Legalectric

Last night, Sen. Osmek held a Senate Energy Committee meeting in Rochester. It was standing room only, at least 100 showed up (I had 100 flyers, and had 4 left and I know I missed a few).

Here’s the bill DRAFT, SC5558-6:

Here’s the powerpoint explaining the bill:

Who all showed up and testified? All a bunch of paid suits, with just three exceptions, pushed to the very end. Check the list of lobbyists here:

Alan Muller got on the list to testify, he’ll be writing to the Committee soon:

And here’s my comment sent to the committee:

Where were Senators Dibble and Marty? I must confess, I was so disgusted by Sen. Marty’s handling of the e21 debacle back in 2015 that I’ve not been back to the Senate Energy Committee since then (Marty tried to introduce Xcel’s e21 bill, and tried to shut down testimony opposing that bill…
(report from that meeting) though the room was packed with those who had rolled over supporting it, only three of us there opposed it, myself, Alan Muller, and Office of Attorney General’s RUD James Canneday. Sen. Marty pulled the bill as he “introduced” it and then substituted an e21 light and wouldn’t allow testimony on anything else! Well, we did what we could, and it wasn’t until the very end in conference committee or just before that he put the awful Xcel-desired language back in. SF 1735 – SHAME on each Senator who voted for it). Back into the fray, I guess!

My take is that Sen. Senjem, or the Republican caucus, or ???, are concerned about Sen. Senjem’s seat, why else would they put Mikey Bull up there beside him, emitting puffery about the bill? Seems there’s just one other Senate hearing scheduled, info below.

Next up, next week, Mound, Minnesota, in Sen. Ozmek’s district:

Wednesday, January 22, 2020, 4:00 PM

Mound Westonka High School’s Performing Arts Center

905 Sunnyfield Road East

Minnetrista, MN 55364

Now, Mikey, about “carbon capture and storage,” good grief. Did you learn nothing from all those years of Excelsior Energy’s Mesaba Project? Here’s why it’s good the Mesaba Project was not built!

Pipedreams of Green and Clean

Minnesota Senator Osmek is convening a Senate Energy Committee meeting in Rochester this evening to discuss a DRAFT bill SC5558-6:

6 p.m. on January 15, 2020

Rochester Community and Technical College

Heintz Center Commons

1926 College View Rd E

Rochester, MN 55904

Here’s the letter I just fired off to Committee members:

Be there or be square!

The June 25, 1998 blackout report needs to be on the interwebs available to the world.

June 25, 1998? That’s the night of the transmission fail that disconnected the Midwest from the Eastern Interconnect. That question was asked by Minnesota Power’s attorney of each and every witness, I think other than MP, but maybe MP witnesses too, in the Arrowhead transmission project hearing, circa 1999-2000. There were cries of “Hospitals will go dark without the Arrowhead project,” “We’re going to freeze in the dark in an incubator” which became “We’re going to freeze in the dark on a respirator without a job” — it was so histrionic.

The Arrowhead transmission project was project 13J of the WRAO Report, and the WIREs Report, which presented many transmission lines, but chose the Arrowhead transmission project as the “be all and end all” of transmission in the Midwest, that it would fix all the transmission problems:

The hearing went forward, 2 weeks in Minnesota, where MP got an exemption from Minnesota Power Plant siting law, and for TWO MONTHS in Wisconsin, for Round 1, then 2 weeks after the cost went way up, and another 3-5 days of hearing later when cost went up again. They got their permit, it’s up…

But in that first hearing, I did get to introduce the report that showed that the June 25, 1998, blackout was NOT caused by too little capacity, it was not caused by an unreliable transmission system. It was caused by corporate greed, transmission operators running the Prairie Island-Byron 345kV’s TCEX flow over the limit, disregarding operating guides, and disregarding requests and demands to ramp the power down, violating MAPP Operating Standards and NERC Operating Policies. SHAME, NSP, SHAME!!! And MP was so tacky, trying to attribute their desire for bulk power transfer to the blackout, that the Arrowhead project would save us. Yeah, right…

Here’s the report, below, it’s a gem, I’m posting this today because I’m shoveling off my desk and there are a lot of gems here, so posting them will get them out into the world in perpetuity — can’t disappear something from the internet! Scanning them in is taking a while, a royal and dusty pain in the patoot, but just for you inquiring minds, HERE IT IS:

Here are a couple snippets, starting with p. 2:

Bottom line?

OPERATE WITHIN OPERATING GUIDE LIMITS!!

DOH!

The report goes on and on with stupid human tricks – the flow was NOT reduced by NSP System Operators:

From pps 10-11:

So if the operators had been doing the job, not focused on keeping that line operating with all that power flowing through it, selling that power, the blackout may not have happened. Great…

And for some reason, NSP operators were not communicating:

300 MW above the operating guide limits:

OPERATE WITHIN OPERATING GUIDE LIMITS!! DOH!

Operator error is a too-generous way to put it — but for the efforts to NOT reduce power flows, the inadequate response of system operators and their failure to communicate the degree of the problem, the blackout may not have happened. And then utilities have the nerve to say that because of the June 25, 1998 blackout, we need the 13j Arrowhead transmission project?

How many years have I been saying that the purpose of this massive transmission build-out is to market coal elsewhere? Decades, folks, it’s been decades… And this latest from Xcel Energy, Notice of Comment period just out today, is demonstration that they plan to keep running those coal plants and selling it. Will the Public Utilities Commission care?

Here’s the newly released Xcel Energy plan, and a comment period:

The plan?

Here’s the Notice:

What to comment about? From the Commission’s Notice:

Bulk power transfer was the whole point of the transmission build-out, to be able to sell anything generated at any Point A to any Point B. And then coal generated here could be sold elsewhere, eastward via transmission, while we use generation that isn’t quite so dirty (but that’s dirty in its own way). We’re so clean here in Minnesota… NOT! We’ve been a pass through for Dakotas’ coal for a while, and now, they’re asking permission to keep burning coal here and send that energy eastward.

They built all that transmission, no Commission I’ve seen has ever found a transmission plan they didn’t like and roll over for, and now we’re paying for it. Rate increases anyone? Are you paying attention to what’s pushing those rates up?

Why ever would I say that it’s all about selling coal? Well… there’s a bit of a pattern going here. There was the Chisago project, starting in 1996 and three iterations in Minnesota and Wisconsin, not to mention the WRAO report:

WRAO laid out many transmission lines and the Arrowhead transmission project, circa 1999, was selected as the be all and end all of transmission after many hearings were held, one hearing in Minnesota and THREE before Wisconsin PSC, the price kept going UP, UP, UP!

But then on September 8, 2001, a meeting with likely intervenors to see if they could be convinced to “approve” of the SW Minnesota 345kV line, remember that, Commissioner Matt Schuerger? I pointed out all that coal lined up in the SW MN 345kV study… and from there on to the SW MN 345kV line, part of ABB plan for coal:

Don’t ya just love that name? It says it all. Why the ABB Lignite Vision 21 Transmission Study? The opening paragraph, linked above, DOH! says:

The SW MN 345kV line was the part that’s running east to west on the lower part of that yellow map, from Split Rock sub to Lakefield Junction. Some claimed it was an “It’s for WIND!” line, but that’s a lie, just read that ABB study again. The powerflows showed that it wasn’t to carry energy off of Buffalo Ridge, there was just 213-302 MVA coming off Buffalo Ridge into the over 2,000 MVA capacity line:

How stupid do they think we are? Well, money talked, and that money ruled the day. That SW MN 345kV line and the TRANSLink Settlement Agreement and 2005 Transmission Omnibus Bill from Hell (and changes to Minn. Stat. 117.189) laid the groundwork to bring us $2+ BILLION of CapX 2020:

And then the MISO MVP 17 project portfolio, now over $6 BILLION:

And then they have the audacity to suggest we need MORE transmission?

Upper Midwest utilities to study transmission grid in light of ambitious carbon reduction goals

CapX 2050 Vision Study

So please explain how selling coal generated electricity on the MISO market is consistent with carbon reduction goals?

What a crock…

Red Wing has had a lot of outages in recent years, distribution for sure, not transmission. We’ve had intense storms, trees down, lines down, even one on our block that affected the rest of the block but not us up along West.

Utilities regularly cut maintenance and upgrades of distribution and transmission lines in a short-term short-sighted effort to save money. That’s a byproduct of deregulation — what caused the 2003 blackout across the eastern interconnect was utility failure to maintain transmission easements.

Distribution lines are the primary source of power outages, caused by something as simple as a car careening into a pole, or a tree falling on a line, and frequently squirrels in the substation (fried squirrels rate a category in outage reports). Distribution outages can also be caused by too much load on a distribution circuit, or lines aging beyond useful life, both of which can be addressed by reconductoring, putting in a new line and at the same time using a larger conductor for increased capacity. Substation modifications would also be necessary.

Utilities, well, Xcel Energy, has a habit of proposing transmission “solutions” for distribution issues, evident in the Hiawatha (CN-10-694 and TL-09-38) and Hollydale (CN-12-113 and TL-11-152) transmission line dockets. To look at dockets, go HERE and search using year number and docket number.

Xcel Energy filed its Biennial Transmission Projects Report.  BUT it filed the Integrated Distribution Plan separately. It also filed the Hosting Capacity Report separately:

Initial Comments area due December 30, 2019, Reply Comments due January 17, 2020.

For comparison, 2017:

This is really important, because by looking at the substation and distribution capacity, it’s easy to tell if their “transmission” project proposals are indeed for transmission needs or distribution, something that should be used in siting, but which isn’t. It’s also easy to tell where the utilities are neglecting their duty on the distribution side. We’ve had a lot of distribution outages in Red Wing, particularly on the west side of town… once more with feeling, here’s the map:

Why all the red and orange?

From the 2019 Report (note the grey “TRADE SECRET” redactions – peak load is taken out:

Here are the details from the 2017 Hosting Capacity Report, nothing “redacted,” but the Peak for substation and that distribution circuit are not included:

Let’s take a close look at the Hiawatha and Hollydale transmission areas, Hiawatha (PUC Dockets CN-10-694 and TL-09-38) and Hollydale (PUC Dockets CN-12-113 and TL-11-152). Hiawatha transmission WAS BUILT, ostensibly to address reliability issues around Abbott Northwestern Hospital. Need wasn’t adequately challenged. Hiawatha transmission was built, underground, and look — but did it “solve” the distribution problems? Here’s a lot of yellow, orange and red nearby in areas ostensibly served by these substations!

And from a prior Legalectric post ((Hiawatha Project Comments due tomorrow October 25th, 2011):

And let’s look at Hollydale transmission area, which was ostensibly needed for the huge load along Hwy 55 and 694. Need was challenged and Hollydale was NOT built. The plan is to upgrade the distribution system, with larger transformers and higher capacity conductors. This shows that the 694 & 55 corridors are just fine, and that upgrade of the distribution system in Plymouth is exactly what is needed, and only what is needed:

And another old Legalectric post (Hollydale Xmsn Report at long last! June 7th, 2016) had these predictions, first state of distribution in 2016:

Prediction of system for 2036:

Note that you can see the 694 and Hwy 55 corridors, they’re yellow and orange for 2016 map, and yellow, orange, and red for 2036. Once more with feeling, in the 2019 Hosting Capacity map:

2019, the 694 and Hwy 55 corridors are GREEN, GREEN, GREEN, lots of space. Go figure.

Another issue, in the 2019 Hosting Capacity Report, as noted above, is that the details are deemed “TRADE SECRET.” WHAT?!?! WHY?!?!

Not OK. They’re withholding that information, and we’re only able to look and guess, and that’s pretty hard for people to do, even those of us mired in transmission.

It’s time to challenge that “TRADE SECRET” designation of the peak loads.