Today the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a rule through Order 1920 that will bring regional transmission planning into the modern era. This rule is a particularly big deal for the Southeast, as it will now require regional utilities to plan for the future and find ways for transmission to lower costs, improve reliability, and improve utilities’ ability to connect clean energy resources to the grid at the pace required to decarbonize the electricity sector.
Currently, regional transmission “planning” in the Southeast is conducted by an entity called the Southeastern Regional Transmission Planning (SERTP). The SERTP process is run by utilities, and meets the bare minimum of requirements from FERC’s Order 1000. That means that SERTP’s current process does not result in any transmission plans that provide regional benefits, but instead stack each utility’s transmission plans together like layers of a cake.
Under Order 1920, SERTP will have nearly a year to file a compliance plan outlining changes to its process to meet Order 1920 requirements.
Comparison of current SERTP process to requirements under FERC Order 1920
This order will change regional transmission planning in the Southeast by requiring SERTP to: look out farther into the future (at least 20 years); look at multiple potential futures (at least 3 scenarios); and look at multiple benefits. FERC requires consideration of seven specific benefits:
- Avoided or deferred reliability transmission facilities and aging infrastructure replacement
- Either reduced loss of load probability or reduced planning reserve margin
- Production cost savings
- Reduced transmission energy losses
- Reduced congestion due to transmission outages
- Mitigation of extreme weather events and unexpected system conditions
- Capacity cost benefits from reduced peak energy losses
FERC Chairman Willie Phillips stated that the Order’s number (1920) was chosen as a tribute to the creation of the Federal Power Commission (FPC), FERC’s predecessor, which was created by Congress in 1920. He goes on to state that the FPC was formed “to solve the urgent national challenge of how to develop energy infrastructure… needed to meet the demands of an emerging global superpower. Why did Congress do that? Because in 1920… Congress had fully grasped that large-scale development of the nation’s power infrastructure was essential.” Phillips continued, saying that “even in 1920 we as a country recognized that, when it comes to the electric system, we are all in this together.”
FERC also issued a second rule related to transmission today: Order 1977, focused on streamlining the permitting process for electric transmission. This order will also be impactful in the Southeast, however it is Order 1920 that will more likely address the first roadblock to transmission: shifting from piecemeal transmission within utility fiefdoms to holistic regional transmission planning for the common good.
We at SACE look forward to working with utilities and state regulators across the Southeast to find the best way to implement this rule and get the region on a path to transmission planning for the future.
The post FERC Puts the “Planning” in Regional Transmission Planning in the Southeast appeared first on SACE | Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.
FERC Puts the “Planning” in Regional Transmission Planning in the Southeast
I met a guy earlier today who told me that wind and solar are controversial, and that some people say that the mining and manufacturing of wind turbines requires more fossil fuels that the turbines themselves produce.
I told him that I’m aware of such people; they’re called “professional liars.”
I explained the concept of EROI, energy return on investment, and surprised him by saying that the EROI of wind is somewhere between 18 and 30, meaning that each wind turbine you see as you drive along the freeway will generate at least 18 times as much energy as was required in its mining, fabrication, installation, maintenance, and decommissioning–all the way up to 30 times that amount.
The generation of disinformation of renewables has become a cottage industry. People are paid to make up and publish complete bullshit, so as to discredit the burgeoning clean energy industry, and keep Big Oil in place.
As bad as things are in the United States, they could always get worse.
Trump could succeed in his quest to be a dictator, Christianity could be taught in schools, and unvaccinated adults and their kids could trigger another epidemic.
In terms of our reputation on the world stage, however, things really can’t get must worse; the countries around the globe already regard us with a mixture of hate and derision.
Yet regardless of what the future holds, there will always be idiots who that believe that Trump is our savior, like the author of the meme above.
Good to see John Eastman disbarred in California; it’s a small measure of justice.
Criminal prosecution in the future?
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