Legalectric

December 10, 2024 was the Power Plant Siting Act Annual Hearing. It was before ALJ Christa Moseng, and there were very few commenters. I’m not seeing any minutes, and don’t know if they’ll ever be posted. There were only two of us commenting, myself, and Dan Wanbeke, who has a CapX 2020 line on his land. If the proposed MN Energy CON line is built, he could be surrounded by transmission.

Wanbeke gave a detailed description of his experience and takeaways, one of the most important was a comment of the PUC’s Bob Cupit (since retired):

There are winners, and there are losers.

A very interesting part of Wambeke’s testimony was regarding the stray voltage problem, all the water in their farm was energized, and the shower tested at 15 VOLTS! The local utility has been out many times, and when Capx 2020 was down for a brief time, no stray voltage, and when it was again energized, the stray voltage was back. He testified about induction current, that when there’s a distribution line running parallel to a massive transmission line, there can be induction current (this also happens with pipelines), and the distribution lines are indeed parallel with CapX transmission. This is NOT rocket science, and the CapX utilities better deal with this. If meeting minutes come out, I’ll post, though the thought occurs to me that this was a “hearing,” so it will probably be a top secret transcript. Will keep an eye out.

These next two tidbits were handouts at the hearing:

And now on to comments filed since:

FYI, the DOT “Policy of Accommodation” that should be entered in every docket, because it sets out how utilities can interact when projects are proposed near roads — I’ve observed cases where the utility paid no attention to DOT comments and landowners nearby were screwed with little notice because utility had to quickly alter plans because DOT would not allow planned placement:

On to the regular folks, so far just two of us!

I’d made oral comments at the hearing (via web), but had to put it in writing to be more specific, because the changes are immense, and there needs to be a record. As I said in my Comment, not for the first time, “I’m disgusted, frustrated, incensed, and committed to showing up before the Public Utilities Commission until I drop dead someday in the large hearing room.” I had to file a corrected version, was bleary-eyed and found typos, missing words and punctuation, and FYI, the first one below has been corrected:

This one, from Kristen Eide-Tollefson for CURE, Communities United for Responsible Energy, is important because she’s seen the changes over the decades, THREE decades, of dealing with the Power Plant Siting Act. Now it no longer exists, hence Eulogy for the PPSA:

Let’s trot out this one again, we’re overdue for a Transmission Transition:

Puerto Rico is in the dark today. That’s the Luma “load shed” map, above, and here’s a chart from the Luna site about outages.

UPDATE as of 1/1/2025 at 3:24 pm:

Granted this is distribution, not transmission, but this AP photo, from the article linked below, shows the hornets’ nest we’re dealing with in Puerto Rico:

I remember during the Arrowhead Transmission Project hearing in Wisconsin (the EIS is in the Library of Congress?!?) the repeated threats that if it was not permitted and built, we’ll freeze in an incubator without a job… or was it we’ll die of heatstroke on a respirator… whatever. The histrionics were extreme, and so unnecessary, as necessary as that transmission project.

Puerto Rico is another story. The Puerto Rican electrical system sucked before Hurricane Maria in 2017, and afterward, it was pretty much non-existent. Paper towels were insufficient.

Supposedly, triggering this outage was an underground cable that faulted and put the whole island in the dark. From the AP article linked below:

AP: Nearly all of Puerto Rico is without power on New Year’s Eve

How is it that “failure of an underground power line,” a singular power line, can black out the entire island? Two things come to mind… 1) where’s the redundancy; and 2) underground transmission is far more reliable than above ground; oh, make that three, 3) transmission is generally more reliable than distribution, transmission outages are VERY RARE.

Puerto Rico is “serviced” by Luma and Genera PR. Here’s Luma HQ looming:

And here’s Genera PR’s generation:

And real time generation details HERE:

So does this mean what I think it does??? No generation?

And more on that same page:

Oh my! And even more:

And over those corporations is the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, PREPA. Luma and Genera PR were granted authority and responsibility to operate by PREPA. For sure there’s enough responsibility to go around, but effectiveness and reliability are missing. There’s nominal power to the people.

What has PREPA done? Here’s info on the PREPA workplan for Puerto Rico’s Electric Power and Distribution System.

You can find a massive amount if info including Data Requests, Compliance, RFPs, Evaluations at the above Puerto Rico’s Electric Power and Distribution System page.

Something tells me that “Completed June 2020” isn’t quite accurate. Why? Well, that’s the Luma “load shed” map above. Seven plus YEARS after the hurricane, they’re still having problems. Today, most of Puerto Rico in the dark. For Luma, at 3:00 p.m. CST, 13.2% of customers have electricity, and how many people per “customer” is that?

Here’s an interesting twist at https://poweroutage.us/area/state/puerto%20rico – they were asked/directed NOT to report outages:

Did Puerto Rico not get a boost from the big Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA)?

Recent alert came over the wire about a transmission project on BLM land, this one in Wyoming, and yes, that map is fuzzy, no details, and it’s direct from the application on the BLM site, awful!

Here’s the BLM page for the project — a rather short line in the cosmic realm of things — and there’s little info to go on. There’s a 15-day public scoping period prior to preparing an environmental assessment (EA), and comments are open until 4 p.m. on January 7, 2025:

BLM Lucky Star Transmission Page

Per the press release:

For more information, contact the Rawlins Field Office, 307-328-4224. Submit written comments to the Rawlins Field Office, P.O. Box 2407, Rawlins, WY 82301-2407, Attn: Lucky Star Wind Transmission Line Project.

And there are these emails listed on their page, I’d send to these plus snail mail (this is 2024/2025 — comments by snail mail?):

It’s a pretty small project, 24.8 miles:

And the full application, PRELIMINARY application:

And as usual, the maps suck. How can one effectively submit a scoping comment “prior to preparing an environmental assessment (EA)” when there’s this timeline that shows the “Draft EA done 1/6/2024, and the EA was STARTED five days after it was DONE. From TIMELINE PAGE:

And they acknowledge the error and fixed it!!!

GOOD!

FYI, not related, here’s a close-up of Minnesota, transmission maps found at https://gem.anl.gov/tool/ and click on the transmission layer (takes a while to load):

A press release just hit the inbox, days after Oklahoma was able to stop declaration of a National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor through the state — the DOE withdrew the designation. Good idea.

A massive power transmission line project was canceled following public outcry

So here they go, pushing this — deja vu all over again:

Federal Register publication HERE.

It doesn’t say “Send comments here” so… it does say “for more info: Christina Gomer, Senior Technical Advisor, by email at NIETC@hq.doe.gov or by telephone at (202) 586- 2006.” I’ve sent a missive to clarify, but ?? Will post here when/if I hear something new.

HA! Here’s the response that I received:

There’s no “addresses” section of the Federal Register Notice that I can find. Here it is, see for yourself: https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/FR-2024-12-16/2024-29419/summary

HERE’S THE INFO, from the link above (https://www.regulations.gov/document/DOE-HQ-2024-0096-0001), which is NOT linked in the Federal Register Notice:

Color me pissy…

Here are the 3 corridors they’re talking about. The one crossing the border into Canada at the right hand side of that “Lake Erie-Canada Corridor” label is short, pretty tough to see, so click on the map for a version you can enlarge.

Here’s how they fit with other big transmission — the proposed NIETC corridors are the blue lines on this map:

Anyway, below cut and pasted from the DOE press release in its entirety. Comment period is OPEN. Check this out and COMMENT, here’s the poop, and NOT in the Federal Register Notice:

Biden-Harris Administration Announces Three High-Priority Areas Advancing in National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor Designation Process

DOE Seeks Public Input on Proposed Public Engagement Framework and Possible Scope of Analysis for Areas Moving to Phase 3 of Designation Process

WASHINGTON, D.C. – In a continued effort to expedite the build out of a resilient and reliable electric grid, today the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) released a list of three potential National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors (NIETCs) moving to the next phase of the designation process. A NIETC is an area of the country where DOE has determined the lack of adequate transmission harms consumers and the development of transmission would advance important national interests in that area, such as increased reliability and reduced consumer costs. DOE recently established a four-phase process for NIETC designation; the potential NIETCs moving to Phase 3 of the designation process are:

• Lake Erie-Canada Corridor, including parts of Lake Erie and Pennsylvania
• Southwestern Grid Connector Corridor, including parts of Colorado, New Mexico, and a small portion of western Oklahoma
• Tribal Energy Access Corridor, including central parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and five Tribal Reservations

These potential NIETCs have been significantly refined since the release of the 10 potential NIETCs in May 2024, and each were renamed to better describe their location and purpose. DOE made these refinements in response to comments received from the public and its continued analysis of the value of NIETC designation to spur needed transmission investment.

A lack of transmission infrastructure can directly contribute to higher electricity prices, more frequent power outages from extreme weather, and longer outages as the grid struggles to come back online. In 2021, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law amended the Federal Power Act to authorize the Secretary of Energy to designate any geographic area as a NIETC if DOE determines that consumers are currently harmed by a lack of transmission in the area or are expected to suffer harm from a lack of transmission in the future. DOE may also consider whether development of new transmission would advance important national interests for that region, such as increased reliability and reduced consumer costs, when designating NIETCs.  

In December 2023, DOE’s Grid Deployment Office announced a new four-phase process for designating NIETCs. The process aims to maximize opportunities for public input throughout each of the phases to help DOE identify narrow geographic areas where transmission is urgently needed and where NIETC designation could help accelerate solutions. 

DOE initiated the first phase of the new process by opening a public comment window for suggestions on where DOE should consider designating NIETCs. In May 2024, DOE initiated Phase 2 of the process by releasing a preliminary list of 10 potential NIETCs, including maps with rough approximation of boundaries and a high-level explanation of the transmission needs within the potential NIETCs. DOE also opened a public comment window. 

The announcement today initiates Phase 3 of the designation process, the public and governmental engagement phase, during which DOE will continue to refine geographic boundaries, determine the appropriate level of environmental review for each NIETC, if any, and conduct any required environmental reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and other applicable federal statutes, conduct robust public and governmental engagement, and prepare draft designation reports.

Additionally, DOE is aware of potential impacts to military testing, training, and operations and will continue working with the DoD Military Aviation and Assurance Siting Clearinghouse to address these impacts as these potential NIETCs are further refined in Phase 3.

DOE is also publicly releasing detailed maps of each of the three potential NIETCs moving to Phase 3, including underlying geographic information system data. A 60-day comment period is now open to solicit comments on DOE’s proposed public engagement framework and possible scope of analysis of the potential NIETCs, including environmental, cultural, or socioeconomic effects should DOE designate any of the potential NIETCs. Additional public engagement will occur after this initial comment period. In addition, DOE is providing the names of known transmission projects under development within the potential NIETCs, as well as anticipated next steps of the NIETC process.

DOE combined and refined the boundaries of four of the 10 potential NIETCs from Phase 2 to form the boundaries of the three potential corridors proceeding to Phase 3. The following potential NIETCs announced in Phase 2 are NOT moving forward in the designation process:

• New York-New England
• New York-Mid-Atlantic
• Midwest-Plains
• Mid-Atlantic
• Delta-Plains
• Mountain-Northwest

DOE’s decision to not move these potential NIETCs forward does not constitute a finding that there are no transmission needs in these areas; rather, DOE is exercising its discretion to focus on other potential NIETCs at this time and may in the future revisit these or other areas through the opening of a new designation process.

Public Engagement Opportunities

In January 2025, DOE will host informational webinars on each of the three potential NIETCs:

• Tribal Energy Access Corridor Webinar: Tuesday, January 14, 2025 at 3:00 p.m. Eastern
• Southwestern Grid Connector Corridor Webinar: Wednesday, January 15, 2025 at 3:00 p.m. Eastern
• Lake Erie-Canada Corridor Webinar: Thursday, January 16, 2025 at 3:00 p.m. Eastern

Registration is required. Registration for each event will remain open until the event starts, and recordings will be made available online.

After the close of the public comment window on February 14, 2025, DOE will review comments and create tailored public engagement plans for each potential NIETC. DOE will determine its obligations under applicable environmental laws in Winter and Spring 2025, and then proceed to conduct any required environmental reviews. DOE will continue to accept meeting requests, public comments, and questions on the potential NIETCs throughout Phase 3. After further evaluation during Phase 3, DOE will release any draft NIETC designation report(s) and any required draft environmental document(s) and intends to request public comments on both.

Register to receive NIETC designation process updates here.

Learn more about the Grid Deployment Office.

An hour in utility futility! The Power Plant Siting Act annual hearing is over. Comment period? Here’s how:

The most important thing I see is that as of this legislative session, THE POWER PLANT SITING ACT NO LONGER EXISTS! Minn. Stat. Ch. 216E was the Power Plant Siting Act:

But now? It’s all been repealed and renumbered, and RENAMED under a different chapter:

And permitting statutes were repealed, amended, and then renumbered and sent over to a new “Chapter 216I.” Click that link to check it out.

What does it mean for siting and permitting if the Power Plant Siting Act is repealed? Kinda don’t want to think about it.