Never Let A Good Crisis Go To Waste

Industrial "renewable" energy builders, transmission companies, and their big, green NGO sycophants aren't about to let the Corona Crisis go to waste.  They've come up with a new "plan" to "rewire the U.S. for economic recovery."  That's right, we need to build new energy generation and transmission in order to recover from the Corona Crisis.  Only putting money in their pockets will get us on the road to recovery!

Smells like greed to me.

$1.7 trillion in "investment" could  reduce U.S. GHG by  27%.  Just 27%.  And guess who gets to pay for it all?  You do!

Seems like these greedmeisters are having a hard time building this stuff because the people not only don't want to pay for it, they don't want it on or near their property, either.  Therefore, in order to force this amazing Corona Crisis recovery, they've come up with a "plan" to change federal laws to force it on us.  Never let a good crisis go to waste!

Today’s grid operator and state regulatory approaches to transmission planning and generation interconnection are not up to the task of delivering a low-carbon grid at speed and scale.

Therefore, let's do away with state siting and permitting authority and allow FERC to do it for everyone.  After all, look how swell that's worked out for gas pipelines...

While 544 GW of renewable generation lies in wait to interconnect to high-voltage transmission systems – nearly half of the capacity needed to meet a 90 percent clean energy standard – these projects face unreasonably high barriers due to conventional interconnection rules. Rather than investing in transmission planning that would more efficiently serve society’s economic and policy goals, today’s rules typically require every new generation resource to separately pay grid upgrade costs to interconnect their power plant the system, when there would be far greater societal benefit to view transmission planning and upgrades with a more holistic regional perspective. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) should exercise its authority and expand its capacity to require regional transmission expansion and simplified interconnection rules that support the realities of society’s policy goals and a 90 percent by 2035 clean energy standard.

What's wrong with generation owners paying their cost to connect their for-profit enterprises to the existing electric highway system?  It's not like everyone pays for a driveway to some isolated commercial farm operation in order to give the owner a free way to get his products to market.  Renewable energy is no different... it should pay its own way to market.  That's why these rules exist in the first place.  If you site generation near transmission, your costs may be less, but you'd need to pay for any upgrades to the system caused by your commercial generation enterprise.  If you want to make money selling electric generation, you need to pay your own way to get it there.  But these folks want to build new, highly profitable generation way out in the middle of nowhere, and that's pretty expensive.  It makes the cost of their generation more expensive than others, and it cuts into their profits.  Instead, they want YOU to pay for their interconnection so they can make more money on the generation they build.

Transmission networks can be planned in advance to accommodate a sensible mix of very low-cost renewable resources, creating net benefits for customers, and Congress should reform FERC’s electric transmission authority to support the changing electricity system in a cost-effective manner. To begin, cost-allocation should be driven by analysis of the benefits and balanced by a consideration of the negative factors beyond direct cost (e.g., land-use impact, landscape degradation, habitat disruption). Congress could give FERC a clearer mandate to enforce and expand Order 1000 (FERC’s regional transmission planning order), by requiring timely plans, accounting for public policy in planning, and allocating regional costs to beneficiaries where regions fall short.

This is a whole bunch of regal words for giving FERC transmission siting and permitting authority and taking it away from states.  And that talk of benefits?  What benefits? 

Benefits should include quantifiable environmental, resilience, and public policy benefits, in addition to direct economic benefits. The basic idea is to codify the lax suggestions of FERC Order 1000. The Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) Multi-Value Projects methodology is a model to consider building upon.

No, it's not.  MISO's method tosses a bunch of junk in the "benefits" mix in order to pretend that "environmental benefits" save people money.  They don't.  They cost people money because they require the building of a bunch of unneeded, costly infrastructure that people pay for.  These "benefits" are not quantifiable.  They're not real.  They force everyone in the region to pay for the "environmental" laws of individual states.  The benefits are not distributed equally, but the costs sure are.

Their idea is to build a whole bunch of new transmission at your expense so that industrial renewable companies can build new generators in places where it's not currently economic to build.

...adopting a more comprehensive, proactive regional planning approach in the rest of the country could reduce interconnection queue waiting times and improve the risk for developers...

There ya go... reduce risk (and cost) for renewable generation developers by shifting risk and cost to captive electric ratepayers.

Congress could also push FERC to act on cost-allocation for new multi-state transmission lines. Though these lines do not feature prominently in the 2035 Report, their benefits are clear from other modeling exercises. For example, FERC should encourage high voltage inter-regional transmission to access least-cost (and clean) resources, by requiring regional Order 1000 Planning Authorities to develop compatible models (incorporating state energy resource plans) and pursue interregional transmission where benefits exceed costs. Alternatively, Congress could vest DOE with authority to plan large interregional lines, reducing complexity of coordinating planning between regions. A more holistic cost benefit analysis of this nature can also help address the most common reason many important transmission lines have failed: disagreements between states over how to fairly allocate costs. For multistate lines, FERC could require states denying a regionally beneficial line to demonstrate certain criteria are met to justify denial, similar to the rate design structure used in the Public Utility Regulatory Policy Act.

In other words, let's force states to use imported energy on new transmission lines and make it impossible for them to deny new projects.  Why is that?  Because states are developing local renewables that keep energy dollars working in their own state and create local economic development.  Should renewable generation and transmission developers be able to force a state to buy their product using the force of the federal government?

These shysters also want Congress to create a federal clean energy standard.  Currently, states set their own clean energy policy, and it works just fine.  It just doesn't allow the greedy developers to force states to buy their products.

So, with all that in mind, here's how these guys want to reform energy policy:

U.S. Congress Affirm FERC’s authority for transmission cost allocation and planning for public policy impacts to the grid, including regions outside of ISOs/RTOs. Give particular attention to the federal clean energy standard, or in its absence state and utility clean electricity goals. Make clear the intention to reduce interconnection queue times and require beneficiary customers to pay their fair share.

U.S. Congress
Provide states with matching funds to pay for interstate transmission lines with demonstrable reliability, cost, and renewable integration benefits. Consider vesting DOE with authority to plan for and site interregional transmission lines to streamline development of the nation’s most crucial and beneficial long-distance transmission projects.

FERC
Exercise authority to require regional transmission expansion and simplified interconnection rules that support the realities of society’s policy goals and a 90% by 2035 clean energy standard.

FERC
Require regional Planning Authorities to develop compatible models (incorporating state energy resource plans) and pursue transmission where benefits exceed costs. Require states denying a regionally beneficial line to demonstrate certain criteria are met to justify denial.

FERC
Require regional transmission planning bodies created under FERC Order 1000 to propose to FERC multi-value transmission projects, accounting for state and federal clean energy policies, with Federal authority to promulgate a cost allocation methodology where regions fail to act.

They also want to "extend federal clean energy investment and production tax credits and conversion to more liquid incentives, and extend these incentives to battery storage."  In other words, forget the tax credits, these fellas now want cold, hard cash for generating energy that nobody wants.

Wait... I thought this was about recovering from the Corona Crisis?  This isn't about Corona at all.  It's a renewable energy and transmission lobbyist's wish list to make a whole bunch of money.  Never let a good crisis go to waste!

Be careful in the voting booth this November if you don't want electricity to become a luxury that you can no longer afford.