Early calls for a moratorium on nuclear plant construction — some from Washington’s most vocal proponents of nuclear energy — suggest the nuclear disaster in Japan may affect the energy debate at home. For Nevada, ending or significantly scaling back nuclear development could either bring about the demise of or facilitate renewable energy development. It [...]
A section of the proposed CapX2020 project - the Brookings County-Hampton transmission line, could receive a multi-value project (MVP) designation by the Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator (Midwest ISO) as early as this summer, giving wind projects a much-needed boost. MVP projects must support public-policy requirements or address reliability and/or multiple economic issues in multiple [...]
LORELEI SCARBRO’S husband, Kenneth, an underground coal miner for more than 30 years, is buried in a small family cemetery near her property here at the base of Coal River Mountain. The headstone is engraved with two roosters facing off, their feathers ruffled. Kenneth, who loved cockfighting, died in 1999, and, Ms. Scarbro says, he [...]
On July 15th, the Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator (MISO) filed its proposed cost allocation methodology for new interstate electric transmission projects with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Pending FERC approval, the Multi Value Projects (MVPs) - transmission lines that have a regional impact and are part of a regional plan - will have a [...]
Stakeholders in the Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator (MISO) footprint received advance notice of the contents contained in the system operator's re-filing on July 15, 2010 with the Federal Energy Regulatory Committee (FERC) regarding its cost allocation proposals for transmission. FERC previously deemed MISO's so-called "90/10" generator interconnection cost allocation methodology proposed in a July [...]
On July 8, 2010, the Texas Public Utility Commission (PUC) chose a route for a new 345-kilovolt transmission line project intended to carry renewable wind power through Schleicher, Irion and Tom Green counties to the load centers of Austin and San Antonio and other more populated areas of the state. LCRA Transmission Services Corporation (LCRA [...]
Clean Line Energy Partners, a Texas company planning a $3.5 billion transmission line project has applied to become a public utility in Oklahoma. The application by Plains and Eastern Clean Line Oklahoma, which is an affiliate of Houston-based Clean Line Energy Partners, with the Oklahoma Corporation Commission is only the second of its kind ever [...]
Today, wind developers won a victory when the operators of the Midwest's largest regional electrical grid abandoned a proposal to make them pay up to 20 percent of the cost of new high-voltage transmission projects to deliver renewable energy. The Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator on Tuesday unveiled to a large group of utilities, developers, [...]
On Tuesday June 22, a yearlong, behind-the-scenes struggle among wind developers, utilities and transmission line owners will come to a head. At stake is Minnesota's and the rest of the Upper Midwest's aspirations to build a business of exporting wind energy to other parts of the country in the coming decades. The fight centers on [...]
Recently, Barry Smitherman, Chair of the Public Utility Commission of Texas, asked the Electric Reliability Council of Texas to “thoroughly re-evaluate the need for the Gillespie to Newton transmission line” that has been proposed to carry wind from the competitive renewable energy zones located in West Texas to population centers along the I35 corridor. The [...]
