We’re stuck here in Minnesota for a while, parental health issues to deal with, and thankfully others have posted on the meeting this week in Delaware about the Mid-Atlantic Power Pathway proposed by Delmarva and PEPCO.

Howard – Delmar DustPan: The Millsboro’s MAPP Meeting

His post shows that it’s the same everywhere — coffee & cookies and 20 utility employees to “explain.”  TWENTY!

From his blog — does this scene look familiar:

AND knowing that 600 showed up in Maryland, that there’s lots of interest, he notes that there were only 30 chairs.  Come on, PEPCO, that is SO tacky…

This project is part of something much bigger…

Here’s my post on RTEP – Regional Transmission Expansion Plan

Here’s some info about their plan, the original proposal, and info about AC v. DC lines, focused on the submarine cable for the Chesapeake Bay:

PHI Transmission Line Proposal – May 15, 2006

June 12, 2008 MAPP Project Update

FERC has approved a Return on Investment of 12.8%:

FERC Approval of Rate Recovery November 3, 2008

The June 12 PowerPoint says it will cost $1.5 billion, and the FERC press release says $1.05 billion.  Slip of the decimal?

Take a look at their Market Efficiency Analysis — projections of cost and revenue changes:

$$$$-PossumPt-CalvertCliffs-IndianRiver-Salem-500kv

In short, here’s what this line is about:

I found a powerpoint with some of the upgrades planned:

Sept 9 2008 PJM Subregional Planning – Mid-Atlantic

Here are maps to some Delaware projects from this September powerpoint:

This article was in MinnPost on Friday, somehow I missed it — Steve Berg did a great job spelling it all out.  Perhaps Xcel will get the message that they’ve really screwed up and need to do this differently?

Here’s the referenced Minneapolis City Council Health, Energy and Environment Committee’s Resolution:

Resolution of Health, Energy & Environment Committee

And here’s Steve Berg’s article in toto:

Power lines over the Midtown Greenway? A classic case of destroying a place to save it

Remember Aesop’s fable about the foolish couple who killed the goose that laid golden eggs? Xcel Energy apparently forgot to reread the tale before launching a plan to run a high-voltage power line over the rim of the Midtown Greenway in south Minneapolis. Like the fable, Xcel’s plan is layered in irony and fraught with unintended consequences.

Here’s hoping that the City Council on Friday can put the brakes on the project long enough for the electric utility and its state regulators to take a deep breath and consider a better solution.

The good part about this particular story is that the Midtown neighborhoods are in the midst of revival. When the recession ends, Xcel expects more growth in a part of the city that already uses more power than its aging grid can handle. It needs more service.

But Midtown owes its success largely to the greenway itself, a remarkable bike trail and linear park carved out of an old railroad trench. Hundreds of new homes and offices have been built along the 5.5-mile greenway in recent years, and more are anticipated. For Xcel to run a high-voltage line over the greenway’s edge figures to ruin the very attraction responsible for the area’s revival.

This is more than a little crazy. A better idea would have been to bury the new line beneath Lake Street (which runs parallel to the greenway) during the street’s recent reconstruction. Apparently Xcel wasn’t interested at the time.

Another alternative
Now the city’s preferred alternative is to bury the line beneath East 28th Street. Xcel complains that going underground would double the project’s $15 million cost, and suggests obliquely that the extra burden might be borne by the neighborhood’s ratepayers, or perhaps the city’s.

It’s clear that underground lines cost more, both to install and maintain. But when Xcel adds service to a new subdivision on the Twin Cities edge, the cost is laid off against the entire rate base. There’s no good reason the cost of updating service in a city neighborhood shouldn’t be handled in the same way – especially when a regional asset like Midtown Greenway is involved.

Indeed, a trend toward infill development will cause similar conflicts in the future as older neighborhoods add demand and require upgraded service. Infill development carries many social, environmental and economic benefits to a metropolitan region. Ratepayers in those neighborhoods shouldn’t be penalized with higher rates than those charged to ratepayers on the suburban fringe.

Three open houses held
Xcel doesn’t need Minneapolis’ official blessing to proceed with its application to the Public Utilities Commission for an overhead line. But it has promised to involve neighborhood residents and city officials in forging a final design. To that end, it has held three open houses on the issue, pointing out that this line would provide power to an additional 7,500 homes and that the 1.25-mile project — running roughly between Hiawatha Avenue and Interstate Hwy. 35W — is part of a larger effort to upgrade service to south Minneapolis.

“We’ll consider input about issues such as aesthetics and recreation in the design and location of the infrastructure and we’ll offer alternatives for consideration,” Judy Poferl, Xcel’s regional vice president, said last fall in launching the project.

But Xcel has failed to convince the neighborhoods or City Hall that going overhead is the best alternative. The Midtown Greenway Coalition has urged Xcel to look more closely at conservation measures. And the City Council’s Health, Energy and Environment Committee (PDF) has concluded that an overhead line would be incompatible with the character of the greenway and its environs.

“A buried line makes more sense in this kind of urban environment,” said Council Member Robert Lilligren.

The county’s interest
Perhaps more than any party, Hennepin County has an interest in the issue’s outcome. The county’s railroad authority owns the greenway and its public-works department recently finished rebuilding nearby Lake Street.

In opposing the overhead line, Commissioner Peter McLaughlin points out the greenway’s status as a historic district and a regional recreation asset. “We have several avenues to explore,” he said. “In the end it may work out that going underground is the only alternative that works for them – and that’s what we hope happens.”

The city, county, state and federal governments have invested millions of dollars in the greenway corridor. Private interests have responded in kind. All have a big stake in protecting their investments. The greenway has boosted a part of the city that’s still a long way from reaching full potential. Why kill the goose just as the golden eggs have begun to appear?

Matthew Wald has a good piece in the NYT today, good in that it raises some of the issues, but these issues raised need some more digging, can you dig it?

Check this paragraph from the article:

In fact, energy experts say that simply building a better grid is not enough, because that would make the cheap electricity that comes from burning coal available in more parts of the country. That could squeeze out generators that are more expensive but cleaner, like those running on natural gas. The solution is to put a price on emissions from dirtier fuels and incorporate that into the price of electricity, or find some other way to limit power generation from coal, these experts say.

Not “could,” but WOULD “squeeze out generators that are more expensive but cleaner” and adding externalities to coal generation cost would only stop that, would only be a “solution” if it tacked on HUGE costs, far greater than those anticipated by those advocating either Cap & Trade or Tax.

But those of us in transmission are glad to see the driver for new construction exposed, as it was in the MISO Benefits Study by our good friends at ICF:

RTO operational benefits are largely associated with the improved ability to displace  generation with coal generation, more efficient use of coal generation, and better use of import potential.

Here’s that MISO study, the above quote comes from the conclusions, p. 83, and is also stated in the intro — THIS IS THE REASON FOR TRANSMISSION, THIS IS THE REASON FOR THE MIDWEST MISO MARKET.  Read the study:

ICF’s Independent Assessment of Midwest ISO Operational Benefits

For example, Jose Delgado whining about hwo long it took to get the permit for Arrowhead, what does he expect for a project that was an absurdly obvious ploy for a superhighway for bulk power portrayed as a “local load” need for WUMS?  They put together many options in the WRAO report, and selected one, Arrowhead, “3j,” as the be-all and end-all of transmission.  That was declared the ONE line that would fix Wisconsin.  Then, next thing you know, they still want to do “5” more commonly known as the Chisago project, they want to do “9” in SW Minnesota claiming “it’s for wind” when there’s only 213-302MVA coming off of Buffalo Ridge into the Nobles substation, they do them all because that’s what they want, they can ship bulk power.  It’s been so dishonest…  Utilities have been so dishonest…

And let’s look at the financing of these lines.  CapX 2020 testimony and a powerpoint demonstrate that they don’t have the financing lined up for that $2 billion dollar project.  They were working through Lehman Bros. so what does that say?  The “Cap” of CapX 2020 is “Capital” and they don’t have it.  But because they want it, they’ll make us pay for it.  Is something wrong with this picture?

———————————————–

Hurdles (Not Financial Ones) Await Electric Grid Update

By MATTHEW L. WALD

WASHINGTON — Environmentalists dream of a bigger and “smarter” electric grid that could move vast amounts of clean electricity from windswept plains and sunny deserts to distant cities.

Such a grid, they argue, could help utilities match demand with supply on the hottest afternoons, allow customers to decide when to run their appliances and decrease the risk of blackouts, like the one that paralyzed much of the East in 2003.

The Obama administration has vowed to make the grid smarter and tougher, allocating $11 billion in grants and loan guarantees to the task in the economic stimulus package passed by the House last week.

But it will take a lot more than money to transform the grid from a form that served well in the last century, when electricity was produced mostly near the point of consumption, and when the imperative was meeting demand, no matter how high it grew.

Opposition to power lines from landowners and neighbors, local officials or environmental groups, especially in rural areas, makes expansion difficult — even when the money for it is available. And some experts argue that in the absence of a broader national effort to encourage cleaner fuels, even the smartest grid will do little to reduce consumption of fuels that contribute to climate change.

In fact, energy experts say that simply building a better grid is not enough, because that would make the cheap electricity that comes from burning coal available in more parts of the country. That could squeeze out generators that are more expensive but cleaner, like those running on natural gas. The solution is to put a price on emissions from dirtier fuels and incorporate that into the price of electricity, or find some other way to limit power generation from coal, these experts say.

The stimulus bill passed by the House includes $6.5 billion in credit to federal agencies for building power lines, presumably in remote areas where renewable energy sources are best placed, and $2 billion in loan guarantees to companies for power lines and renewable energy projects. The bill also includes $4.4 billion for the installation of smart meters — which, administration officials say, in combination with other investments in a smart grid, would cut energy use by 2 percent to 4 percent — and $100 million to train workers to maintain the grid.

About 527,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines stretch across the United States, most installed many decades ago.

Everyone agrees that more lines are needed. But some industry experts argue that the problem of making the grid greener goes well beyond upgrading and expanding the existing power lines. The grid, they say, was set up primarily to draw energy from nearby plants and to provide a steady flow of electricity to customers. It was not intended to incorporate power from remote sources like solar panels and windmills, whose output fluctuates with weather conditions — variability that demands a far more flexible operation.

The experts say that the grid must therefore be designed to moderate demand at times when there is less wind or sun available — for example, by allowing businesses or residential customers to volunteer to let the local utility turn down air-conditioners in office buildings or houses, when hourly prices rise.

An even more significant problem is that utilities increasingly face opposition to expansion and must fight for years for permits.

José M. Delgado, president and chief executive of the American Transmission Company, which operates in four Midwestern states, said his firm’s last major project, a line of about 220 miles from Duluth, Minn., to Wausau, Wis., took two years to build but eight years before that to win the permits. The federal Interior Department took a year to approve the line crossing a wild river and required a $5 million contribution to a national park, but the one-year delay raised costs by an additional $12 million, for a total of $440 million, Mr. Delgado said.

Loan guarantees will not help this problem, he said. “We have had wonderful access to the private bond market,” he added.

The International Transmission Company, a Michigan company, is trying to build a 26-mile line that, had it been in place, would have prevented the great Eastern blackout of 2003, said Joseph L. Welch, president and chief executive. The State of Michigan has approved it, but a homeowner is challenging it in court, Mr. Welch said.

“We burn up three years on a line that will take two months to build,” he said.

But, he added, “We absolutely have no problem — underscore, no problem — financing our transmission grid.”

Other companies said the same, although a few said the loan guarantees in the House bill would be helpful.

As power lines lengthen, the number of approvals they require increases, the complications of dividing the costs become greater and the difference among national interests and local interests becomes starker, said Dan W. Reicher, a former assistant secretary of energy who was a member of President Obama’s transition team.

Policy makers have looked at various models to resolve the conflicting interests in power-line disputes. In the 1930s, the federal government assumed sole responsibility for approving natural gas pipelines, and as a result, gas moves freely from wells in the Gulf Coast states to other areas of the country, with much of it used to make electricity. Gas pipelines are somewhat less objectionable, though, because they are buried.

Another model is the one used to build the Interstate Highway System, with the states using their powers of eminent domain in a system that was centrally planned with state input. But highways were more attractive to many states than power lines would be, electricity officials say, especially if the lines are simply crossing a state without adding much local benefit. A third possibility is a national commission that would present a master plan for thousands of miles of new transmission lines that Congress could approve for the whole country in spite of local objections for individual pieces.

Congress tried to solve the problem in 2005 with a law that gave the Energy Department authority to intervene if states did not approve new lines deemed to be in the national interest, but that has not worked well, said Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California and chairman of the House Energy Committee. It was criticized as an assault on the traditional control by the states of land-use decisions.

The electric industry is at least planning to better integrate different parts of the grid so that if power is needed in Baltimore it can be imported from Chicago. A group of technical experts, mostly from the Midwest, have been meeting for months to map out new lines, in an effort that industry veterans say is unprecedented in its breadth. But the group’s aim is simply a map of what such a system would look like; it will not seek permission for such lines, or try to finance them or actually build them. The group is scheduled to make an announcement next week.

“We’ve got a real political confrontation that’s going to take place,” said Glenn L. English Jr., chief executive of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, who had served as a congressman from Oklahoma for 20 years. “It basically comes down to the question of prioritization. What’s more important to you? Do you truly want to maximize the use of renewable energy?”

WOW!  “Nearly 600” show up for a meeting about transmission.  Good, Delmarva deserves that kind of response for their threat to ram the Mid-Atlantic Power Pathway transmission line through Maryland and Delaware to New Jersey.  They’re so desperate that they’re threatening “rolling blackouts:”

Delmarva Power spokesman Matt Likovich says the region could face rolling blackouts by 2011 unless the power transmission infrastructure is improved.

More transmission lies.  WDMT caught them making the same threats:

Delmarva Power Community and Communications Coordinator Matt Likovich said, “There have been projections that if we don’t do something to improve our infrastructure… we could be faced with rolling blackouts by the year 2011.”

Threatening rolling blackouts, saying that’ll happen by 2011, so we need to build this line by 2013… yeah… sure… whatever…  Get a grip, guys, we are not that stupid, we’re not buying your threats — it is SO naughty to do that.

Power lines would relieve congestion

By Andrew Ostroski
Staff Writer

MILLSBORO — Officials from Delmarva Power met with members of the public to discuss a power line project that will cut through the heart of Sussex County, as well as much of the Delmarva Peninsula.

An increase in energy usage on the Shore has prompted Delmarva Power to start the Mid-Atlantic Power Pathway project, 230 miles of interstate electric transmission line. More than 100 miles of the line are slated for Delaware, with 61 miles in Sussex County.

The lines would follow current right-of-ways, crossing the state line west of Delmar, and move northeast across the county through Gumboro and Millsboro to the Indian River Generating Station. Lines are also planned to go north through Milton and into Kent and New Castle counties before crossing the Delaware River to the Salem Nuclear Power Plant in New Jersey. Total cost for construction is estimated at $1.43 billion.

“During times of congestion, we have to call in power plants to provide energy,” said Matt Likovich, spokesman for Delmarva Power. “Those operators charge more for that energy because they know we need it. We could cut those power plants out.”

Nearly 600 people filled the auditorium at Cambridge-South Dorchester High School earlier this week to listen and comment on plans to string the high-voltage electrical transmission lines across Dorchester County from Taylor’s Island to Vienna.

Potential routes for the power lines in Dorchester were presented by Pepco Holdings Senior Vice President William Gausman.

“We have not made any decisions on this project; there is still a long way to go,” he said, presenting a map of the potential routes, including one which follows existing rights-of-way for a Choptank Electric transmission line and the railroad tracks from Bucktown to Linkwood.

He said three meetings are planned this month in Dorchester to review the proposed routes and seek public comment. The meetings are set for Feb. 19 in Taylor’s Island, Feb. 24 in Church Creek and Feb. 26 in Vienna.

“More than 80 percent will be on or along existing transmission lines,” Gausman said. The problem in Dorchester, he said, is that there are no existing high-voltage transmission lines.

Currently, Delmarva Power runs one transmission line. The company would like to build a second to provide an alternate route if one line experiences congestion or malfunction.

MAPP would be the first major high-voltage transmission project executed on the lower half of the Shore in 25 years. The 500 kilovolt line is also slated to cut some costs for consumers throughout the northeast. Vince Maione, MAPP project manager, said the reduced congestion will bring savings to users.

“We see a potential savings from congestion of about 70 or 80 cents per 1,000 kilowatt hours average per month,” he said.

Some residents have expressed concerns about building the 160-foot towers planned for current rights-of-way where power lines already exist. Doris Batdorf, a Long Neck resident, said she is afraid lines will affect her property.

“We just moved here in July, and now we have this coming,” she said. “I just don’t see the cost justifying the means.”

Maione also said the project would be funded by consumers, with an average of 40 cents added to electric bills.

“We have to plan for what the future’s going to bring,” he said. “The electric system has to be reliable. This circuit can bring enough power to serve the customers that are here today, and then plan for the future.”

Tonight is the final meeting in the group scheduled by Delmarva Power about the Mid-Atlantic Power Pathway, transmission through Delaware to New Jersey.

Wednesday, February 4 @ 6 p.m.

Millsboro Civic Center

322 Wilson Highway

Millsboro, Delaware

Sussex County:

Kent County:

New Castle County (cutout):

For more info on the underlying scheme, see my prior post:

PJM Transmission in Mid-Atlantic