House Testimony Undermines Wisdom of Massive Electric Grid Expansion
by David Sassoon - Jun 17th, 2009
in
A battle is brewing in Congress over a climate and energy issue that is pitting the U.S. Senate and states west of the Mississippi against the U.S. House and states east of the mighty river.
It's a fight over expansion of the electric grid – the building of a new "transmission superhighway" – with boosters claiming you can't have a clean energy future without it, and more cautious skeptics saying it could be a huge waste of money that would hurt both the economy and the climate.
A scene from this unfolding political drama was performed before Rep. Ed Markey of Massachusetts last week, who held a hearing on the future of the grid in his House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment and set the stage with his opening comments.
The landmark climate bill he has co-sponsored with Rep. Henry Waxman of California calls for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to report back to Congress within three years with recommendations for grid development. Markey said:
Some believe we should go further, by substantially expanding federal authority to plan and site new transmission lines. That includes overriding state decisions to reject proposed lines and using federal eminent domain authority if necessary. I think we need to look closely and skeptically whether such a step is warranted at this juncture.
Markey urged caution (see complete statement, attached below) as did many others who testified, including Christopher Miller, president of the Piedmont Environmental Council:
"Current and proposed transmission policies may produce a transmission grid that is over-built, overly complex and subject to reliability problems, and encourages increased reliance on fossil-fuel generation rather than distributed renewable generation, energy efficiency, conservation, and load management."
Nevertheless, action on federal transmission policy is picking up steam, with various proposals under consideration in both the House and the Senate, driven more by politics than policy wisdom.
Leading the charge on the Senate side is Majority Leader Harry Reid, who is facing a tough re-election battle in 2010 in Nevada. Powerful interests behind solar energy expansion want to see the federal government bankroll new transmission lines to get the power Nevada can generate from its sun-drenched deserts to energy-hungry cities in California, Rep. Waxman's home state.
At the same time, the potential of a massive transmission grid build-out worth tens or hundreds of billions of dollars is attracting political support for its stimulative effect on an ailing economy. It promises to create shovel-ready jobs across the entire country and give a big role to large-scale manufacturing in clean energy development.
That translates into votes in the 2010 interim elections and beyond from labor unions and rust belt industries looking for economic revival, and in key races like Reid's re-election challenge in Nevada.
Washington insiders are expecting Rep. Waxman to introduce a floor amendment to his own bill to beef up its transmission provisions in order to align with Sen. Reid's more bullish position, even while the bill's co-sponsor, Rep. Markey, pulls in the opposite direction, as his hearing last week showed.
"Transmission is among the most complex and controversial aspects of energy policy," Markey said. "Today’s hearing is literally the first in this committee, in this Congress or the last, on transmission. We cannot afford to take a 'ready, fire, aim' approach in this area."
Chris Miller also advised lawmakers to adopt a more cautious approach and to look at the bigger energy equation with transmission policy as an important part of energy solutions rather than as a stand-alone measure:
"Before we set federal policy that permits a $100-200 billion grid build out, we should make every effort to better utilize existing transmission infrastructure, reduce the need for new supply, and encourage clean distributed generation."
Other utility energy experts provided more detail on why and how an alternative approach would create more long-term jobs at lower cost, reduce emissions more effectively, and have a more benign impact upon the land than a new transmission superhighway.
Paul Hibbard, chairman of the Department of Public Utilities of Massachusetts – Markey's home state – provided strong testimony against a federal electric superhighway from an East coast perspective.
In our view, the expansion of FERC authority into centralized resource planning and associated siting jurisdiction violates fundamental free market principles, is unwarranted from energy or environmental policy perspectives, would diminish or eliminate the proven benefits of competition in electricity markets, including the fostering of local renewable and energy efficiency resources, and would strip states and indeed whole regions of critical policy authority over energy resource planning.
Hibbard was particularly concerned that opening up markets in the East to wind power from Western states thousands of miles away would disrupt local energy market development.
The very best wind resource in our country – from the perspectives of resource size, distribution, capacity factor, reliability, proximity to population centers and minimization of environmental impact – is located a short distance off the major load centers of the East Coast.
If the FERC steps in as proposed, Hibbard warned, the move would undermine the ability to tap offshore wind in the Atlantic Ocean.
"If FERC, with its new resource planning authority, moves quickly on a major transmission build out as conceived in the Joint Coordinated System Plan, this would, as a result of a single, non-market planning decision, dump [about] several thousand MW of resources into New England along new high-voltage lines. This would wipe out the need for new resources in our region for decades."
To the text of his official testimony, Hibbard appended a letter sent by 11 governors of Eastern Seaboard states. It was addressed to the Senate and House leaders of both parties urging a regional approach to transmission policy and support for offshore wind development. The governors wrote:
"While we support the development of wind resources for the United States wherever they exist, this ratepayer funded revenue-guarantee for land-based wind and other generation sources in the Great Plains would have significant, negative consequences for our region."
The East-West divide over transmission policy is not the only flashpoint in the upcoming debate. There's great concern – and good evidence – that new transmission would serve to transport more coal-fired power, not less – instead of the wind and solar energy the public expects, particularly in the East. Indeed, speaking in support of a new Appalachian transmission line, the president of the West Virginia Coal Association recently said:
"Enhanced transmission capacity helps increase the amount of low-cost, coal fired generation dispatched into the regional grid. This helps preserve the future of existing power plants already on line, justifies additional investment in these plants and increases the likelihood that new, clean-coal electric fired generation will be constructed in the state."
And even on the question of national security, a transmission superhighway would make the power system less secure. Long inter-regional transmission lines, one commentator observed, are like extension cords that connect your toaster to a neighbor's house a block or two away. The chances of a power outage due to unforeseen circumstances are magnified rather than diminished.
Miller of PEC concluded his testimony by calling for an integrated planning process so that transmission is not considered in isolation but together with the need for new capacity and the potential to reduce power demand.
"If we plan for transmission, transmission will be all that we build. And in the end many of your constituents will be left living beneath an aluminum sky."
He echoed the cautious approach that Markey sounded when he opened the hearings and that is currently in the Waxman-Markey bill. But observers don't expect the current language to survive.
They are waiting to see if Waxman will amend it to reflect a more West-centric approach before the bill gets sent to the Senate and Sen. Reid, and whether the White House, which already sent billions of dollars in stimulus funds for new transmission lines, will weigh in publicly with a preferred position of its own.
Speaking before the Western Governor's Association yesterday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar -- a former Senator from Colorado -- promised to provide federal support for new transmission, and announced the creation of new federal renewable energy planning offices in four Western states --
Arizona, California, Nevada and Wyoming -- to help make sure projects don't get stalled.
See also
Transmission Superhighway On Track to Carry Cheap, Dirty Coal Power to Northeast
Home Grown Power (NYT Op-Ed)
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| Attachment | Size |
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| Chairman Markey's Opening Statement.doc | 36.5 KB |
Putting the Cart Before the Horse Mentality
In Northern CA the citizens worked with zeal to prove the proposed 600 mile transmission project was full of inconsistencies, NO evidence of utilizing renewable energy, and so much deceit. Is this the format in which the Federal Government wishes to conducti themselves with all that they describe?
The Renewable's, where are they? The Renewables, how sustainable are they? The Fed's want carbon footprints to be cut back, at what cost? The state it will provide jobs? Wait, they cut back million of jobs with their tatics now, and for the sake of calling this a job creating effort. ..they will throw millions of property owners by the wayside!
How will they give evidence that their transmission lines being placed in everyone's close proximatey, not create health issues? I already am battling esophogus cancer, if they had put that line within 30' of my home like they wanted to do. ..living within the close proximaty of those EM's, would they not put me at a greater risk?
Coal....that is the biggest fear, and it is a oxy moron to state their ever could be a way to burn clean coal. .that comes from ignorance. Coal is dirty and will always be dirty. Cost effective to do otherwise, why just cut off Americans energy lines and forget it, who could afford to flick a switch with those cost.
They are now creating Wind energy, why in the Bay Area those energy producing turbines were turned off. .they remain dormant...don't want to kill the birds!
We can kill Farmers, at the cost of saving the Smelt? This Administration, and all the feel good junk they are creating, Harry Reid's Bill that state's the verbage to condem citizens property. . .and the hurry up and create renewable energy panic, it just that...Panick!
If a true and real scientific study were to be completed, the rush for all new transmission lines is not appropriate. The mentality that the Fed's say it is so, so the public must believe is JUNK!
Do your homework and find, the Tax Paying, Voting, Hard Working Citizens of our great America are being duped if they allow themselves to be!
This Administration, from Waxman, Pelossi, Reid, and even our Govenor Schwartnegger need to realize...at what cost. ...at what urgency, can you even begin to . ..Mitigate a Life?
You can NOT MITIGATE AWAY OUR LIVES!
FERC has an important role in transmission siting
FERC has an important role in transmission siting:
1. Smart Grid – I agree with the first comment; smart grid is just a big federal waste of $4.8 billion and a money grab by utilities and vendors. ARRA money should be targeted as an incentive for new transmission through a slightly increased allowable rate of return.
2. Transmission losses – Hello!! Transmission losses are not 25%!! Average high voltage grid losses are 2%. The way to reduce this is through new conductors which are high efficiency. Other issues, such as plant distance to load, plant heat rates and dispatch are not part of grid efficiency, and are measures monitered in other ways.
3. Underground vs. Overhead – Underground cables don’t “lose less” energy! In fact, they are significantly more expensive, both in initial construction and capital costs and in ongoing maintenance costs. Overhead (“air-insulated”) lines are by far the most economic form of transmission.
4. FERC Authority over siting – There is an important role for FERC involvement in siting transmission. We need them to address:
- oversight of regional planning
- oversight of intrastate transmission
- resolution of cost allocation issues between multiple utilities involved with a line
- resolution of permitting issues and land acquisition for high voltage transmission
- “ACE” or area control error, or allowing greater deviations between control areas intra-hour
- sharing of reserves between control areas
If we want to implement a federal renewable portfolio standard, such as the 25% proposed by the Obama administration, or the current watered down version of 15% in the Senate, then we will need to look at both local and remote renewable resources. It is disingenuous for the statements in the article to imply that new “dirty” coal will use these lines instead of renewable resources. In fact the words state “clean” coal, which uses sequestration to remove GHG and inject them into the ground. Also, in an economic market, the lowest cost producer would be dispatched first, therefore solar and wind would operate before coal or other fossil. Thus, we should continue to advocate for greater openness and competitiveness in wholesale markets through RTO's and ISO's.
5. Balance needed – We need both local AND remote solutions for renewables. We need large scale storage solutions to meet our significant national RPS goals. A nationwide move to renewables needs federal direction, which is best served by those most familiar with the energy industry, FERC.
Smart Grid is a Mirage
So far the biggest backers of smart grid technologies have been investor owned utilities, who see an opportunity to increase their ratebase by changing out mechanical meters for new digital smart meters. In California alone, this would add over $3 billion to local utitility rates, plus the utilities get to lay off meter readers and save on personnel costs. They also plan to use the smart grid to help convince regulators to force residential customers onto time-of-use rates, which would endanger poor and elderly families who might be afraid to use their air conditioners during heat waves for fear of higher bills. The other big supporters of the concept are the manufacturers of new smart meters, who see big dollar signs and unions who hope to get more work for their members, and companies who build new transmission projects. New transmission is often justified as needed to allow the development of new renewable energy farms in outlying rural areas, but no regulator to date has conditioned approval of new transmission on the new lines being used only to move renewable energy instead of fossil fuel power.
Yet to date, nobody has been able to quantify any real benefits that would accure to utility customers in return for paying for developmetn of the proposed smart grid. Despite talk of "allowing them to make smarter choices", no one has backed up those assertions with actual quantified benefit estimates. Of course Congress isn't really interested in benefiting voters and ratepayers, just in getting more campaign contributions from smart growth and new transmission project boosters.
Virtues of a large grid
For intermittent power sources like wind and solar having a large robust grid is essential. The big complaint about wind has been that you need to have a conventional powerplant to back up the wind turbine output for when the wind fails. In Germany they have done years of testing on this problem, and they have found that with a large enough grid when the wind is not blowing in one place, the vast majority of the time it is blowing somewhere else and that makes up the difference. Of course there will need to be some backup conventional powerplants, but with a large grid (and many windfarms) there can be fewer of them.
i like the smart grid
right now our current power lines lose up to 25% in transmission. it's like paying for the air in your bag of potato chips, except that air contributes to climate change. and you pay for it.
the smart grid, along with updating our current transmission lines, would help reduce our energy usage, and also bring down that power loss--underground cables would lose only 3%-9% of electricity.
cable technology has simply gotten a whole lot better since the time most of our transmission lines were put up. it would be easy jobs and a helpful and necessary part of the solution to our energy problems.
i don't argue with the fact that we should localize our power supply chain much more, rather than relying on so much centralized power sources. but even there, we have a problem with wind power--wind power can cause unexpected voltage drops at the interchange points. this is why many localities prohibit people putting up wind turbines, b/c the system can't handle it. this is a problem that can be solved by upgrading the grid with better superconductors to handle this issue.
it seems to me that stuff like this is the fossil fuel industry's nightmare, when people can put up wind turbines on their own land without a problem of voltage spikes. having localities invest in renewables just cuts out their monopoly on energy.
furthermore, the whole west vs east thing i don't get. we're looking at the use of wind turbines on and off shore, and solar we have more coastline, so wind is our ally. meanwhile, the west is looking at a gold mine of geothermal due to the ring of fire. that's very consistent baseload energy, 24/7, with a potential of zero carbon output.
if anything, once you can convince big natural gas and oil to loosen up their leasing rights on the drills we need for geothermal (haha) then it may be the east coast buying power from the west.
maybe the real problem is someone put up a plan that was silly-looking. i see investment in a smart grid to be part of our answer to a clean energy solution.
Save our Wilderness From Big Energy
To be clear, very FEW people in the "West" want our open spaces permanently destroyed and industrialized while our built environment bakes and sprawls and is not allowed to produce its own energy, just so Big Energy can, once again, profiteer on our backs. What WE want (unlike our legislators who are owned by Big Energy) is LOTS of AB 811 funding (low interest loans for point of use solutions like efficiency and solar rooftops which are tied into our property taxes for repayment), and FEED IN TARIFFS so we can be fairly paid for producing more clean, non-lethal power than we consume.
The DOE determined, back in 2003, that 100% of the US electricity needs could easily be met by using super-cheap thin film PV on existing rooftops. An additional 90% could be produced with the same material on in-city brownfields. So, 190% of US electricity needs can be met in the built environment without eminent domain, transmission-caused SF6 increases in global warming, water waste, dead ecosystems OR wasted taxpayer and ratepayer dollars. It would be FAR cheaper to allow all property owners to install solar, efficiency and microwind and to pay us for power we don't use. Improved property values, more jobs, more reliable energy, and incentives to conserve - EXACTLY what we need to create a sustainable energy policy.
Big Energy is running this debate because they are poised to be completely disempowered if democratic, clean, fair and affordable renewable power takes hold. We are at a critical crossroads and if we don't REALLY push our legislators to represent US instead of Big Energy - the only ones who benefit from Big Wind, Big Solar and Big Transmission - then we are insane. Harry Reid needs to be exposed as a total charlatan in Big Energy's pocket, as does Ken Salazar and if Henry Waxman heads this direction, then him, too. A "super grid" is one of the worst ideas any of us have heard in the past 50 years and will destroy our environment and our economy.
"insane" "worst ideas" ranting doesn't help
Most of your post strikes me as a political rant that is not useful. Your argument for a strictly distributed solution is valid, but to tie a centralized or hybrid central/distributed renewable model to political opportunism exclusively is a huge distortion. DOE NREL has invested resources for decades in centralized solar thermal, centralized PV, and distributed PV. To dismiss centralized renewables as in the pocked of Big Energy is contradictory to the fact that big utilities repeatedly say solar thermal can't scale.
As I said in my post, it is my view that mitigation and renewable advocates should be scoping out and advocating for the best renewable solution set. This is hard work.
a critical mitigation debate
From a mitigation POV, this debate between regional and centralized generation and a parallel debate between distributed and centralized generation are crucial to resolve. A mitigation mantra in recent years is that we need every form of renewable, but the facts are that they are somewhat competitive, and that even in the best case there will never be an unlimited pot of money. A centralized, transmission-heavy model is on the table in both the EU and the US: to bring solar thermal farm energy from North Africa to Europe, and to bring southwestern solar thermal and midwestern wind energy to US cities.
The transmission build-out would cost a lot and the utility lobby dismisses the baseload capacity of centralized renewables, but supporters say they could largely replace fossil fuels. Yet if the supporters of distributed renewables and of regional solutions oppose a centralized solution, with its huge cost, it will probably never be built. Thus studies are needed, I believe, to map the economic integration of various renewable resources.
Without a practical, as opposed to idealistic, alignment among renewable energy advocates, the utility and fossil fuel industries combined with the realities of local politics are likely to splinter and defeat the mitigation community.
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