Just filed – Petition for Wind Siting Rulemaking
July 30th, 2018
Yes, I just filed Goodhue Wind Truth’s Petition for Rulemaking #2, or is it #3… Read Attachment B, the “Statement of Need and Reasonableness” (SONAR), for an eye-opening look on why we’re where we’re at.
Got a wide broadcast using the PPSA Annual Hearing service list. Hope that gets the word out.
We’ve been assigned a docket number at PUC: E999/R-18-518.
Dodge County Wind info presentation
July 29th, 2018
Dodge County Concerned Citizens asked me to do an information presentation on NextEra’s Dodge County Wind project, which was recently applied for at the Public Utilities Commission. Here’s my presentation:
Turbine and Transmission Neighbors?
Completeness comments are due August 10, 2018, with reply comments due August 17, 2018.
20187-144854-01_PUC Notice_Completeness Comments_ALL dockets
How to file?
Here’s a form you could use for guidance — yes, its a test, and an essay test at that. Your original words are what count, because you know your community best, what impacts on the ground might be. You can best identify the material issues.
It was interesting that Beth Soholt, is concerned enough to show up on a Saturday morning! She’s the ED of wind industry association Wind on the Wires (f/k/a program of Izaak Walton League Midwest until Bill Grant was appointed Deputy Commissioner – Energy – Dept. of Commerce) But her being there was not much of a surprise, because NextEra’s Julie Voeck is Chair of the WOW Board. And don’t forget that PUC Commissioner Matt Schuerger’s “Energy Systems Consulting Services” was a primary recipient of Waltons/WOW consulting funds. As we say in transmission, “It’s all connected.”
Can’t find a Dodge County Wind, LLC website (it is a Delaware LLC registered with Minnesota Secretary of State), and NextEra has nothing on its website about the LLC, nor about the Dodge County project, that I can find, ALL Press Releases are about MONEY, not a one about “Dodge County.” There is a separate transmission page with “project info” but no project specific info there either.
This project was really difficult to dig through, because there are THREE dockets: Certificate of Need (17-306); Wind Siting (17-307); and Transmission Routing (17-308). WHEW! This would be overwhelming to anyone, and to try to explain what’s proposed, the process (UGH!), and issues, that’s a couple of books… whether fiction or non-fiction remains to be determined.
Post Bulletin – Proposed Dodge County wind farm raises questions
KTTC – Dodge County Concerned Citizens holds informational meeting on proposed wind turbine project
KIMT – Wind project proposed in Dodge County
This project has been brewing for a while, because there’s a Certificate of Need requirement of a Notice Plan before anything is applied for, and then notice goes out as laid out in the Notice Plan.
I’m on the general service list for all projects, pretty much everything, so I have an idea what’s new and exciting at the PUC, but it’s pretty hard to track it all. For this project, the initial “notice” filings for 17-306 (Certificate of Need) & 17-308 (345kV transmission line) were in April, 2017, and the transmission route app and wind site permit app were not filed until 6/29. The wind site permit is most significant in terms of cost and geographic spread, and nothing was filed until June 29, 2018, less than a month ago. The wind site permit filings contain an affidavit of mailing of notice but NO ADDRESSES, and the transmission affidavit of mailing of notice DOES have addresses. Why are no addresses included?
Three dockets, all those filings, at least 1,000 pages, and I confess haven’t read all of it! What jumps out at me is that this is another scattered site project, with a large footprint. It’s a 170MW project, not unusual in that way, but the turbines proposed are 2.5 MW turbines. That’s BIG! The reported hub height is 291 feet, and from ground to tip of blade, 485.5 feet. That’s BIG!
How to look at the dockets:
So now, quick because Completeness Comments are due, it’s time for people to take a look at this project, what’s proposed for the wind project, the big honkin’ transmission line, and whether all this is needed.
Oh, and about that big honkin’ transmission line, here’s a cut and paste from their application:
Characterizing this bundled 345kV line as “generation inter-tie?” Oh, please…
It’s all about coal… as if there was any doubt!
July 24th, 2018
That’s the Coal Creek coal plant in North Dakota. Back in late August 2006, I got on the bus and went on the tour of the coal plant and the Falkirk coal mine. Well worth it! Anyway, google alerts caught this article recently:
North Dakota coal plant to upgrade transmission system that carries power to 500,000 people
UNDERWOOD, N.D. — Greg Schutte compares Great River Energy’s current transmission system to an 8-track tape and the improvements being made as upgrading to the latest iPhone.
The CU HVDC line, which stands for high voltage direct current, was put in service 40 years ago in 1978.
It’s an extremely important line to GRE because it moves 73 percent of the cooperative’s power supply 436 miles from Underwood to Buffalo, Minn., west of the Twin Cities, and serves about 500,000 customers across Minnesota and parts of Wisconsin.
The power cooperative is preparing to invest $130 million in the line, which Schutte said is imperative to continue producing power at the state’s largest coal-fired power plant, Coal Creek Station.
“It’s an investment in the station and an investment in Coal Creek Energy Park,” Schutte said.
“We had inklings the stations were getting too old,” Schutte said, so GRE performed a life assessment on the system. “We found out we had some issues.”
The main concern is with the thousands of valves located within the conversion equipment, all of which are oil lubricated. The newer technology changes that, making the valves fireproof and reducing risk of failure.
So in 2015, GRE awarded a contract to ABB, a Swedish company, to replace the system.
Starting in March [2019], the power plant and transmission system will go through a 74-day outage, running at half power for all but three days of total shut down. In that time, ABB will gut and reconstruct the two 65-foot stacks that convert the power for transport across the line.
“We’re basically just keeping a shell,” Schutte said. “That’s a huge outage for us.”
GRE began the process seven or eight years ago and, in the past couple years, has devoted more than 20,000 internal engineering hours to making the conversion run smoothly.
A 350-by-100-foot building is being constructed on site to serve as a staging area as the equipment is shipped from overseas. The contractors will pre-assemble as much as possible.
“They want to be really focused once the outage starts,” GRE spokesman Lyndon Anderson said of crews that will be running 24/7.
More than 100 union contractors will be on site.
“It’s the biggest project on our books,” Anderson said.
Along with the valves, the computers that control the system, “the brains of it,” are being replaced, according to Schutte.
The components that make up the system will be reduced by 70 percent, which means less moving parts to maintain.
The system also will see a 7-megawatt efficiency gain because it will be water cooled rather than air cooled. Currently, GRE has to power 1,000-horsepower worth of fans that force air through the system. With the updates, they can sell that power rather than using it.
“That’s nothing to shake your head at either,” Schutte said.
Once the project is complete, the staging building will become a shop for the line and substation maintenance crew. ABB will stay on site for a 90-day trial operation after the outage.
Schutte said there are only five transmission lines in the United States like the CU HVDC line and it’s one of the oldest. The only remaining one that will need updating is Minnesota Power’s Square Butte, HVDC line, which also runs through North Dakota between the Minnkota Power Cooperative’s Milton R. Young Station and Duluth, Minn. Schutte predicts that line is about four years behind GRE’s for updates.
GRE’s line has been extremely reliable, running nearly 100 percent of the time, according to Schutte. Without the updates, it was predicted that reliability would drop off next year and the cooperative wanted to be ready for it.
The last major development by GRE was the building of the Spiritwood Station, which had a $437 million price tag. The cooperative’s DryFining technology installed at Coal Creek cost about $285 million.
Other area transmission projects have involved new construction. Basin Electric Power Cooperative recently finished a 345-kilovolt line from Beulah to Grassy Butte and Tioga at a cost of $300 million, according to Basin spokesman Curt Pearson.
Mark Hanson, a spokesman for Montana-Dakota Utilities, said MDU is splitting the cost of a $240 million to $300 million 345-kilovolt line between Ellendale and Big Stone City, S.D., with Otter Tail Power Cooperative.
Note that the little 200MW Stanton coal plant is closing right now:
Life cycle of lignite plant powers down
ABB, as above, got the Coal Creek job — here’s some of their PR:
CU HVDC Project – Stability over long distances and low environmental impact
ABB wins $130 million order to upgrade HVDC power transmission link in the US
There’s been a lot of new transmission built in the Dakotas, and now they’re going to rehab the CU line?
Remember ABB? They’re the ones who did the study way back when to figure out how best to get new coal generation out of the Dakotas:
And GRE’s coal drying operation, here’s an article I found while looking for details on the Coal Creek rehab:
Lignite and sub-bituminous coals from western U.S. contain high amounts of moisture (sub-bituminous: 15 to 30%, lignites: 25 to 40%). German and Australian lignites (brown coals) have even higher moisture content, 50 and 60%, respectively. The high moisture content causes a reduction in plant performance and higher emissions, compared to the bituminous (hard) coals. Despite their high-moisture content, lignite and sub-bituminous coals from the Western U.S. and worldwide are attractive due to their abundance, low cost, low NOx and SOx emissions, and high reactivity. A novel low-temperature coal drying process employing a fluidized bed dryer and waste heat was developed in the U.S. by a team led by Great River Energy (GRE). Demonstration of the technology was conducted with the U.S. Department of Energy and GRE funding at Coal Creek Station Unit 1. Following the successful demonstration, the low-temperature coal drying technology was commercialized by GRE under the trade name DryFining TM fuel enhancement process and implemented at both units at Coal Creek Station. The coal drying system at Coal Creek has been in a continuous commercial operation since December 2009. By implementing DryFining at Coal Creek, GRE avoided $366 million in capital expenditures, which would otherwise be needed to comply with emission regulations. Four years of operating experience are described in this paper.
(PDF) Four Years of Operating Experience with…. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282203428_Four_Years_of_Operating_Experience_with_DryFiningTM_Fuel_Enhancement_Process_at_Coal_Creek_Generating_Station [accessed Jul 23 2018].
Fixing Goodhue Co.’s Ballot Screw-Up
July 18th, 2018
Ballot issue for Special Election for Red Wing and Goodhue County! Above is an example — see link below for example of each ballot form at issue. Each race is supposed to have a write in option below the candidates listed. There’s no “write-in” option for County and City Offices. OOPS! It’s not there. Sooooooo…
The following was filed in Goodhue County District Court:
Petition, Notice of Hearing and Proposed Order
HEARING
Friday, July 20, 2018 @ 8:30 a.m.
Goodhue County Justice Center
454 West 6th Street
Red Wing, Mn 55066
Here’s the proposed Order, and here’s how I’d amend it in red:
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED:
1. The City of Red Wing’s August 14, 2018 special election ballots that do not contain a write-in blank are invalid.
2. The corrected ballots coordinated by Goodhue County that include a write-in blank are valid.
3. All ballots submitted for the August 14, 2018 special election on the invalid ballots are hereby declared spoiled.
4. Goodhue County, by and through Respondent Holmsten, is directed to mail a letter to individuals who have either received the invalid ballot via U.S. Mail or who have already voted via in-person absentee ballot using the invalid ballot, or who submit an invalid ballot following issuance of this order, a letter explaining the error and
, if necessary,enclosing a new, corrected ballot.
Why? Because it’s a little too loosey-goosey. People won’t know about this and may have an invalid ballot at home and just haven’t sent it in yet. We need to keep an eye on these to assure people are not disenfranchised due to this screw up! Vigilance is required!
NO ICE! Pine Island City Council meeting last night
July 18th, 2018
I should have gone up in the front row and captured the smirk on the Mayor’s face through almost all of the meeting. Was he nervous and feeling the heat, or was he dismissive of everyone who showed up? Showed up for what? For the Pine Island City Council meeting, the first one after City Council meeting where they voted to approve a resolution of support for Management and Training Corporation’s 640 bed ICE detention facility.
Here’s Alan Muller’s comment:
FULL meeting link — City says their site is broken so they posted it HERE – CITY FB PAGE
Here’s the Post Bulletin on the meeting:
Crowd weighs in on potential Pine Island ICE facility
The ICE request for proposals:
Immigration Detention Services Multiple Areas of Responsibility