A memo prepared at FERC in late June for Mr. Wellinghoff before he briefed senior officials made several urgent points. "Destroy nine interconnection substations and a transformer manufacturer and the entire United States grid would be down for at least 18 months, probably longer," said the memo, which was reviewed by the Journal. That lengthy outage is possible for several reasons, including that only a handful of U.S. factories build transformers.

"Today’s publication by The Wall Street Journal of sensitive information about the grid undermines the careful work done by professionals who dedicate their careers to providing the American people with a reliable and secure grid. The Wall Street Journal has appropriately declined to identify by name particularly critical substations throughout the country. Nonetheless, the publication of other sensitive information is highly irresponsible. While there may be value in a general discussion of the steps we take to keep the grid safe, the publication of sensitive material about the grid crosses the line from transparency to irresponsibility, and gives those who would do us harm a roadmap to achieve malicious designs. The American people deserve better."

“To address physical vulnerability, it is also important to focus our efforts on modernizing our electric grid. Building the grid of the future will play a key role in addressing multiple security and reliability threats or situations. We should look to further deployment of phasor measurement units, wide-area management systems and enhanced situational awareness. Furthering efforts in the development and deployment of microgrids and smart grid technology will also greatly assist in addressing grid resiliency. These efforts, along with system-wide planning, are just a few examples of how we can increase our ability to make the grid more reliable and efficient.

Because it is difficult to build new transmission routes, existing big substations are becoming more crucial to handling electricity.

Converter station sites in Calvert and Wicomico County, MD and Sussex
County, DE were acquired;

Takeoff points into and out of the Chesapeake Bay were acquired;

Transition station locations in Dorchester County were acquired; and

Transmission line right-of-way for entire length was acquired, except for one property in Dorchester County where negotiation was pending.

Steve Fleishman - Wolfe
And in the future, do most of your contracts have that clause, so new ones do or not older ones or vice versa?

Leila Vespoli - EVP, Markets, and Chief Legal Officer
I think it would be safe to say that we are going to be adding that language where we can in the future.

FERC said PJM's proposal met the commission's criteria for approving waivers, as doing so would remedy a "concrete problem," would not harm third parties and would be limited in scope.

From an environmental group perspective we're very interested and supportive of those lines if they're carrying wind power and clean renewable energy, as some of them are saying that they're doing.

Distributed generation, particularly solar, plays a vital role in terms of reliability, cleaning up the air and saving money for consumers. The efficiencies of solar panels are going up, the costs are coming down, and those entities that are getting behind it I think will be in good shape. People who are trying to stop the progress technologically when it comes to solar are going to be like the utilities that had landline telephones that tried to stop wireless telecommunications. It almost never works to stand in the way of technological progress.

Well, renewable energy wind power can bring costs down. Building new transmission of course passes costs on to consumers. Some of the transmissions being used for renewables, some of that transmission is being used for coal. So what you have to do is not look at it as one size fits all, but look at particular transmission lines and really say, No. 1, are the costs justified? Are the benefits greater than the costs, and therefore you can build a line? Or had the world changed in which a particular transmission line, and there are a number of lines that are being challenged on this basis, given the demand has gone down is there less need for the lines, they shouldn't be built? Secondly the question is is the line carrying renewable energy like wind power, or is it carrying coal and natural gas? The premise of what the Midwest independent system operator did is that these transmission lines, they call them the MVP lines, are supposed to be carrying wind power. Some of them do, some of them don't very much. And that's going to be an issue both before the regional commissions and also an issue before FERC.

Staff has reviewed the initial briefs filed in this matter and finds it has very little to
respond to. Actually, the initial brief of the Companies and the most recently filed
monthly statistical report confirms many of Staffs fears. The Companies are still
providing a lot of excuses without many answers. They continue to point the finger at the Derecho and Super Storm Sandy, when the truth of the matter is those two storms did not cause this problem, but simply exposed the problems within the Companies that were
destined to arise and will do so again if  changes aren’t made.* Further, a review of the February monthly statistical report shows an increase in consecutive reads due to weather related causes, just as Staff suspected. That will continue to be a problem as long as there is weather. Also, as Staff suspected, the Companies cannot or are not willing to seek a modification to its billing system to allow manual changes to a customer’s account when it is shown the estimation routine is inaccurate for that customer. These are just a few examples of many where Staff fears have been confirmed.

Also, Staff finds it odd that the Companies dedicate such a large portion of its
brief arguing why the Commission should not impose the “penalty” provision for missed
meter reads when they claim this problem has been solved. If the problem has indeed
been solved and given the concessions Staff made for reasonable circumstances to avoid the penalty, these penalties should seldom come into play if at all. Again, it is important
to remember the Companies are required to read every meter bi-monthly, absent exigent
circumstances, not just the ones that are convenient at the time. Further, the Commission has approved similar service based performance credits in the past, specifically in the settlement in the Verizon quality of service case, Case No. 08-0761-T-GI. This circumstance is almost unprecedented in West Virginia and calls for bold action. This penalty provision is just that action, a stick in order to incentivize the Companies to make better decisions in the future to the benefit of their customers instead of to the benefit of the Companies.

*In their Initial Brief, the Companies state they have had no problems in Pennsylvania as evidence that the Derecho and Super Storm Sandy were the root causes of these problems. Staff has learned that on February 4, 2014, a complaint was filed by the Utility Workers Union of America against Penelec on behalf of its workers and individual customers for failure to properly staff the meter reading section and for failure to obtain meter  readings, leading to three, four, five consecutive estimated readings.

The Rock Island Clean Line is one for-profit company proposing to ship wind power produced in western Iowa to the outskirts of Chicago. None of that power would stay in Iowa and a number of landowners along the proposed 500-mile-long transmission line route have opposed the plan. Some owners and farmers have expressed concerns about potential damage to land from transmission tower construction and the threat of eminent domain to push a route if enough willing sellers aren’t found.

 But Lang, and Mike Prior, interim director of the Iowa Wind Energy Association, hope the new organization could serve as a “go-between” to bridge some of the disagreements between land owners and the Clean Line developers.

A front group is an organization that purports to represent one agenda while in reality it serves some other party or interest whose sponsorship is hidden or rarely mentioned. [or denied!] The front group is perhaps the most easily recognized use of the third party propaganda technique.

Larson Shannahan Slifka Group (LS2group) is a bipartisan public relations, public affairs, and marketing firm that guides its practices with one goal in mind: what others may do, we strive to do better. We offer clients an unparalleled commitment to excellence and take pride in our consistent delivery of successful outcomes. Our strength lies in the diversity of our team and its determination to apply creative solutions and unique perspectives to clients' needs. We see possibilities others cannot and have a track record of helping our clients reach their goals.

"LS2group has a thorough understanding of our needs and responds quickly to our requests, coupled with a vast network of strong relationships with key officials."
- Cary K., Director of Development, Rock Island Clean Line

to promote social welfare by seeking to educate and encourage landowners to become familiar with wind energy production and transmission, and expand the wind industry in the state of Iowa to further the common good and general welfare of the people of Iowa and the Midwest.

no substantial part of the activities of the corporation shall be the carrying on of propaganda, or otherwise attempting to influence legislation, and the corporation shall not participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or publication of statements) any political campaign on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office

TVA is in final negotiations to allow a proposed $2 billion transmission line carrying wind power 700 miles from Oklahoma to connect to TVA's grid near Millington.

However, it will be another issue entirely whether Texas-based Plains & Eastern Clean Line LLC can send its wind-generated electricity into the TVA system, TVA spokesman Chris Stanley said Tuesday.

TVA policy requires the federal utility, which supplies electricity to MLGW in Memphis, only buy power priced competitively with other energy sources.

No consumer prices have been disclosed by the Houston firm.

"Inter-connectivity just allows Clean Line, in this case, to connect to our grid," Stanley said. "They do not, however, have the ability to inject any power into our system."

TVA is now waiting on Clean Line to request a "transmission study," he said.

"We had to do studies and make sure we have system reliability. That's all happened and we're in final negotiations with them about what that looks like going forward,'' Stanley said.

After the interconnection study is completed, a the transmission-service study will look at sending wind power into the electric grid.

But some people don't like the project, which is why the bill came forward. Landowners who are wary of eminent domain powers are speaking up against the project. In large part it has become an issue pitting pro-business groups and legislators against people who carry the NIMBY, or Not in My Backyard, mindframe.

Propagandists use the name-calling technique to incite fears or arouse positive prejudices with the intent that invoked fear (based on fearmongering tactics) or trust will encourage those that read, see or hear propaganda to construct a negative opinion, in respect to the former, or a positive opinion, with respect to the latter, about a person, group, or set of beliefs or ideas that the propagandist would wish the recipients to believe. The method is intended to provoke conclusions and actions about a matter apart from an impartial examinations of the facts of the matter. When this tactic is used instead of an argument, name-calling is thus a substitute for rational, fact-based arguments against an idea or belief, based upon its own merits, and becomes an argumentum ad hominem.

"In addition, if granted § 8-503 relief, what Rock Island characterizes as “voluntary” easement negotiations with farmers will actually sound something like “Rock Island has been directed by the Commission to construct a transmission line on an approve[d] route, which crosses your land.” Characterizing the easement negotiations as voluntary under these facts is kind of like giving someone the option of jumping off of a cliff before you push them."

The focus of this assessment is to evaluate the BE protocols’ performance where bi-monthly
meter reading is the standard.

"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." - Thomas Pynchon

When the values are designated as actual, then BSE assumes that they are actual meter reads and treats when according to the
protocols employees in levelization.

As the number of consecutive estimates increases, the BE performance deteriorates.

...ascertain if using the Prior Period should not be considered for the Base Period if the Prior Period was estimated, and especially if there are indications that there was a large but unwarranted reconciliation.

In the case of scenario 10b (Figure 7-13), which imposed two months of 33%
underestimation followed by a large reconciliation, the performance was not quite as good. The R-value distribution became less compacted around R = 1.0, and the
percentage extreme R-value increased to 8%, four time that of scenario 1b. This might
result because underestimation of usage results in systematically poorer performance of the BE in situations where the estimated month’s usage and the reconciliation amount is large. More testing is called for to verify this result before changes are made to the BE
protocols to mitigate this apparent bias.

Missed scheduled meter reads resulted in a modest increase in the extent of
overestimation measured by the mean R-value, but more importantly more individual
customer R-values are in the extreme tails.

EPRl was asked to perform objective statistical testing of our estimation processes. While we (FirstEnergy) agree with EPRl that the  estimation algorithm performs well for most customers we also believe that performance can be improved.
As such we recognize the need to mitigate any unintended impact to customers in the interim and will as proposed in the settlement:
Bill message customers who received a bill varying by more than 25% from previous year following multiple estimates to remind of
payment options (February 2014);
Exception customers whose current estimate vary by more than 25% from their previous year’s bill for manual review (May 2014).