Legalectric

On Tuesday, Commerce is having a wind project transmission scoping meeting (MPUC Docket 17-322):

6 p.m. on December 19, 2017

Room 124

 Riverland Community College

Albert Lea, MN

The Albert Lea Tribune printed my Letter to the Editor about the Freeborn Wind Farm transmission scoping meeting:

Letter: Meeting on new wind farm is planned next week

Published 9:27 pm Wednesday, December 13, 2017

They’re recycling, and not in a good way.  Why is the STrib facilitating this?  Remember this from October?

Center of the American Experiment – Conflatulence!!

Here we go again, this time in the STrib:

The high cost of our failing wind policies

The two primary false arguments:

1) Wind is driving up ratepayer cost (it’s not, it’s the return on capital expenditures).

2) Clean Power Plan and renewable mandates aren’t lowering CO2 and are driving up rates (CPP and mandates only increase “renewables” and don’t cut CO2 production, it’s a percentage change, and using least cost generation.  Only reduction in burning will lower production of CO2).

3) High cost of electricity in Minnesota is connected to wind policies (When compared historically higher cost states like Illinois, yes, Minnesota’s rates are high, but it isn’t related to wind costs, wind is a least cost resource.  It IS related to the shift of electricity from serving a franchise area to a market based system, and the market has spoken. When electricity can be sold for more, and where utilities have transmission build-out from any Point A to any Point B, they will sell to highest bidder.  Higher priced markets will line up to buy our lower cost electricity and utilities will line up to sell it elsewhere rather than sell it for less to us, and we will have to pay the higher price to get electricity here.  That’s how a market works, Econ 1001. With wholesale market deregulated, and transmission lines built, we’ve got defacto deregulation.).

And a minor but very obvious false statement:

And the shortfall in summer wind production is being backstopped primarily by coal-fired electricity.

Coal runs constantly, as does nuclear, well almost, capacity factor of 80+.  But it’s natural gas, with its near-immediate ramping up that backs up wind, if generation is needed.  DOH!  Coal can’t get it up on command.

Why is the STrib printing this crap that is so patently false?

Here’s a good wallpaper to keep running, the MISO LMP map.

Check MISO’s real time LMP prices HERE!

See how Chicago area is cut out? That’s because it’s in PJM.

Check PJM’s real time LMP prices HERE!

Ah, yes, it’s that time of year again… remember this map, way back when, connecting existing coal plants to the proposed CapX 2020 system? (note the Mid-American coal plant built in 2007 over by Council Bluffs isn’t there, it’s at the green lines on the southwest side where transmission starts.)

It’s the Power Plant Siting Act Annual Hearing!

Here’s the full notice:

2017_Docket 17-18_Notice_201711-137509-01

And going back in history:

This Thursday, the Xcel Energy Petition to slash the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center Power Purchase Agreement.  It’s a pretty twisted thing…

Read all about it — check out the Public Utilities Commission docket:

Click “Search Documents” HERE and search for docket 17-532

Here are the Staff Briefing Papers_201711-137262-01

For example, Commerce noted that the power wasn’t needed:

And the PUC staff seems to have heard this, which notes the capacity surplus in the Briefing Papers above:

Followed by this:

Ummmmmmmm, it’s both!

And it gets curiouser and curiouser… Again from the Briefing Papers:

And some validation of concerns raised:

So what will the Commission do?  It seems their knickers are in a bunch and it’s not at all clear…

Here’s the Neighbors for Clean Air page for HERC:

HERC page and links via Wayback Machine

And check out Alan Muller’s powerpoint from the successful challenge to attempt to increase garbage burning:

HERC_Power Point

There was an announcement in April, 2016, of  the “HERC Clean Power Plan Coalition” with multiple groups joining to shut down HERC!  Sierra Club North Star Chapter, MPIRG, Neighborhoods Organizing for Change, Community Power, St. Joan of Arc, etc.

HERC?  SHUT IT DOWN!

Electricity glut?  It’s all over the U.S.  It’s not just in MISO’s Midwest that there’s an energy glut, it’s also PJM, which is the market that Midwest electricity producers have their eyes on.  PJM is TRANSMISSON and ELECTRIC MARKETING.  And North American Electric Reliability Corporation, NERC, verifies it’s EVERYWHERE!

Just in, Monitoring Analytic’s 3rd Quarter report that includes the summer peak:

2017 Q3 State of the Market – Monitoring Analytics

Here’s the bottom line, found on p. 120:

The PJM system real-time peak load in the first nine months of 2017 was
145,635.9 MW in the HE 1800 on July 19, 2017, which was 6,541 MW, or 4.3
percent, lower than the peak load in the first nine months of 2016, which was
152,176.9 MW in the HE 1600 on August 11 ,2016.

And just a few pages later, p. 123 (note losses are now treated differently, after they got onto the transmission build-out for export, shipping from any Point A to any Point B)(note also how MW exports incorporated into “Load plus Exports” has increased):

So while you’re mulling that over, consider the 2016 NERC Reliability Assessment:

2016 NERC Reliability Assessment

This is the chart I’ve been trotting out for what, 19 years now? Reserve margins, showing that there’s plenty of electricity to go around (p. 44 of NERC Report above) (click for larger version):

Not only is MISO far ahead of what’s needed, even for reserve margins, but look at PJM here, more than twice what’s needed to cover reserve margins.

We can easily reduce coal generation NOW. What’s the hold up? Oh, right, marketing dreams… marketing dreams that we’re paying for, that transmission build-out that no one needs and no one wants, and their plans for even more!  Planning meetings open only to a select few!