NO Grid North Partners – transmission f/k/a CapX 2020

From the public meeting materials, here’s what they’re looking at, above.  These are significant additions to the transmission grid in Minnesota and Wisconsin.  Look at the number of double circuits they want to add, and look at the new transmission planned for Minnesota and WIsconsin.  And note how, as with CapX 2020, it’s starting in the coal fields of the Dakotas.

MISO’s Economic Planning Users Group is planning a “Regional Transmission Overlay Study” and they’re having another meeting tomorrow, May 25, 2017 down in Metatairie, Louisiana.

Here’s the call in info:

WebEx Information
Event Number: 966 575 350
WebEx Password: Ts824634

Participant Dial-In Number: 1-800-689-9374
Participant Code: 823713

Meeting Materials from the MISO site:

• 20170525 EPUG Item 01 Agenda 5/23/2017 05:24 PM
• 20170525 EPUG Item 02 Regional Transmission Overlay Study Overview 5/22/2017 05:47 PM
• 20170525 EPUG Item 03 Preliminary Overlay Indicative Concepts 5/23/2017 05:29 PM
• 20170527 EPUG Item 04 Explore New Benefit Metrics RECB Survey 5/22/2017 04:42 PM
• 20170525 EPUG Item 05 Michigan Exploratory Transmission Study Transmission_Ideas 5/22/2017 04:44 PM
• 20170525 EPUG Item 05 Michigan Exploratory Transmission Study Update 5/22/2017 04:44 PM
• 20170525 EPUG Item 06a Indicative Overlay Design Work Session West 5/24/2017 02:20 PM
• 20170525 EPUG Item 06b Indicative Overlay Design Work Session Central 5/24/2017 02:21 PM
• 20170525 EPUG Item 06c Indicative Overlay Design Session Sub-regional Connections 5/24/2017 02:22 PM
• 20170525 EPUG Item 06d Indicative Overlay Design Work Session South public 5/24/2017 02:23 PM
• 20170525 EPUG RTOS Issues List 5/23/2017 05:45 PM
• 20170525 EPUG RTOS Ideas Tracking Sheet 5/23/2017 05:44 PM

Here’s the problem — they close the meeting, and people like me aren’t allowed to attend.  First I was told, back in January when I tried to register:

Thank you for registering for the Economic Planning Users Group (EPUG) on Jan 31.  The afternoon portion of this meeting will be held in CLOSED session and reserved from MISO Members or Market Participants only.  Please feel free to attend the morning session from 11:00 am to 12:45 pm ET / 10:00 am to 11:45 CT.

I filled out their “CEII – Non-Disclosure Agreement” form and fired it off.  But noooooo…

So next I went to the PUC’s Quarterly MISO update, where I was assured that we could make arrangements so that I could attend.  I resent the “CEII – Non-Disclosure Agreement” and went back and forth and it came to this (click for larger version).  Note this “explanation” of options to be able to attend:

The reason that you were not permitted to attend the closed session is because the meeting involved discussion of Critical Energy Infrastructure Information (CEII) and CEII access requests by Non-Member Individuals requires FERC clearance.  Another access option is to be included on Appendix A of a MISO member or Market Participant.

So that says there are two ways to gain access, 1) get “FERC clearance” or 2) “Another access option is to be included on Appendix A of a MISO member or Market Participant.”  One or the other. Emphasis added.  Here’s the email (click for larger version) laying out those two options:

Oh, I says to myself, off to FERC.  I sent in the requisite paperwork to FERC, and got “FERC clearance” and they shipped me the CEII information, including but not limited to the map.  I let MISO know I’d obtained “FERC clearance,” and here’s the response (click for larger version):

ARRRRGH, they have my CEII NDA on file, have had it since January 23, 2017.  I resent it to the writer of these emails on March 4, 2017, and I sent it again today, and objected to yet another change in their “rules” (click for larger version):

So the plot thickens — from MISO (click or larger version):

And from moi (click for larger version):

It’s early, so now’s the time to get agitated, get activated!

As if CapX 2020 wasn’t enough, and during the CapX 2020 Certificate of Need proceeding, word of the “JCSP” overlay came out.  And we know that Xcel, in its e21 Initiative, is whining about the grid only being 55% utilized (DOH! Because CapX and other transmission expansion wasn’t needed, was built, and now they’re trying to make us pay for it!).

And as if Obama’s RRTT wasn’t enough, now there’s this, check out Executive Order 13766:

Expediting Environmental Reviews and Approvals for High Priority Infrastructure Projects

And so now the rest of the story — here’s what they’re planning:

Here’s the list, in a spreadsheet:

20170131 EPUG Preliminary Overlay Ideas List

The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission has scheduled the MISO Utilities Quarterly Update Meeting for the Second Quarter of 2017 for Friday, March 3, 2017 from 10:00 AM to Noon in the Commission’s Large Hearing Room, 121 7th Place East, Suite 350, St. Paul, MN 55101.

MISO Q letter 03-10-2014.bh.-1

Note this part, to be discussed at this meeting:

Laying the ground work now for this, a huge build-out that isn’t needed, an overlay on top of transmission that wasn’t needed either.  NO!

With all these highly volatile oil tankers whizzing by, we need secure rail communication networks.  But what did we just learn?  CapX 2020 transmission is affecting rail communication, along Hwy. 35 in Wisconsin, and that’s not OK.  “…the combination of those lines with another nearby 69-kilovolt line likely triggered the interference.”  Really?  Combination?  Not addition of a big honkin’ 345 kV line?

CapX 2020 transmission owners are now fixing it, which involves what?  And why was that info so long in coming, where BNSF has already spent over $1 million to fix CapX 2020’s interference problem?  Shouldn’t that be on CapX owners?

CapX transmission lines interfering with railroad signals in Buffalo County

Owners of the recently completed CapX2020 transmission line are making modifications to a nine-mile stretch in Buffalo County where a combination of high-voltage power lines is interfering with signals on nearby railroad tracks.

The problem is expected to generate several million dollars in additional expenses for the transmission line and BNSF Railway.

BNSF crews discovered the problem in May, shortly after the completion of a second transmission line that’s part of the $500 million project to link the Twin Cities, Rochester and La Crosse. CapX reported it this week to Wisconsin utility regulators.

“We knew this was a risk,” said project manager Grant Stevenson. “It’s not that the line is not operating as expected.”

The 345-kilovolt line runs from Alma to Holmen, hugging the railroad corridor for about nine miles, where a 161-kilovolt Dairyland Power line shares the same towers. Stevenson said the combination of those lines with another nearby 69-kilovolt line likely triggered the interference.

Railroad signals, which control crossing gates and train movements, operate on low-voltage current run through the steel rails.

The systems are regulated by the Federal Railroad Administration and are set up to go into safe mode if a problem arises — for example, closing gates even if no train is approaching.

“That’s by design,” said David Peterson, who teaches railroad engineering and operation at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Everything is on stop or red.”

BNSF spokeswoman Amy McBeth said the fail-safe design worked as intended.

The railroad initially deployed flaggers in the field and installed insulated joints and another signal to mitigate the intermittent interference. McBeth said BNSF has spent about $1 million on those short-term solutions.

Xcel Energy, the lead partner of the 11 utilities that built the transmission line, is expected to begin work this month on a more permanent solution that is expected to cost roughly $2 million.

Over the winter, crews will install an aluminum wire below the conductor that is intended to reduce interference. A second copper wire will be buried in the railroad right-of-way next spring.

Stevenson said there are 27 landowners near Cochrane, Wis., who will be affected by the construction, though he said it will be on a much smaller scale than during construction of the 345-kilovolt line.

Even with the additional costs, Xcel says the 48.6-mile Wisconsin segment of the project is below the $183.3 million price tag approved by the Wisconsin Public Service Commission. The costs are shared by electricity customers in 15 Midwestern states and one Canadian province.

The entire 156-mile Hampton-Rochester-La Crosse project was energized in September. It was the fourth line in what is now a $1.85 billion project to connect wind-rich areas of western Minnesota and the Dakotas to population centers where that electricity is needed.

CapX said wind energy developers have requests to add more than 1,200 megawatts of new capacity into the network.

CapX 2020 at Highway 61 south of Wabasha

Monday, they had their CapX 2020 Love Fest at the Hampton substation, and I didn’t even get an engraved invitation.  It’s a depressing point in time — 12 years on this project — and they got all they wanted, in some places not where they wanted it, but it’s up, and so many people affected.  Having it routed somewhere, anywhere, is what they cared about, and supposedly it’s now “in-service,” though I wonder.  Is it time to have a big bonfire of all the boxes of files?

This was about the Minnesota portions, but South Dakota, North Dakota, and Wisconsin is permitted as well, the superhighway from the coal fields of the Dakotas to Madison and beyond.  Yeah, I could have camped out and crashed the party, but I had another commitment, so couldn’t spend the day hanging out waiting, watching.  Maybe I should have…

Left-to-right: Mark Kotschevar, Rochester Public Utilities; Dave Geschwind, Southern MN Municipal Power Agency; Teresa Mogensen, Xcel Energy; Chris Kunkle, Wind on the Wires; Ben Porath, Dairyland Power Cooperative; Priti Patel, MISO; Tim Noeldner, WPPI Energy. From CapX Press Release

How much was “Wind on the Wires” (f/k/a Izaak Walton League) (and many other orgs?) paid for their promotion of transmission?

In the press:

STrib (is it really $2.1 billion?  Any recent reports?):

Last Minnesota leg of $2.1 billion electricity mega-project done

From WKBT (video here):

CapX2020 transmission line completed

And Wisconsin Public Radio:

Collaborative Utility Project Connects Electric Transmission From South Dakota To Wisconsin

Rochester Post-Bulletin:

Drone patrols the power line

It’s up and running — get out those gauss meters and check it out.

CapX 2020 at Hwy. 61 looking towards the Mississippi

It’s out, the report from U of M Humphrey School of Public Affairs about CapX 2020, headlining it as a “Model for addressing climate change.“

Transmission Planning and CapX 2020: Building Trust to Build Regional Transmission Systems

Oh, please, this is all about coal, and you know it.  This is all about enabling marketing of electricity.  In fact, Xcel’s Tim Carlsbad testified most honestly that CapX 2020 was not for wind!  That’s because electrical energy isn’t ID’d by generation source, as Jimbo Alders also testified, and under FERC, discrimination in generation sources is not allowed, transmission must serve whatever is there.  And the report early on, p. 4, notes:

Both North and South Dakota have strong wind resources and North Dakota also has low-BTU lignite
coal resources that it wants to continue to use. New high-voltage transmission lines are needed to
support the Dakotas’ ability to export electricity to neighboring states.

See also: ICF-Independent Assessment MISO Benefits

Anyway, here it is, and it’s much like Phyllis Reha’s puff piece promoting CapX 2020 years ago while she was on the Public Utilities Commission, that this is the model other states should use:

MN PUC Commissioner Reha’s Feb 15 2006 presentation promoting CapX 2020

So put on your waders and reading glasses and have at it. Here’s the word on the 2005 Transmission Omnibus Bill from Hell – Chapter 97 – Revisor of Statutes that gave Xcel and Co. just what they wanted, transmission as a revenue stream:

And note how opposition is addressed, countered by an organization that received how much to promote transmission.  This is SO condescending:

… and opposition discounted because it’s so technical, what with load flow studies, energy consumption trends, how could we possibly understand.  We couldn’t possibly understand… nevermind that the decreased demand we warned of, and which demonstrated lack of need, was the reality that we were entering in 2008.

And remember Steve Rakow’s chart of demand, entered at the very end of the Certificate of Need hearing when demand was at issue???  In addition to NO identification of axis values, the trend he promoted, and which was adopted by the ALJ and Commission, has NOT happened, and instead Xcel is adjusting to the “new normal” and whining that the grid is only 55% utilized in its e21 and rate case filings.  Here’s Steve Rakow’s chart:

Reality peak demand trajectory was lower than Rakow’s “slow growth” line, in fact, it’s the opposite from 2007 to present.  Suffice it to say:

American Transmission Company (ATC) is holding a “Construction Meeting” about the Badger Coulee transmission project on April 14, an open house from 3 to 6 p.m. at the Town of Springfield Town Hall, 6157 County Highway P, Dane County, Wisconsin.

ATC to host construction meeting in Springfield

ATC is also holding a round or two of planning meetings, and the next “Customer and Stakeholder” Meeting is planned for April 19, 2016, from 1-3 p.m. at ATC HQ in Pewaukee.

What’s important about this is that in addition to the annual “10 Year Assessment,” they’re also doing “Economic Planning.”

2015 10-Year Assessment Summary

2016 10-Year Assessment Study Design

What goes on at these ATC “stakeholder” meetings?

2-24-2016_Compiled Meeting Questions and Comments

Here are materials for that 2-24-2016 meeting:

Meeting Agenda

ATC 2015 Assessment Summary Presentation

2016 Assessment Preliminary Study Design

ATC MTEP Appendix Data

ATC 2015 Economic Planning Study Results

ATC 2016 Economic Planning Study Kickoff

Here’s ATC’s Annual Report:  ATC releases 2015 Annual Report

They have an entire page on “Economic Planning” and the entire notion of “Economic Planning” goes to the private purpose of transmission, moving bulk power for profit.  That’s very different than the regulated utilities’ need to supply their native (captive) load with electricity.  The wholesale market was deregulated, electricity is now on economic dispatch, and the basis of electric generation, transmission, distribution, and use, is fundamentally changed.  As a society, we’ve not yet grasped this concept, and what it means to us as ratepayers, landowners, and humans.

In light of this, Comments made at a recent Transmission Confab and captured by RTO Insider are enlightening (though note the questioning is from Allohina, a witness and proponent in the CapX 2020 buildout, it’s questionable, because they’ve already got their project!):

Economic benefits have been sketchy at best for some projects, and so grossly overstated as to be hilarious in others, where it’s clear that the benefits go to the generators as decreased production costs:

ICF-Independent Assessment MISO Benefits

As above, ATC is hosting another “Customer and Stakeholder” Meeting on April 19, 2016, from 1-3 p.m.  The ATC page says it’s at ATC HQ in Pewaukee, WI, but ATC HQ address is not listed on the ATC site, and there are two ATC offices on Ridgeview Parkway, close, but which?  Message sent, will report back.

A little birdie just sent this graphic photo.

How’s this for a scenic view overlooking the Mississippi, at the Onalaska scenic overlook, no less?!?!?!

Onalaska, what are you thinking?  Did you consider the impact of this transmission line on the City’s observation area?  Are you thinking of $$$$?  Was there a payment to the City to allow this?  Did the City review the plan?  Did anyone go out and walk the line?  Did the City know this was Xcel’s intent?  Did the City’s Planning Commission understand this was in the works as it approved its Comprehensive Plan update that addressed transmission impacts and planning?

La Crosse approved this move and issued a variance under their Airport Overlay Ordinance, and Xcel Energy told me after the meeting that there would not be clear cutting — but you know how Xcel Energy operates.

Worse, Onalaska Mayor Joe Chilsen testified IN FAVOR of La Crosse granting the variance for this project!  You might want to tell him what you think of Sunny’s new friend!

Joe Chilsen (2016)
500 10th Avenue North
Onalaska, WI 54650
City: (608) 781-9530
Home: (608) 783-2422
jchilsen@cityofonalaska.com

There’s an editorial by Deb Severson in today’s La Crosse Tribune about the Badger Coulee Transmission Line Circuit Court Decision regarding the PSC’s grant of the permit, and here’s the Decision and Order  — check it out:

2-23-2016 Circuit Court — Town of Holland (2) and Michael J. Kauper

This decision grants the Town of Holland’s Petition for Consolidation of the two Holland Petitions for Review in La Crosse County (two filed due to procedural weirdnesses of Wisconsin law); denies the PSC’s Motion to Dismiss Holland’s Petition; denies the PSC’s Motion to Consolidate Michael J. Kauper’s Petition for Review into the La Crosse County proceeding allowing it to proceed separately in Dane County; and allows the Town of Holland to amend one of its Petitions.  Sort of confusing with all the Petitions and Motions flying around, but bottom line, PSC was not successful in booting these cases out of court.

Onward…

Remember Xcel’s CapX 2020 peak demand projections of 2.49% annual increase?  How wrong can they be?  And how unjustified was their basis for a Certificate of Need for CapX 2020?  And how are they held accountable for those gross misrepresentations?  But now it’s time to pay, and who will pay?  This is why the rate case in progress, PUC Docket 15-826, is so important.

On the other hand, I love it when this happens… Xcel Peak Demand is again DOWN!  There’s a trend, and it’s called decreased demand.  Demand has yet to exceed the 2007 peak, and now it’s 8 years…

Here’s the Xcel Energy SEC 10-K filed a couple days ago:

2015 – Xcel Energy 10-K

Is it any wonder they want to get away from a cost based rate a la their “e21 Initiative” scheme?  Particularly now that the bill for CapX 2020 is coming due and their newest rate case (PUC Docket GR-15-826) is now underway?

And the specifics, and note how they inexplicably forecast a 2016 peak of 9,327, which is based on a “normal weather conditions” assumption:

Well, we all knew that… but in the LaX Tribune:

Former cabinet members: Top Walker aide [Mike Huebsch, now on PSC] ordered them to avoid state email, phones.

And this guy now sits as one of three Commissioners on the Wisconsin Public Service Commission?

Mike Huebsch was appointed on March 1, 2015, and disclosed a potential conflict on March 6, 2015:

Huebsch – Conflict Routes O & P

and…

… and of course…

He didn’t recuse himself.

SHAME!  Mike Huebsch should be ejected from the Public Service Commission immediately.