“There’s a heightened awareness of the need for transmission,” Skelly said. “Even when you talk to a landowner and you tell them what you’re doing, they go, ‘Yeah, the grid; we got to fix that grid. We’ve got to make that grid better.’

John Podesta, senior adviser to Joe Biden on clean energy, said that the loans office is “essential to the effective implementation” of the administration’s goal to eliminate planet-heating emissions by 2050. “Jigar is laser-focused on working with all levels of government, project sponsors and affected communities to deliver on that mission and realize results for the American people,” Podesta said.

...Shah, a debonair former clean energy entrepreneur and podcast host who matches his suits with pristine Stan Smiths, oversees resources comparable to the GDP of Norway: all to help turbocharge solar, wind, batteries and a host of other climate technologies in the US.

Deep in the confines of the hulking, brutalist headquarters of the US Department of Energy, down one of its long, starkly lit corridors, sits a small, unheralded office that is poised to play a pivotal role in America’s shift away from fossil fuels and help the world stave off disastrous global heating.

To conservatives, the loans office, which was founded in 2005, is forever tarred by the much-criticized decision during Barack Obama’s administration to loan $535m to Solyndra, the California solar firm, only for the company to file for bankruptcy two years later, in 2011.

The huge new financial arsenal at the office’s disposal risks “Solyndra on steroids”, according to Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the incoming Republican chair of the House energy committee. A group of Republicans led by Rodgers have said the new loan authorities “raise questions about increased risks of waste, fraud and abuse, especially if the administration uses the program for its rush-to-green agenda”.

The Board provides advice and recommendations to the Secretary of Energy on the Administration's energy policies, the Department's basic and applied research and development activities, economic and national security policy, and on any other activities and operations of the Department of Energy, as the Secretary may direct. The duties of the Board are solely advisory.

For all aspects of DOE transmission funding, prioritize projects which will enhance the interregional ties that will help regions support one another during times of extreme load or generation shortages(e.g., extreme weather events and challenging market conditions).

Prioritization of interregional projects will help compensate for lack of interregional planning, though such projects should not be seen as full substitutes for robust planning.

Ensure that interregional transmission and distribution solution projects are meeting Justice 40 Initiative (e.g., community engagement) and Just Transition (e.g., community benefit agreements) priorities (e.g., preferential weighting criteria within RFP).

Screen all projects against interregional criteria, in part to ensure that there are no interregional projects which would create similar benefits at a lower cost.

After years of development, the United States is poised for a boom in long-distance transmission, Skelly said, pointing to projects such as Champlain Hudson, SunZia and TransWest Express.

The long-term expansion and extension of renewable energy tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act led to increased certainty that has flowed through to transmission development, according to Skelly.

“The easiest job in America right now is selling HVDC equipment,” he said.

Proactive engagement with all of these stakeholders can lead to stronger projects and better outcomes, increase transparency, and the reduction or elimination of associated risks that can often stall transmission projects before they can be constructed.

It’s thus critical that Congress pass permitting reform legislation that will add to America’s capacity to transmit clean electricity and speed up the approval of clean energy projects that are waiting to be built, while preserving communities’ ability to make their voices heard on the environmental and other impacts of proposed energy projects.

Data shows the public, including communities hosting wind and solar projects, approve of renewables and want more of them.

Unfortunately, proposed wind and solar projects have faced an avalanche of local opposition in recent years...

Unfortunately, proposed wind and solar projects have faced an avalanche of local opposition in recent years, often based on misinformation or outright fallacies. Opposition groups, following a playbook organized by a fossil-funded think tank, spread fallacies about impacts to wildlife, property values, health, and more, sowing fear and anger.

Astroturfing is the practice of masking the sponsors of a message or organization (e.g., political, advertising, religious or public relations) to make it appear as though it originates from and is supported by grassroots participants. It is a practice intended to give the statements or organizations credibility by withholding information about the source's financial connection. The term astroturfing is derived from AstroTurf, a brand of synthetic carpeting designed to resemble natural grass, as a play on the word "grassroots". The implication behind the use of the term is that instead of a "true" or "natural" grassroots effort behind the activity in question, there is a "fake" or "artificial" appearance of support.

“Local community opposition is real and will likely continue to make siting and permitting a challenge,” but might be addressable, said University of Notre Dame Associate Professor of Sustainable Energy Policy Emily Grubert, who has worked with federal agencies on related issues.

To earn a community’s trust, development proposals “should explain why a project is needed, why the community’s resources are needed, and how the community can benefit,” Grubert said. They should also “assure the community its concerns have been heard and it will be protected,” she added.

DOE’s formal Community Benefits Agreements, which are used for new infrastructure development and stipulate the benefits a developer will deliver for the community, “could also have a powerful impact on streamlining siting and permitting,” Grubert said.

“No project should go ahead without a Community Benefit Agreement to assure real benefits for the host community,” agreed NRDC’s Greene. But in many places, “political polarization has turned reasonable project development questions into obstructive, misinformation campaigns,” Greene said. “Overcoming that will take a lot of work,” he added.

neighborhood associations, faith-based organizations, unions, environmental groups and others representing the interests of a community that will be impacted by development(s).

A CBA is an agreement signed by community benefit groups and a developer, identifying the community benefits a developer agrees to deliver, in return for community support of the project.

1.  Research development proposals in their region to identify any that have the potential to offer benefits to the residents they will be operating near;
2.  Organize a broad-based coalition of community interests and recruit stakeholder organizations;
3.  Hold public meetings and maximize turnout with help from local leaders; and
4.  Engage the developer with sustainable community objectives, via open dialogue as well as transparency.

“People, especially in smaller communities, can get very passionate, and even exchange death threats, which shows how important and undervalued trust is,” Grubert agreed.

[community] support would raise the probability of state or local government approvals for zoning variances, state permits, and other regulatory approvals.

The renewables spurred by the IRA require a considerable transmission buildout. Accomplishing it will be no mean feat. The most oft-proposed solution is to federalize ever more of the transmission planning and permitting process. That may sound better in theory than in practice.

Furthermore, the federal government has a dismal record in streamlining infrastructure permitting, even when it is needed. Look no further than the Western U.S., where federal lands are often an obstacle to transmission, rather than a facilitator of it.

Infrastructure opponents have had increasing success obstructing projects with a federal nexus. FERC’s natural gas pipeline certification program is a good reference point. Activists have blocked needed energy projects through the aggressive use of litigation at every step of the permitting and review process. Without meaningful reform to federal laws like the National Environmental Policy Act and the Clean Water Act, all those litigation weapons will now be in the hands of interveners seeking to stop electric transmission lines.

Beyond just educating the neighbors of a proposed project, former U.S. Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy III (D-Mass.), now managing director of Citizens Energy, said developers and utilities should explore ways to ensure that the expansions directly benefit those communities.

Such arrangements can prove worthwhile even to for-profit companies by alleviating residents’ concerns that large transmission projects could lower property values or disrupt their neighborhoods with no visible benefit to them, Kennedy said. The costs of the delays or resiting of projects can often well exceed the expense of profit sharing with those communities, he argued.

Former FERC Commissioner Colette Honorable, now a partner at Reed Smith leading the firm’s energy regulatory group, noted that getting all parties on board with a project in the early phases can reduce the likelihood of prolonged, and expensive, delays at FERC and the federal courts.

“You’re in trouble if you have a matter pending and the first time you hear them is when they object,” she said.

Likewise, she said incorporating equity into the work done by RTOs can be accomplished by examining what voices are missing at the table and including those stakeholders who aren’t represented.

The Chrysalis Energy partnership will focus across 1.5 million acres of mainly contiguous, rights-owned land within Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia.

"The sheer magnitude of the land position is remarkable, likely the single largest private land inventory in PJM and comprising 1/1000th of the entire continental US acreage.

Within the scope of the JV, OYA and OWS will develop, construct, jointly own and operate an extensive portfolio of renewable energy assets across OWS’s current land inventory.

Transmission’s Moment

Michael Skelly, founder and CEO of Grid United, marveled at the attentiveness of the audience at his panel discussion Oct. 11.

“It may be that this is because transmission is one of the most legally intense aspects of the energy transition. Or as we say — ruefully — in our company, ‘No lawyer left behind,’” he said. “Or maybe we’re just having a moment with transmission. ... Transmission was in Esquire magazine. Come on.” Esquire’s article was titled, "The Sexiest Part of the Clean Energy Transition Is Big-Ass Power Lines.”