Category:

PATH Project Canceled!

8/27/2012

Let the joyous news be spread,
The wicked, old PATH, at last, is dead!

"The PJM Board during a phone conference Friday decided to remove the Potomac-Appalachian Transmission Highline (PATH) and Mid-Atlantic Power Pathway (MAPP) lines from PJM’s regional transmission plans, based on the PJM staff’s recommendations."

But we've got to verify it legally, to see
If PATH
Is morally, ethic'lly
Spiritually, physically
Positively, absolutely
Undeniably and reliably Dead.

As Regional Transmission Operator they must aver, they've thoroughly examined her
And PATH's not only merely dead, it's really most sincerely dead!

Then this is a day of independence
For all PATH opponents and their descendants!

Yes, let the joyous news be spread
The wicked, old PATH at last is dead!

21 Comments

AEP "Disappointed," FirstEnergy Hides Behind PJM's Skirt

8/21/2012

2 Comments

How many times can the trade press rehash the PATH cancellation story? Answer: As many times as necessary to ensure that they don't have to actually cover any REAL stories about ordinary citizens organizing and kicking PATH and other unneeded transmission projects to the curb.

Another version of AEP's "disappointment" showed up this morning in Energy Biz (For Leaders in the Global Power Industry!)

AEP:

“We put a lot of work into the PATH project,” a company spokesperson told Energy Central’s TransmissionHub Aug. 8. “Obviously, we’re disappointed that it’s not going to go forward, but we’ll turn our focus now onto other transmission projects that we have in other areas that are active projects.”

FirstEnergy:

"We remain responsive to what PJM recommends and we will focus on the projects that they do see necessary to strengthen the electric grid,” a FirstEnergy spokesperson told TransmissionHub Aug. 8. “In fact, we have a number of transmission projects at FirstEnergy that we are pursuing at this time that were recommended by PJM in its latest regional transmission plan, so we’ll be focusing our efforts on those projects, particularly projects in Ohio and New Jersey.”

Is that the best these two corporations can do after wasting nearly a quarter billion dollars of electric consumers' money on a for-profit initiative that was never needed in the first place? You guys just suck.

AEP & FE just don't care that their project failed because both companies have moved on to other profitable transmission ventures. No big deal. No apologies.

However, PATH used to be such a big deal that promoting it through propaganda and secret back room deals wasted millions of dollars of hard-working electric consumers' money. And still PATH got soundly beaten in the all-important court of public opinion by a bunch of untrained nobodies (but we're quick learners, right?)

Also despite their current "no big deal" attitude, some of the PATH employees actually got angry at our humorous campaign to humanize a faceless corporation and make it less scary for us "little people." While most had the smarts to laugh along with us, there were a couple who made our job more fun by reacting. To the few who embarrassed themselves making faces at public meetings, posting filthy names on an internet blog, or wasting time and money continuing to fight us in regulatory venues -- thank you for making my job so much fun!

You fellas might want to develop a sense of humor. It helps. So, good luck with your new transmission projects, AEP & FE, and hopefully our "paths" will never cross again.

2 Comments

David Slays Goliath

8/11/2012

6 Comments

Today, Patience and I celebrated our fourth, and hopefully last, "PATHaversary." It's been four years now since we walked into our first PATH "Open House," soon figured out not only was the project incredibly destructive, but that the "green-shirted goon" staff were callous and untruthful. And we made a game plan to stop PATH. So, this afternoon we hoisted a couple Raging Bitch Ales and bid PATH adieu.

We've learned a lot in the last four years. Unfortunately, we can't unlearn it again. We're not the same people we were four years ago and our work will continue.

One of the many news stories about PATH's cancellation drew some comments complaining that the real story had been missed, and it has. The real story is that David has beaten the corporate Goliath. Ordinary citizens coming together and fully participating in our democratic processes were more powerful than corporate greed in the end. You can fight corporate power and win, folks! If we'd individually concentrated on only our own backyards and let PATH intimidate us (oh, and how they tried!) the $2.1B, completely unnecessary, PATH project would be built by now. However, because of all of us, PATH has finally been chucked into the great scrap heap of stupid ideas that will never become reality, where it always rightfully belonged.

We developed new and effective methods of successfully fighting transmission lines, and we won. Our "best practices" will now be carried forward and applied elsewhere.

PATH didn't build a high voltage transmission line, instead we built something much more powerful. We built new friendships, both within our own immediate neighborhoods, as well as with others across the state, and even across the country. We began and continue to build a grassroots movement of citizens and consumers who are fed up with business as usual energy policy that benefits the few at the expense of the many, and are determined to change it for the better. We have a voice, and it roars!

6 Comments

Why Did PJM Cancel PATH and MAPP?

8/9/2012

1 Comment

PJM held a press briefing this afternoon to explain their decision to recommend that their Board of Managers cancel the PATH and MAPP projects at their upcoming August 24 meeting. PJM blamed the cancellation on "the economy." Nothing could be further from the truth.

Here are the REAL reasons why the projects were canceled:

PATH and MAPP (and Susquehanna-Roseland and TrAIL) were first and foremost parts of PJM's Project Mountaineer initiative. Project Mountaineer was the 2005 brainchild of PJM's then President, Karl Pfirrmann. Project Mountaineer was a plan to increase the transfer of coal-fired generation from Western PJM (the Ohio Valley) to Eastern PJM (the East Coast load centers) by 5,000 MW. The plan was born out of an idea to "promote regional transmission planning and expansion to facilitate fuel diversity including expanded uses of coal-fired resources." FERC held a technical conference on this subject in Charleston, WV on May 13, 2005, that was well attended by coal companies and electric utilities, as well as their political and regulatory cheerleaders, and Pfirrmann unveiled Project Mountaineer at this conference.

I'm not sure how "fuel diversity" was going to be "facilitated" by adding more "coal-fired resources" back in 2005, since coal has historically held the lion's share of the "resources" that produce electricity in this country. Don't try to make sense out of the transcript. It only holds entertainment value anymore. Do a "find" in the document for the words "laughter" and "penguin" and you'll see what I mean. It was a real riot, apparently.

Project Mountaineer was the opportunity to burn more coal and build very profitable transmission projects to transport it to new markets, and PJM's Regional Transmission Expansion Plan (RTEP) was proposed as the vehicle that would allow it to happen.

The coal-fired generators created projects designed to take advantage of the opportunity. Allegheny Energy proposed the TrAIL Project. AEP proposed its "I-765 Project." PJM broke TrAIL down and combined part of this opportunity with part of AEP's I-765 Project to create the combined opportunity known as the PATH Project.

That's right, the power companies created the opportunities before PJM had refined the exact vehicle. PJM had yet to create a "need" for these opportunities that would act as the vehicle. PJM went looking for, and "found," voltage violations, congestion, and reliability problems that would cause "brownouts and blackouts" if these opportunities were not built. Instead of allowing a problem to present itself before designing a solution, PJM identified the solution first and then created a problem for it to fix.

As far back as 2007, opponents to new coal-by-wire high voltage transmission lines had produced testimony by experts that questioned PJM's determination of "need," and proposed that increased energy efficiency, demand management and the building of new generation closer to East Coast loads would solve the problem quicker, cheaper and more reliably than building billions of dollars worth of new long-distance transmission lines.

Today, PJM claimed that the reasons for PATH and MAPP's demise were: "...reduced growth rate in customer load over the past years [energy efficiency]. We've seen a general increase in particular in eastern PJM in the amount of demand response that is available to us and most recently, earlier this year, we've seen a number of new generation additions in eastern PJM clearing through our capacity market."

These are the very same solutions that experts predicted would solve the problem without the building of new transmission lines FIVE YEARS AGO!

PJM claimed that they have been continuously re-evaluating these projects over the past five years, however their re-evaluations always continued to find a need for PATH. It was only after the Virginia State Corporation Commission got tired of PATH's obfuscations and delays and ordered new supplemental analyses of the PATH project that it suddenly became clear that there were fatal flaws in PJM's "need" determination for PATH. The analyses ordered by the VA-SCC were what put PATH into "suspension," where it has languished for the past year and a half.

Why did it take PJM five years and more than $225M (cost of PATH Project only) to find the solutions that had been freely handed to them in 2007?

The real reason PATH and MAPP were canceled is because they were never needed in the first place. This unconscionable waste of time and money was caused by corporate greed and a massive planning failure by the PJM transmission cartel that these same greedy corporations control.

1 Comment

PJM to Recommend PATH Project be Cancelled!

8/8/2012

1 Comment

First, we need to set the proper mood. Click here before reading the rest of this post.

Today, PJM staff released the rest of their analyses of the PATH and MAPP projects.

PJM recommends that PATH (and MAPP) be cancelled due to there being NO NEED to construct the projects to ensure reliability.

"PJM staff will be recommending to the PJM Board at their Friday, August 24th, 2012 meeting to cancel the PATH Project."

PJM also issued a press release.

"The PJM transmission planning staff will recommend to the PJM Board that the Potomac Appalachian Transmission Highline (PATH) and the Mid Atlantic Power Pathway (MAPP) lines be removed from PJM’s regional transmission plans. The recommendations are contained in slides posted today that will be presented tomorrow, Aug. 9, at a meeting of PJM’s the Transmission Expansion Advisory Committee.

A media briefing for reporters will be held Thursday at 3:30 p.m. following the advisory committee meeting. Steve Herling, vice president – Planning, will offer comments and take questions. To register for the briefing, please call PJM News at 866-756-6397.

Grid conditions have changed since the lines were originally planned, and our updated analysis no longer shows a need for the lines to maintain grid stability.

–         A slow economy has reduced the projected growth in the use of electricity.

–         PJM’s most recent capacity auction added 4,900 megawatts (MW) of new generation and procured 14,833 MW of demand response.

–         Although PJM’s analysis last year showed a diminished need for the two transmission lines the most responsible course was to wait to make a recommendation after analyzing the updated forecast of peak use of electricity (the load forecast), the results of the 2012 capacity auction and the effects on grid stability of the anticipated announcement of generation retirements (16,000 MW) due to environmental regulations.

PJM’s regional planning process looks 15 years into the future to determine necessary changes to the transmission system to keep power flows stable. Planners study long-term growth in electricity use, generating plant retirements, broader generation development patterns, such as integration of renewable energy resources, and demand response and energy efficiency resources.

Since PJM’s first regional transmission plan in 2000, the PJM Board has approved more than $24.3 billion in new transmission lines and improvements and upgrades to existing facilities.

Just this year, PJM staff recommended and the board approved $2.8 billion in electric transmission improvements including new lines needed to keep the grid stable as generating units are retired in response to environmental regulations.

The staff recommendation will be presented to the PJM Board’s Reliability Committee later this month."

The State Journal was right on top of the story. Click here to read Pam Kasey's story, PATH, likely canceled, cost $225 million.

All of the reasons PJM is now citing as reasons for cancelling (abandoning) the PATH Project are the very same reasons that PATH (and TrAIL) opponents have cited since the inception of the project in 2007. Perhaps PJM should also take a fresh look at the Susquehanna-Roseland project at this time, because we don't need that one either.

PJM's errors in determining "need" for the PATH Project have cost PJM's 60 million ratepayers $95M in expenses since 2008. In 2008, FERC granted PATH an incentive enabling the company to make a filing to recover the cost of its project from consumers in the event of abandonment. PATH needs to prove to FERC's satisfaction that the company had no fault in the abandonment and that all amounts proposed to be recovered were prudently incurred. PATH's current investment in the project totals slightly more than $130M. $95M of our money + $130M of PATH's investment that they will attempt to recover from us = $225M wasted on the PATH project.

Goodbye, PATH!

Read more to find out why PJM cancelled PATH and MAPP here!

1 Comment

PATH May Be Canceled!

7/12/2012

10 Comments

Great story by The State Journal's Pam Kasey, who has managed to pry more information out of the PJM Kremlin.

Read the story!

UPDATE: And now the AP has gotten a hold of the story. Just got a phone call from a friend who heard on the radio that "PATH is no longer needed and will be canceled in the fall."

Buh-bye, PATH ;-)

10 Comments

PJM Says PATH Not Needed for Reliability

7/12/2012

0 Comments

See PJM's Transmission Expansion Advisory Committee Reliability Analysis Update for July 12, 2012.

PJM's PATH Project Analysis Update begins on page 9. Page 12 says PATH is not needed for reliability reasons.

Under 15 year thermal test:
"No 500 kV potential thermal overloads identified."

Under MAAC Load Deliverability Voltage:
"CETL > CETO"

CETL stands for Capacity Emergency Transfer Limits and is the actual emergency import capability of the test area.

CETO stands for Capacity Emergency Transfer Objective and is the import capability required by an area to comply with a Transmission Risk of one event in 25 Years.

An area passes the deliverability test if its CETL is equal to or greater than its CETO.

So, how about it PJM, can we toss PATH onto the great scrap heap of failed transmission projects that have cost consumers millions without providing any benefit now?

Oh no, not yet! PJM still has one more test to run, the N-1-1 power flow modeling test, which they say will be completed before the next TEAC meeting on August 9.

N-1-1 means they look at every combination of two separate – one after the other - transmission line outages throughout PJM to make sure PATH really isn't needed after all. Not only are PJM's N-1-1 scenarios highly unlikely to ever occur, but they defy common sense. If a grid-killing disaster happens (derecho, anyone?) that takes out two separate transmission lines, who's to say that said disaster won't also take out the PATH Project, or any other transmission line they propose as a backup? As we've all found out over the past couple of weeks, a "robust" transmission system is only as good as the distribution system that brings the power to your home or business. And as a group of Consumer Organizations pointed out to FERC last month, transmission incentives are pulling investment away from the distribution system.

The good news from today's TEAC meeting is that if the analysis continues to show that the PATH and MAPP lines are not needed, the TEAC will recommend to the PJM Board that the projects be dropped from the RTEP (and no longer held in abeyance).

Thank you, PJM Magic 8 ball!

0 Comments

One More Nail in PATH's Coffin

4/27/2012

1 Comment

It's getting harder and harder to get that lid off the PATH zombie's coffin.

Read about Dominion's power plant-building program, part of a state plan to become more energy independent through the building of $4B of new generation over the next 4 years.

Who needs PATH?

1 Comment

AEP Revises History!

4/19/2012

0 Comments

The DOE recently requested comments on Obama's Rapid Response Transmission Team ("er-tit," as Bill has coined it). Some of these comments are just plain funny (try not to giggle at EEI's desperation), but AEP's comments revise history!

AEP trots out the predictable, tired, 16-year odyssey of their badly planned Jacksons Ferry - Wyoming Project as an example of the "broken" transmission siting process. There was nothing wrong with the siting process, the project's problems stemmed from AEP's poor planning, as Bill has aptly demonstrated.

But, here's the biggest lie:

"The delays experienced with the Wyoming-Jacksons Ferry line were so pronounced that AEP has since avoided crossing federal lands in siting projects."

Well, except for their PATH Project, which came AFTER Jacksons Ferry-Wyoming. AEP didn't seem to have a problem siting that thing through a national forest and three national park units, did they? They didn't even seem to have a problem with PATH's federal EIS process, until the NPS denied their request for indefinite abeyance of the process and tossed out PATH's application. Now the federal permitting process is broken and AEP can re-write history.

AEP also presents a few nifty timelines showing how a proper transmission planning, permitting, siting and construction process should work. It's pretty hard not to notice that right of entry onto private property for surveying purposes only begins AFTER the project receives state approval. Remember all the trespassing and landowner harassment by PATH contractors doing "surveys" before they'd received a permit? And check it out... initial contacts with identified landowners to negotiate rights-of-way and purchase begins at least six months AFTER the project receives state approval! What the heck is PATH doing with millions of dollars of unneeded property and purchase options on their hands right now, after they voluntarily withdrew from the state approval process, and while their project dangles from the cliff of abandonment? Seems to me if they'd waited to purchase needed property until AFTER receiving state approvals, as their own ideal plan dictates, us ratepayers could have saved well over a hundred million dollars in imprudent land purchases and options (plus 12.4% interest compounded yearly for 4 years) upon which PATH seems to have jumped the gun. In 2011, PATH tossed away over $2.5M of YOUR money on forfeited purchase options that they removed from CWIP and expensed (but that's another topic - come back tomorrow to see how PATH wasted your money in 2011, I'm still crunching the numbers.)

AEP's project timeline is one for the scrapbooks...

0 Comments

NPS Denies PATH Permit and Continued "Abeyance"

4/16/2012

4 Comments

See letter from the National Park Service to PATH's attorney denying PATH's request for another "extension" of the EIS process and therefore denying PATH's permit, without prejudice. So ends our involvement with the NPS, for now. I'm sure Morgan will miss us! :-)

PATH's latest failure is dated February 27. NPS failed to make this information public until just recently, and credit goes to John for digging this up during a webpage drive-by. This information was NOT on the NPS's project website as recently as March 15, when StopPATH sent this letter to the NPS. Now we find that the decision had already been made before we wrote the letter. Despite the fact that the EIS process is supposed to be "open" and must consider park-owning citizen input, there sure was a bunch of secretive stuff going on that the public wasn't allowed to monitor. The NPS, their contractor for the project (and we found out that there had been a mysterious switch of contractors after the initial scoping process), and the PATH Companies carried on the EIS process in secret, for the most part, and the only way for the citizen stakeholders to get information was through a tortured process of making themselves continual pests and/or going through the FOIA process. Notice to the public of the application's process was sparse, with information appearing months later without notice, and requiring another round of the "Kremlinology" game we've been playing with entities supposedly working in our interest. The NPS needs to spruce up their sunshine. It sucks.

So... okay... Woo Hoo! Go back to start, do not pass "Go," PATH! Not that they really care anymore, PATH is a dead project. The only place PATH still walks upright is at FERC, where they continue to rack up "costs necessary to maintain the project in its current state" that come out of ratepayers' pockets. C'mon, let's get to the abandonment already!

4 Comments

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Forward>>

PATH Project Canceled!

AEP "Disappointed," FirstEnergy Hides Behind PJM's Skirt

David Slays Goliath

Why Did PJM Cancel PATH and MAPP?

PJM to Recommend PATH Project be Cancelled!

PATH May Be Canceled!

PJM Says PATH Not Needed for Reliability

One More Nail in PATH's Coffin

AEP Revises History!

NPS Denies PATH Permit and Continued "Abeyance"

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