Legalectric

Tomorrow is the day — oral arguments of the appeal of the Public Utility Commission’s Order granting AWA Goodhue a permit.

Notice of Oral Argument

PUC Order - AWA Goodhue Wind Project Permit

Arguments are scheduled for 11:15 a.m. in Room 100 at the Minnesota Judicial Center, 25 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., St. Paul.

I don’t have electronic copies of the Public Utilities Commission and AWA Goodhue briefs, here’s what I do have:

Coalition for Sensible Siting - Initial Brief

Goodhue Wind Truth - Amicus Brief

Coalition for Sensible Siting - Reply Brief

There’s a lot at stake here, primarily local control — whether a county can regulate a wind project.  Under the Power Plant Siting Act (PPSA), local governments are typically pre-empted from regulating utility projects, except in a few narrow cases, for example power plants and transmission where the project applicant chooses local review having met the criteria  set forth in Minn. Stat. 216E.05.  Another way local governments have a say in regulating utility infrastructure is through a legislative tax exemption under Minn. Stat. 272.02 and  Host Fee Agreement in lieu of Utility Personal Property Tax, where the legislative mandate and the Host Fee Agreement can include non-tax material terms.  Neither of these options are available to wind projects or local governments wishing to regulate wind projects.

HOWEVER, the legislature did pass this gem — note “shall” in the language:

216F.081 APPLICATION OF COUNTY STANDARDS.

A county may adopt by ordinance standards for LWECS that are more stringent than standards in commission rules or in the commission’s permit standards. The commission, in considering a permit application for LWECS in a county that has adopted more stringent standards, shall consider and apply those more stringent standards, unless the commission finds good cause not to apply the standards.

And this is what this appeal is about - whether the Public Utilities Commission had good cause not to apply the standards, because where they do not have good cause, they SHALL apply the county standards.

We’ll see how it goes tomorrow…

Note this is an old map - I pulled it up at the Windfinder site and this is what it looks like today:

Anyway, the news from Friday is that the Obama Administration and some, but NOT all, of the Great Lakes States signed a Memorandum of Understanding, oh, also many federal agencies, like U.S. Fish & Wildlife.

I think this is an important step.  Lake Superior is too deep, but Lake Michigan and Lake Erie are the ones I’ve heard most often discussed as having high potential, and what’s particularly good about it is that they’re right near load centers.  Offshore would remove the “too close to neighbors” health concerns that are a significant issue.  But as with the Delaware Bluewater project, the environmental work needs to be done, and I hope it’s done more thoroughly than for on-shore wind.  What are infrasound impacts on marine life?  I’d asked Rick James, I.N.C.E., about this when he was here a couple years ago, and he hadn’t heard of any research on this point.  Hmmmmmm… big gap.

Google of  “impacts of infrasound on marine life”

So there’s a start… An interesting one is “The effects of human-generated sound on fish” which among other thing notes that it’s been suggested that birds use infrasound for migration, the waves bouncing of geological features!

Anyway, here’s the Memorandum of Understanding:

Great Lakes Offshore Wind Energy Consortium Memorandum of Understanding

And the Press Release:

Press Release (cut & pasted!)

Note that Wisconsin did NOT sign, which is consistent with WPPI’s testimony in the CapX 2020 Hampton-Rochester-LaCrosse docket that they want to get their RPS wind from outside WI, despite the fact that the model assumptions include an estimated 103,757 MW of wind generation potential at or above 30% capacity and 20,741 MW at or above 35% capacity, not including any Lake Michigan development.  Despite this potential in Wisconsin, his testimony was that he had his heart set on getting their RPS from west of Wisconsin!  His own Burns & McDonnell study, Exhibit 2, said:

If our understanding of current transmission planning results is correct, it is generally more expensive (than this breakeven indication) to build additional power transfer capability over such a long distance.  There may be other reasons that could justify such a build0out, but capacity factor differential alone does not.

Well DUH!

Here’s his testimony and Exhibits, worth a look:

Noeldner WPPI Direct Testimony

Noeldner - Exhibit 2 - Wind Economics Study & Model Produced for WPPI Energy

Noeldner - Exhibit 3 - Wind Assessment Model Results (see fn. 6)

I live in Red Wing, home to two nuclear reactors.  This week I hope you all will take some time to reflect on the mess at Fukushima Daiichi and the role of nuclear generators in our energy scheme.   It was a year ago today when Fukushima Daiichi reactors melted down.

When Fukushima Daiichi first blew up, I spent some time tracking down every shred of info, which wasn’t much.  That there was so little information available was startling, and that was emphasized by my blog stats which showed 4,00o+ hits in just one day, people trying desperately to find out what was going on.

For an overview of how difficult it was to get information, and the struggles of even NRC personnel, from Marketplace earlier this week:

Lessons from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster

Interview: Witness Fukushima Daiichi

From the New York Times:

Nuclear Disaster in Japan Was Avoidable, Critics Contend

The Wiki is packed with info:

Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster

Here’s what I’d posted then:

Xcel Energy’s Q4 Earnings Call Transcript

Of note for Minnesota, which needs all the property tax revenue it can get:

Ali Agha - SunTrust

Yes, and also one other clarification. Teresa, I think you mentioned the property tax deferral in Minnesota, you asked for that and you’ve assumed you’ll get it. Can you remind us how big of an amount that is?

Teresa Madden - Xcel

Yes, it’s $28 million and it’s both electric and gas. So even though it came out of the electric case, it’s for both businesses.

Demand is down down down and Xcel says they won’t need any more new generation until at least 2018.  Well DUH!  They filed an amendment to their IRP given that the situation is sooooooo bad.

2010 Resource Plan Update

Something I found interesting, aside from their projections of load growth that are down the toilet:

The most important information is fundamental data regarding the status of the economy and projections of economic growth.

And lack thereof:

We now expect 0.7% annual demand growth and 0.5% annual energy growth over the Resource Plan  horizon, down from 1.1% and 0.9%, respectively, included in our initial filing. The magnitude of the reduced forecast is such that it prompts us to reconsider some components of our Five Year Action Plan.

Which means:

We do not expect additional generation will be needed on our system until 2018.

Well DUH!  And that’s a full year after Mikey Bull had estimated at that big LS Power meeting in Chisago!  So I’d guess that if they’ll admit that, it’s really 2020 or further out.  And remember CapX 2020 is based on a 2.49% annual increase?  Right…

They had issued an RFP for wind, but they don’t need or want it now:

Currently we have significant installed generation and a bank of renewable energy credits that we can use to satisfy our renewable energy requirements. To the extent the PTC expires and wind prices increase as expected, we will be able to rely on our installed generation and banked RECs rather than adding uneconomic wind generation.

DUH!

They also note that they’ve lost some wholesale customers, which is also noted in this week’s FERC filing, a Complaint against Xcel, where p. 11 of the complaint they state they lost 9 wholesale customers in Wisconsin and Michigan.  For more on that, go to NoCapX 2020:

CATFIGHT! Xcel and ATC go at it at FERC

… first it’s Alan’s Birthday, now officially an old fart and then some.  And then it’s Valentine’s Day, and he just gave me the bestest gift of all:

… a succinct analysis of WI Public Service Commission staff Neumeyer’s testimony!!!

AWWWWWWWWW, what a guy, it’s just what I wanted!!!