GBE's Epic Meltdown

I've seen a lot of temper tantrums in my lifetime, and this one is screaming, red in the face, epic.

Yesterday, Grain Belt Express made another filing on its long-ignored complaint at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, having an absolute conniption fit that MISO is working on another package of transmission projects that ignores GBE.  Time waits for no man... and the transmission world waits for no bloated, limping merchant transmission project either.  GBE has taken so long to get its project together that it has been eclipsed.  So sad, too bad!

In the complaint GBE filed against regional grid planner MISO last year, GBE was ticked off that MISO's Tranche 1 transmission plan ignored its speculative merchant transmission project and approved a series of new projects that would deliver renewable energy into Missouri from Iowa.  MISO's new lines follow a similar path across Missouri and into Illinois and are expected to be online around 2030.  This raises the question... what's cheaper for Missouri utilities?  Purchasing energy from Kansas and service on the $7B GBE project, or purchasing energy from Iowa and taking service on MISO's new projects that cost a lot less?  This could create direct competition for GBE, who may have been banking on the fact that it had cornered the market on delivering renewable energy to Missouri.  Competition works to provide options for cheaper service for Missouri's ratepayers.

And now MISO has opened a solicitation for its Tranche 2 transmission project portfolio.

Tranche 1 is represented by the gray lines.  The new Tranche 2 is represented by the new red (345kV) lines and the new green (765kV) lines.  That's right... MISO has included a new 765kV project that begins in Iowa and ends in Missouri, not too far from where GBE wants to interconnect, if it ever gets its crap together and finds customers.  It's even MORE competition for GBE in Missouri.  Good luck with that customer thing, GBE.

​Here's part of GBE's ranting tantrum filed with FERC:

MISO recently proposed a new 765 kV transmission line in Missouri close to where the GBX Project will connect. This is absurd given the advanced stage of GBX, disincentivizes the development of interregional merchant transmission, is contrary Commission policy, and is neither just nor reasonable transmission planning. 

MISO continues to march on blindly, act as if GBX does not exist and propose even further transmission in Missouri close to where GBX is fortifying the grid with significant network upgrades and will inject 6.3 TWh of energy annually and be online well before the new proposed 765 kV Tranche 2 Missouri transmission project would come online. This is not only unjust and unreasonable transmission practice but absurd transmission practice. It is irrational for MISO to propose even further transmission in Missouri and ignore that GBX that has obtained all its Certificates of Public Convenience and Necessity, including in Missouri, spent hundreds of millions of dollars, is committed to spend hundreds of millions more and has a TCA with MISO. 

But GBE doesn't have customers.  No customers, no project!  MISO can't wait another 10 years to see if GBE can actually get its project built.  It is far from a sure thing, therefore MISO planning marches on.  

GBE's second addition to its original complaint contains a bunch more technical mumbo-jumbo concocted by GBE's consultant that says that the MISO projects won't provide any value to MISO customers because GBE will be online.  GBE is oh so concerned about MISO consumers getting the most bang for their buck and it doesn't want those consumers to pay for projects that don't have a significant cost/benefit ratio.  Blah, blah, blah.  GBE insists that its project will be operating soon and will make the MISO lines unnecessary.  

Here's what GBE does not say...  

GBE does not say that its project will be cheaper than the MISO projects and provide cheaper energy to Missouri.  It's just claiming that the MISO projects won't provide benefit to Missouri if GBE is built.  All GBE's fake concern for Missouri ratepayers is nauseating.  GBE is only looking out for its own bottom line here, not yours.  In contrast, MISO doesn't have any skin (or a risky investment) in the transmission planning game.  MISO is only looking out for your bottom line, not its own.  It sure looks to me like GBE is simply trying to eliminate its competition. If MISO's lines are not built, then consumers may not have any other choice than service on GBE.  And that's the bottom line.

If GBE thought that its project could provide cheaper energy to Missouri than the MISO projects, it absolutely would not care if MISO planned other projects that were not such a good deal for consumers.  If GBE was such a great deal, then it would welcome competition.

Instead, GBE just had an epic meltdown at FERC.  Just like any toddler having a tantrum, its motivation is plain for everyone else to see.  Seems like GBE hates the idea of having competition.  Quick, someone call a WAHHHmbulance.

Despite (1) over three years of discussions with MISO and its transmission owners regarding the Project; (2) GBX acquiring final state siting approvals in all 4 states as well as over 96% of the HVDC route’s right of way among other indicia of Project advancement; and (3) GBX having an effective TCA with MISO in hand, on March 4, 2024, MISO released its initial Tranche 2 Draft Portfolio which again does not consider the impact of advanced-stage merchant transmission and worse still proposes a new 765 kV transmission line that is redundant to the far more advanced GBX Project and will interconnect to the same portion of MISO’s system. Thus, MISO has not only ignored GBX in its planning, but it has intentionally leveraged the lack of clarity in its Tariff to discriminate against it. 

The Commission has long recognized that a lack of transparency and standardization of market rules impedes competition and enables the exercise of market power and undue discrimination, and that exact outcome has occurred here. The lack of a clear standard in the MISO Tariff for how advanced-stage merchant transmission will be considered in regional planning has opened up the opportunity to discriminate against merchant transmission projects, which are sorely needed to provide critical geographic diversity and interregional transfer capability during the energy transition. In the end, MISO’s behavior will not only lead to unjust and unreasonable rates, but it will rob the region of competition, access to geographically diverse resources and potentially important ties to adjacent RTOs. This should be unacceptable to the Commission, to State regulators and to ratepayers. The Commission should act now on this Complaint to protect ratepayers, prevent further delay and waste and to rectify this baffling outcome which is a direct barrier to the development of much needed interregional transmission. Therefore, Invenergy renews its request for the following relief 

Invenergy urges the Commission to issue an order as soon as possible and no later than May 15, 2024, to ensure that just and reasonable transmission practices are implemented and ratepayers are protected at the soonest possible date. 

As that great philosopher Pee Wee Herman once stated... "I know you are, but what am I?".

Does GBE actually think FERC is going to come to its rescue, shut down MISO's planning efforts, and vaporize GBE's competition by May 15?

Fat chance.