowhere lobbying RTOs for new transmission to serve renewable energy goals. Now they want Corporate America to do it for them. You're smarter than that, right?
*Let's play a game! How many typos can you find in the WSA's new "report?" Doesn't exactly inspire confidence, does it? I wonder who proofread that... was it this member of WSA's extended team? No, really, check it out. There's another little surprise waiting for you there.
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