bundles new transmission with new clean energy — about 3,400 megawatts of new wind and solar capacity to be built upstate by EnergyRe and Invenergy, the latter a major clean energy developer. 

Of the project’s $11 billion price tag, about $3.5 billion would go toward building a 174-mile high-voltage direct-current transmission line capable of carrying 1,300 MW of power from upstate to New York City, with completion set for 2027. The remainder of the budget would fund the new wind and solar. 

The New York Power Authority will provide the right of way for much of the project underneath its existing 345-kilovolt overhead transmission line running from Utica to Orange County, with the remaining stretch buried along roadways and underneath the Hudson River.

... its use of underground high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) line along existing rights of way to minimize the risk of opposition from landowners and communities along the path of the project.... ​“We think that using existing rights of way is less impactful, both ecologically and in terms of communities and view corridors,” he said. ​“We think that this project will serve as an example for the rest of the nation on how to solve these complex issues.”

There’s certainly a need for strategies to enable massive grid expansion that can accommodate large amounts of new wind and solar power. Proposed transmission projects can face a decade or more of challenges related to siting, permitting and cost allocation. These hurdles have fatally tripped up several high-profile projects over the past decade. 

Burying HVDC cables along existing railroads and highways can dramatically simplify the process, bypassing the need to get permits from multiple states, counties and private landholders for overhead transmission towers. Technology advances over the past decade have allowed these types of projects to compete with overhead lines on cost.

Some communities are pushing back on the idea of agricultural land and other places being used for large scale wind and solar farms.

Biden asked what the electric companies are hearing on those types of arguments, using the opportunity to also take a swipe at former President Trump, who claimed in 2019 that wind turbine noise causes cancer.

“Generic question: Are you getting less resistance when you talk about wind and windmills? I know they cause cancer,” he said, drawing laughter from the room. Experts have debunked that claim.

“Bad joke,” Biden said.

“The tax credits will make more sophisticated energy infrastructure much less expensive,” said Pat Vincent-Collawn, CEO of New Mexico-based PNM Resources Inc.

An aggressive clean energy transition will be a pricey one, especially for the electricity industry, which is among the most capital-intensive sectors in the United States. The industry collectively spent $143.3 billion in capital expenditures in 2021, EEI said.

Regulated electric companies are allowed to recoup investments from customers, plus earn a profit. That is a key reason why electric companies are pushing Congress to pass these tax credits: It softens the blow to consumers, who eventually will pay for the transmission lines, solar arrays and wind farms.

“Those benefits actually flow through to our customers and the economy,” Akins of AEP said at the White House.

Prior to the event, EEI executives briefed Wall Street investors and analysts at the Nasdaq MarketSite.
There, Brian Wolff, EEI’s chief strategy officer, gave a nod to the meeting with Biden and doubled down on the electric companies’ efforts to ensure those tax credit proposals become law.

Akins said the plan to add renewables presents an opportunity to work with unions and to save customers billions of dollars. The challenge is siting and building transmission to support all of those renewables, he said.

“For us, it’s important to scope those projects,” he said. “The savings associated with the renewables will help us with the transition.”

The DOJ complaint and audit staff’s discussions on internal controls during onsite interviews of FESC employees raised audit staff’s concerns about the existence of significant shortcomings in FirstEnergy and its subsidiary companies’ controls over financial reporting, including controls over accounting for the costs of civic, political, and related activities, such as lobbying activities, performed by and on behalf of FirstEnergy and its subsidiaries. Moreover, these controls may have been circumvented in ways designed to conceal the nature and purpose of expenditures made and, as a result, that led to the improper inclusion of lobbying and other nonutility costs in wholesale rate determinations.

Even more concerning, several factual assertions agreed to by FirstEnergy in DPA and the remedies FirstEnergy agreed to undertake, point towards internal controls having been possibly obfuscated or circumvented to conceal or mislead as to the actual amounts, nature, and purpose of the lobbying expenditures made, and as a result, the improper inclusion of lobbying and other nonutility costs in wholesale transmission billing rates.

One alternative is to build/bury the transmission lines along the right of way of public highways. Route 36 which crosses Illinois from east to west is one such possibility. The State would then receive any payments that the company intended to pay related to this project which would help reduce the State’s outstanding debt.

Another alternative is to bury the transmission lines along the proposed routes. In fact, Invenergy the ultimate parent of Grain Belt is already engaged in such a project in the State of New York – Clean Path NY.

There is another proposed HVDC project in Northern Illinois, Soo Green RR, which outlines their plans to bury their transmission lines next to railroad lines. You may view the four minute video at https://www.soogreenrr.com/project-overview/

Are we not doing an adequate job of incorporating the input of all stakeholders or resolving major conflict during the development stage? If parties remain opposed to a project after a final decision is made, have we reached a time in our society that the risk of proceeding with a project may be too great even if an approval has been granted? In the project sited above (NECEC), the primary benefits appear to accrue to one state and most opposition as well as the agency suspending construction are from another. In fact, the issue on the ballot in the opposing state, which could permanently enjoin the project under construction, supports local transmission while increasing the difficulty of gaining approval for EHV and DC transmission that does not directly benefit the local communities it impacts.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (the Act) passed in November 2021 grants FERC broader transmission siting authority within national interest transmission corridors and allows the DOE to become an anchor tenant for new transmission projects.

Frankly, we do not know if the Act will help get new transmission built. Unquestionably, it has never been more difficult to obtain consensus regarding major new long distance, interstate, and international transmission projects. Such projects should be designed to deliver demonstrable benefits outweighing the impacts for all affected parties.

Transmission developers may need to borrow from other energy business segments to provide compelling economic strategies for landowners, host communities and other stakeholders to support new projects. The outright purchase of the required land for a project as opposed to a one-time purchase of a ROW is one example utilities have employed. Offering a production-based payment to landowners and providing a community stipend or other benefits has proven successful in the gas exploration and wind industries. Applying these methods to transmission projects would ensure those living with the project will receive continuing tangible benefits.

The power industry is operating in a new era of public activism complicated by policy driven as opposed to strictly need based infrastructure development goals. Successful future projects will require in depth collaboration to get all stakeholders on board and rowing in the same direction.

Judge William Conley’s ruling throws the fate of the Cardinal-Hickory Creek transmission line into question just months after utilities began construction on the $492 million project.

Given these facts, plaintiffs contend, and the court finds credible, that the Utilities are pushing forward with construction on either side of the Refuge, even without an approved path through the Refuge, in order to make any subsequent challenge to a Refuge crossing extremely prejudicial to their sunk investment, which will fall on their ratepayers regardless of completion of the CHC project, along with a guaranteed return on the Utilities’ investment in the project. Thus, if the court does not treat consideration of the essentially inevitable re-proposal for a Refuge crossing as ripe for consideration now, the Utilities will have built up to either side of the Refuge, making entry of a permanent injunction later all the more costly, not just to the Utilities and their ratepayers, but to the environment they are altering on an ongoing basis.

Certainly, although a refuge manager has some deference in deciding which uses are compatible, the court is not compelled to take the agency’s final word when all factual findings weigh against it. In this way, “deference” does not become the unlimited, get-out-of-jail-free card that the Utilities seem to suggest...

Before granting a right of way through the Refuge, Fish and Wildlife must confirm that the proposed project comports with the purposes of the Refuge under 16 U.S.C.A. § 668dd. Fish and Wildlife originally finalized its “Compatibility Determination for the Case ... on December 20, 2019. Because the Utilities already had a prior right of way through the Refuge, where a 161 and 69kv transmission line had been previously installed and the Utilities had agreed to transfer back that right of way, Fish and Wildlife found the proposed CHC line was compatible with the purposes of the Refuge as “a minor realignment of an existing right-of-way” and granted a permit to the Utilities.
On March 1, 2021, however, the Utilities contacted Fish and Wildlife and asked for a slightly amended right of way through the Refuge, ostensibly to avoid Ho-Chunk burial grounds. Then, before Fish and Wildlife could issue a decision on the proposed amendment, the Utilities again contacted Fish and Wildlife on July 29, 2021, this time asking for an expedited land exchange instead of an amended right of way, ostensibly because approval for a new right of way would take too long. Specifically, in exchange for a land exchange in the Refuge, the Utilities were now proposing to transfer a 30-acre parcel to Fish and Wildlife.  On August 3, 2021, Fish and Wildlife confirmed receipt of the Utilities’ latest proposal, indicating that its response to such a land exchange “may” be “favorable.”
Then, on August 27, 2021, less than a month after Fish and Wildlife responded favorably to a proposed land transfer, and less than a week before summary judgment motions were due in this case, Fish and Wildlife “withdrew” its entire original Compatibility Determination, stating it “learned that an error had previously been made regarding the 2019 Compatibility Determination when identifying the existing rights-of-way proposed for re-alignment.” 
As a result, any approved right of way through the Refuge was rescinded, along with the compatibility determination. However, in its letter of withdrawal to the Utilities, Fish and Wildlife did note that the agency “is committed to working with you toward timely review of the land exchange you have proposed in lieu of your March 2021 application for an amended right-of-way permit . . . [and] concurs that a land exchange is a potentially favorable alternative to a right-of-way permit.”

In accordance with 2020 ILCS5/8-406, Invenergy Transmission LLC, an affiliate of Invenergy LLC, hereby provides notice to the Shelby County Clerk of the first of three phases (“Phase 1”) of public meetings for the Grain Belt Express project.

...a new 175-mile, underground transmission line, will enable the delivery of more than 7.5 million megawatt-hours of emissions-free energy into New York City every year.

DOE is authorized to serve as an anchor customer on new and upgraded transmission lines in order to facilitate the private financing and construction of the line. Under this authority, DOE would buy up to 50 percent of planned capacity from the developer for a term of up to 40 years. A purchase of capacity will not be considered a “major federal action” that would trigger environmental review pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). DOE will then market the capacity it has purchased to recover the costs it has incurred once the project’s long-term financial viability is secured.

Under its statutory authority, FERC has the power to influence retail rates for natural gas and electricity, including by preventing market manipulation in wholesale natural gas and electricity markets and enforcing gas spot market transparency. We urge the Commission to use its existing regulatory authority to ensure that households’ energy bills are not driven up by manipulation, obfuscation, or other malfeasance from regulated entities, and to work collaboratively with other agencies to address energy debt.

• Deploying more than $20 billion in federal financing tools, including through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s new $2.5 billion Transmission Facilitation Program, $3 billion expansion of the Smart Grid Investment Grant Program, and more than $10 billion in grants for states, Tribes, and utilities to enhance grid resilience and prevent power outages, and through existing tools, including the more than $3 billion Western Area Power Administration Transmission Infrastructure Program, and a number of loan guarantee programs through the Loan Programs Office.
  

(1) Transmission Facilitation Program. The IIJA establishes a new $2.5B revolving fund to
facilitate the construction of high capacity new, replacement, or upgraded transmission lines. This program will prioritize projects that improve resilience and reliability of the grid, facilitate inter-regional transfer of electricity, lower electric sector greenhouse gas emissions, and use advanced technology. DOE is authorized to do so through three separate tools.
• DOE is authorized to serve as an anchor customer on new and upgraded transmission lines in order to facilitate the private financing and construction of the line. Under this authority, DOE would buy up to 50 percent of planned capacity from the developer for a term of up to 40 years. A purchase of capacity will not be considered a “major federal action” that would trigger environmental review pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). DOE will then market the capacity it has purchased to recover the costs it has incurred once the project’s long-term financial viability is secured.

DOE is authorized to make loans for the cost of carrying out eligible transmission projects.

DOE is authorized to enter into public-private partnerships to co-develop projects that are located in a National Corridor or that are necessary to accommodate an increase in demand for interstate transmission, among other criteria. Such co-development can entail the design, development, construction, operation, maintenance, or ownership of a project.

“Anti” in MDN’s parlance means “anti-fossil fuel.” Being anti-fossil fuel is a wholly insane philosophical position to take, yet many in the Democrat Party have taken that position. (Yes, we’re calling some Democrats insane.) People like Sen. Elizabeth “Pocahontas” Warren, Sen. Ed “Lackey” Markey, and Sen. “Crazy” Bernie Sanders, and others in Congress, bash away and demand the end of fossil fuels. Yet those same antis who demand an end to fossil energy have just sent a letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) demanding FERC do something to lower the price of oil, natural gas, and electricity in their blue states. Why? Because they don’t want to be voted out of office for their obviously failed policies.

Skelly said markets and mechanisms are critical, “so that private actors can come in and compete and beat the crap out of each other and bring costs down.”

“It’s not a gale-force wind, but it’s a little bit of momentum out there in the world for us to tap into,” said Michael Skelly, the CEO of Grid United, a Houston-based transmission developer.

You would think in eight years, you would have sort of a lull, but it’s a sort of a mad dash every day to move these projects forward,” Skelly said. “It’s more like an Ironman [Triathlon], not a marathon. It’s more like a decathlon, but it goes on for eight years.”

That “could accelerate everything we’re doing in our clean energy transition and probably provide some pretty nice [cash flow] features to fund additional capital investment,” said James Chapman, the chief financial officer at Virginia-based Dominion Energy Inc. “So it all seems pretty good.”

Gale Klappa, executive chairman of Milwaukee-based WEC Energy Group, said he expected that extensions of renewable tax credits would happen. “It’s such a sausage-making machine in Washington as you know, but if I were a betting man, I think something will pass,” Klappa said, referring to the “Build Back Better” plan under consideration through the budget reconciliation process.