Public Hearing Schedule for Xcel Rate Case
May 9th, 2016
The Public Utilities Commission has approved the Public Hearing Notice for the Xcel Energy Rate Case to be included in bills and publicized where ever. We’ve got some notice to get prepared:
Lo and behold, there’s one scheduled for Red Wing!! Thanks for small favors…
What are the issues in the rate case? Check the docket by going HERE TO PUC SEARCH DOCUMENTS PAGE, and search for docket 15-826.
A couple of things you might find interesting, I did, are some of the Direct Testimony filings.
In addition to whining about the grid being only 55% utilized (ummm, yes, we knew it wasn’t needed, but you went ahead and built it and now want us to pay through the nose, or other orifices, for your transmission for market export? ppppppbbbbbbft!), here’s the issue — prices have fallen, the market is down, down, down, and we’re conserving, using less, and so now they want us to pay more to make up for it, oh. Recap: Xcel Energy wants us to pay for the transmission over our land for their private profit, they want us to pay more because we’re using less, and they want us to make up for their poor business decisions… yeah, great idea.
This rate case and rate increase request is in large part transmission driven. Xcel wants to move from cost based rates to formula rates, and they want to shift transmission costs from the Construction Work in Progress recovery that was part of the deal leading to the 2005 Ch 97 – Transmission Omnibus Bill from Hell, with transmission perks, CWIP and Transmission Only Companies.
And then there’s the e21 Initiative, Xcel Energy’s effort leading up to the 2015 legislative session, and it seems that with the exception of AARP, only those who signed on to the e21 “Consensus” are allowed to intervene.
Great…
Lo and behold, there’s a public hearing scheduled for Red Wing!! Thanks for small favors… Mark the hearings on your calendar and show up. Before hand, do a little reading!
More Denial of Intervention in Xcel Rate Case
May 3rd, 2016
WOW… can you believe?? It’s not just me, it’s not just denial of Intervention of No CapX 2020. See 20162-118122-01_Denial2_Overland-NoCapX Intervention.
Intervention as a party in this Rate Case is only open to those who sold out to Xcel Energy and it’s “business plan” agenda of e21.
This is the most recent Order in the Xcel Energy Rate Case:
Here are their Intervention Petitions:
To see the full Rate Case docket, go to the PUC’s Search Documents page, and search for Docket 15-826.
And the Order… Dig this, parroting Xcel’s objections:
And this, even worse, as if the interests of the “Clean Energy Organizations” who bought into, stumped for, and sat quietly during the legislative hearings about Xcel Energy‘s e21 Initiative are the same as the interests of SunShare and Institute for Local Self-Reliance – ILSR:
This is SO offensive. There is no consideration that the perspectives are different, only statements that the issues, the concerns, are the same.
The late, great Myer Shark, rate case Intervenor extraordinaire, would spin in his grave at the limitations of participation in this rate case.
Myer Shark, Lawyer Who Fought Utility, Is Dead at 94
In the Matter of the Complaint by Myer Shark, et al …
Yesterday’s Scoping Meeting in Rochester
March 1st, 2016
Yesterday was the Scoping Meetings for the Rochester pipeline project, winding around the NW down and around to the SE of town. There was quite a large turnout at the afternoon session, probably 50 people, but that may have included Commerce staff, etc.
Comments on the Scope (what all should be included) of the environmental review are due by 4:30 p.m. on April 13, 2016:
larry.hartman@state.mn.us
… or by snail mail:
Larry Hartman, Environmental Review Manager
Minnesota Dept. of Commerce
85 – 7th Place East, Suite 500
St. Paul, MN 55101
I was really surprised to learn that Larry Hartman, the Commerce project manager, did NOT know about the Rochester Public Utilities gas plant proposed at the NW terminal of this project! And I was also surprised to learn that Northern Natural Gas is running a new gas pipeline into the west side of Rochester, to join with this line at the middle purple blob on the west side of the map.
The RPU plant is not exactly a secret, it was an issue in the 2008 CapX 2020 Certificate of Need hearing:
RPU chooses Boldt to build new $62 million plant
A New Generating Station for Rochester
The RPU studies:
2015_Update_RPU_Infrastructure_Study
2005 RPU_34945_Report on the Electric Utility Baseline Strategy for 2005 – 2030_June_2005 (CapX 2020 CoN Exhibit 157)
This is old, old news…
As to the proposed Northern Natural Gas line that’ll connect to this Rochester project, which it appears is part of its “Northern Lights 2017 Expansion” project narrative, in press release-based industry puff pieces, but it’s not on the Northern Lights 2017 Expansion project map or described, other than “Rochester 1D TBS rebuild” and “Rochester branch line” in any of the FERC filings or other documents I can find.
What about safety? The environmental review document needs to address the burn radius, which is large for such a large and high pressure pipeline:
- Model for Sizing High Consequence Areas Associated With Natural Gas Pipelines
- Safe Separation Distances From Natural Gas Pipelines
This project is in an area where future development could be, should be, expected, and I sure don’t want to see a scenario like that along the natural gas pipeline along, roughly parallel, to Hwy. 14, where cities have platted developments over the pipeline, and where builders have built homes over the pipeline, and people bought those newly constructed homes with pipelines through their yards, and worse, Minnesota law does not require disclosure for newly constructed homes.
Platting new subdivisions over a natural gas transmission pipeline should be criminal… and yet I see another such scenario developing.
Tidbits revealed at Clearbrook xmsn meeting
February 23rd, 2016
![20160222_174028[1]](https://legalectric.org/f/2016/02/20160222_1740281.jpg)
Yes, up in Clearbrook last night for the DoC EERA’s Public Meeting for Scoping of environmental review (lite) for the Minnkota Clearbrook – West Clearbrook 115 kV Transmission Project.
For the full scoop on this project go to PUC’s Docket SEARCH HERE, and search for docket 14-665, and for the backstory, dig up the Sandpiper dockets, 13-473 and 13-474, a very large undertaking.
Caesar Panit of the PUC and David Birkholz of Commerce hosted last night’s meeting:
Last night’s meeting was quite well attended for such a short transmission line, just 5+ miles, but that’s likely because of its connection to the Sandpiper pipeline project. It’s an important project to Enbridge, and one that should be closely scrutinized because as of this point, it’s timed exactly backwards, and shouldn’t even be proposed until Sandpiper is permitted and we know where it’s going to go, and whether there will even be a “Clearbrook West” terminal.
Timed backwards? Yes… This project is way premature, because it’s transmission to power the Sandpiper new “Clearbrook West” terminal and pumping station, one which is just starting back into the intense environmental review of a court ordered EIS (yes, finally Minnesota appellate court agrees that an EIS must be completed prior to issuance of Certificate of Need), and it is not safe to presume that the new “Clearbrook West” terminal is going to be there given the MPCA Comments and proposal of Crookston as a logical alternative:
But that’s not all that’s interesting… in the Application, Minnkota had a brief mention of RUS, the USDA’s Rural Utility Service. And I had one of those flashes, having dealt with RUS on CapX 2020, and now the Dairyland Q-1 “upgrade” project through Onalaska. So I asked them about it, on the record, and learned that yes, RUS is financing this project, that yes, there will be environmental review, likely an “environmental report,” and that there might be a public comment period on it if USDA’s RUS chooses, and when I asked whether Dennis Rankin is handling it at RUS, he said, “Yes, that’s the guy!” It is a very small world, and as we say in transmission, “It’s all connected.”
Minnkota is kind of dodgy about what this project is for, saying repeatedly it’s for “one customer” but given the terminal at the proposed Clearbrook West area where Sandpiper’s new Clearbrook West terminal would go, it’s a DOH!
Here’s the site from Sandpiper’s Application, Appx G.3 Facility Drawings_01.30.13, showing it next to Klongerbo Lake (keeping in mind MPCA’s recommendation of the Crookston alternative):
Other things to note:
They say they want to avoid wetlands… but in the “cross country” area near the “Clearbrook West” terminal location, it’s all wetlands, and in the terminal area itself, it’s wetlands, not suitable for a pipeline terminal. What are they thinking?
There’s lots of info to inform the scoping decision, and for sure Commerce and the PUC will get this info!
2nd Petition for Intervention in Xcel Rate Case
January 25th, 2016
Apparently Judge Oxley did not like the Overland and No CapX 2020 Petition for Intervention in the rate case, late Friday the Order came out. It was denied, without prejudice. And yet interventions for Commercial Group, Suburban Rate Authority, and City of Minneapolis were granted…
… sigh… OK… fine…
Just filed at 12:01 a.m. Monday, January 25, 2016:
These transmission issues being raised about CapX 2020 and the MISO MVP 17 Project Portfolio are so important that I’m going to be persistent.
Here’s the schedule, from the First Prehearing Order:
