Utility Energy has agreed to purchase 500MW of power from Plains & Eastern via an intermediate converter station in Arkansas. It is not immediately clear where the balance of the line’s capacity will be sold.

The public relations firm WestRogers sent out an e-mail blast on March 25 with a press release touting a federal decision that appears to clear the way for a $2.5 billion transmission line that would bring wind power from Oklahoma, through Arkansas and southwestern Tipton County, and into Shelby County.

This Grass Looks Real

In grassroots organizing you drum up broad-based support for your issue.  A grasstops effort is more narrow, focusing on business, community or government leaders.  But what if you could create the appearance of citizen interest and get decision-makers to take notice?  It's called astroturf organizing, where you fake grassroots support.  Tactics include phone banks, "citizen" front groups, press release blitzes or rent-a-demonstrators.  Politicians are catching on to this latest turf war, so practitioners are looking for more subtle ways to simulate citizen concern.

In the release, there is ubiquitous use of buzz words like "jobs," "clean," "low-cost" and "renewable," classic public relations language.

Despite the flowery language in the release, there is plenty of opposition to the project.

This Commission has not before endorsed the policy that the activities of non-decisional
intervenor groups be funded through a dedicated utility tariff under the auspices of the FPA. Yet here we are doing exactly that. Today’s order is couched in the language of
good intentions, but I find it troubling  precedent as both a matter of policy and prudence.

My public policy concern is that there is little that meaningfully differentiates these
organizations from a myriad of other state agencies and not-for-profit governmental
organizations or other interest groups that will now say, “what about my piece of the
pie?” CAPS entities argue they are uniquely situated. But aren’t state energy offices, in
their own way, also uniquely situated? What about state departments of environmental
quality? Do they, too, deserve a Regional Transmission Organization (RTO) funded
organization to finance their participation in stakeholder meetings? Furthermore, given
that CAPS includes at least one non-governmental non-profit, we now have cracked-open the lid of Pandora’s Box just a little wider yet. What is to stop any of the countless groups that intersect with the regulatory world from arguing that they are also uniquely situated to speak for any  number of communities of interest?

(a)
(1) There shall be an office in the Commission to be known as the Office of Public Participation (hereinafter in this section referred to as the “Office”).
(2)
(A) The Office shall be administered by a Director. The Director shall be appointed by the Chairman with the approval of the Commission. The Director may be removed during his term of office by the Chairman, with the approval of the Commission, only for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.
(B) The term of office of the Director shall be 4 years. The Director shall be responsible for the discharge of the functions and duties of the Office. He shall be appointed and compensated at a rate not in excess of the maximum rate prescribed for GS–18 of the General Schedule under section 5332 of title 5.
(3) The Director may appoint, and assign the duties of, employees of such Office, and with the concurrence of the Commission he may fix the compensation of such employees and procure temporary and intermittent services to the same extent as is authorized under section 3109 of title 5.
(b)
(1) The Director shall coordinate assistance to the public with respect to authorities exercised by the Commission. The Director shall also coordinate assistance available to persons intervening or participating or proposing to intervene or participate in proceedings before the Commission.
(2) The Commission may, under rules promulgated by it, provide compensation for reasonable attorney’s fees, expert witness fees, and other costs of intervening or participating in any proceeding before the Commission to any person whose intervention or participation substantially contributed to the approval, in whole or in part, of a position advocated by such person. Such compensation may be paid only if the Commission has determined that--
(A) the proceeding is significant, and
(B) such person’s intervention or participation in such proceeding without receipt of compensation constitutes a significant financial hardship to him.
(3) Nothing in this subsection affects or restricts any rights of any intervenor or participant under any other applicable law or rule of law.
(4) There are authorized to be appropriated to the Secretary of Energy to be used by the Office for purposes of compensation of persons under the provisions of this subsection not to exceed $500,000 for the fiscal year 1978, not to exceed $2,000,000 for the fiscal year 1979, not to exceed $2,200,000 for the fiscal year 1980, and not to exceed $2,400,000 for the fiscal year 1981.

The Office of Public Participation is also needed to provide support to communities involved with FERC-jurisdictional hydro and natural gas infrastructure proposals.

The Hannibal Board of Public Works has suspended talks with Houston-based Clean Line Energy Partners about investing in or using its proposed Grain Belt Express transmission line to bring wind-generated electricity to the city.

BPW General Manager Bob Stevenson told the utility's board of directors Tuesday that the BPW has decided to step back and observe developments between the company and other municipalities before moving forward.

"We just decided to sit back, take it easy for a while, and just study what's going, keep asking questions, keep researching," Stevenson said. "We've got nothing to put forward. There is no pending contract."

BPW board members also accepted an average $36.86 per megawatt-hour bid from Florida-based NextEra Energy Resources for energy to be used in summer 2017, 2018 and 2019. Four bidders, including NextEra, submitted quotes for supplying 20 megawatts in June, 25 megawatts in July and 25 megawatts in August each year.

Stevenson said those energy blocks, which make up about one-twelfth of the BPW's demand, will cover peaks during hot summer days. He said the BPW and Chris Dawson, a representative from consulting firm GDS Associates, had discussed locking down prices now while they remain low.

The Public Service Commission denied Clean Line a certificate of convenience and necessity in July on grounds that the 4,000-megawatt, direct-current line would not benefit the state's consumers and landowners. Clean Line has since approached municipal utilities, including the BPW, about participating in the project in hopes of showing regulators it has a customer base in Missouri.

Stevenson said the BPW has no deadline for making decisions related to the project despite Clean Line's goal of appearing before the commission again this year.

"Without us, they've got nothing," he said. "Just because they're in a hurry doesn't mean we have to be."

Skelly said that Clean Line is prepared to make a power proposal that would represent a “fantastic deal for the city of Hannibal.”

Lawlor suggested that the Grain Belt Express could potentially offer power to Hannibal for as little as 2 cents per kilowatt hour (kwh).

...the possibility that Hannibal could buy “capacity rights,” which the BPW could utilize or sell on the open market.

Lawlor said a $12.5 million investment in Grain Belt could equate to a 25 megawatt stake in the Ralls County converter station and a portion of the project's capacity, noting the utility could buy as much or as little as it wanted.

Critics of the investment need only look at the audit’s bottom line regarding Prairie State to find areas where revenues from the sale of power generated at the plant continued to not equal the BPW’s expenses associated with the facility.

What Clean Line will be seeking initially from the city is a letter of participation that the company would include in its next application for a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity from the Missouri Public Service Commission. The PSC denied Clean Line such a certificate in July 2015.

In a renewed effort to illustrate Grain Belt's merits to the PSC, Clean Line has approached municipal utilities about participating in the project.

"It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog."

Opponents used some of those arguments to successfully derail the Potomac-Appalachian Transmission Highline, a 290-mile line from Putnam County, W.Va., to Frederick County, Md., proposed by Allegheny Energy in 2008. The Greensburg company, acquired by FirstEnergy in 2011, suspended the project after it could not convince regulators the line was necessary.

PJM staff reviewed results of analyses showing reliability drivers no longer exist for the project throughout the 15-year planning cycle. The analyses incorporated the continued trends of decreasing customer load growth, increasing participation in demand response programs and the recent commitment of new generating capacity in eastern PJM.

While citizen groups have fought transmission projects — often successfully — by attacking the developer’s need to build them, the environmental regulations could usher in more projects and complicate opposition.

Changing drivers of transmission

Transmission companies see big potential for new projects, particularly from sparsely populated areas that generate wind energy to urban areas. “Just as trains carried cattle and other goods from the rural areas to urban centers, the Plains & Eastern Clean Line will carry renewable energy from the Plains of the Southwest,” states the website of one developer, Clean Line Energy of Houston, Texas.

Clean Line expects federal approval for its 700-mile Plains & Eastern Clean Line, designed to carry 4,000 megawatts of power from wind farms in the panhandle of Oklahoma. The line will terminate near Memphis, Tenn. Clean Line has four other projects in the pipeline.

“We anticipate a very busy 2016,” said company president Michael Skelly. 

...some wind mills and solar farms in areas with constant breeze and abundant sunshine