Innovation... isn't it wonderful? In the wake of several long-distance transmission failures, some transmission developers are getting smarter. New long-distance transmission on new right-of-way is a non-starter. No matter where proposed, landowner and community opposition forms. Nobody wants this intrusion on their property, especially when they receive no benefit from it. The only way new long-distance transmission is going to happen is without new rights-of-way.
Last year, we examined SOO Green Renewable Rail's proposal to bury new transmission on existing railroad rights of way. It seemed like a good idea.
Recently, an even better idea has surfaced. Shipping the electricity itself by rail. Basically, it's the storage of electricity in rail cars at its generation source, which are then dispatched to places where the electricity will be used. Unlike a fixed transmission line between Point A and Point B, this new idea is completely flexible and can be dispatched anywhere as need arises. No new rights-of-way, no wires, no stranded investment when the need for transmission changes, no fire danger, no community impacts. No transmission line is needed at all!
The company proposing this revolutionary new way to move energy filed a petition at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission asking to declare its plan "transmission of electric energy in interstate commerce" and grant it public utility status so that it may compete in RTO transmission planning processes.
And then all hell broke loose.
I mean, what if transmission of the future didn't include any wires, any towers, any rights-of-way, any fixed assets that depreciate over their useful life while earning a generous return? That would be a huge blow to investor owned utilities, who see transmission as a profit center.
Multiple entities intervened and filed protests, including transmission trade group Edison Electric Institute, who whined that without wires (oh, those lovely profit-producing wires!) it's just not transmission.
Alternative Transmission Inc. (ATI) filed an answer to all that sound and fury signifying nothing the other day. Go ahead, read it, references to Nikola Tesla and all.
Last year, we examined SOO Green Renewable Rail's proposal to bury new transmission on existing railroad rights of way. It seemed like a good idea.
Recently, an even better idea has surfaced. Shipping the electricity itself by rail. Basically, it's the storage of electricity in rail cars at its generation source, which are then dispatched to places where the electricity will be used. Unlike a fixed transmission line between Point A and Point B, this new idea is completely flexible and can be dispatched anywhere as need arises. No new rights-of-way, no wires, no stranded investment when the need for transmission changes, no fire danger, no community impacts. No transmission line is needed at all!
The company proposing this revolutionary new way to move energy filed a petition at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission asking to declare its plan "transmission of electric energy in interstate commerce" and grant it public utility status so that it may compete in RTO transmission planning processes.
And then all hell broke loose.
I mean, what if transmission of the future didn't include any wires, any towers, any rights-of-way, any fixed assets that depreciate over their useful life while earning a generous return? That would be a huge blow to investor owned utilities, who see transmission as a profit center.
Multiple entities intervened and filed protests, including transmission trade group Edison Electric Institute, who whined that without wires (oh, those lovely profit-producing wires!) it's just not transmission.
Alternative Transmission Inc. (ATI) filed an answer to all that sound and fury signifying nothing the other day. Go ahead, read it, references to Nikola Tesla and all.
It is noteworthy that when Congress was considering the FPA legislation, many years earlier the polymath Nikola Tesla was testing wireless transmission of electric energy. FPA legislators likely were aware that wireless transmission was being researched, even though Tesla’s specific concept being developed at Wardenclyffe Tower on Long Island ultimately proved commercially unsuccessful.
May the ghost of Tesla haunt you and zap your cafeteria coffee maker into useless oblivion, EEI. Innovation is the future, even if we have to drag you into it, kicking and screaming the whole way. If the electric transmission industry does not evolve, it's headed for Dinosaur Land.
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