EGN NEWS DESK
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Monday issued a sweeping reform to transmission grid planning, one which proponents say is a main, much-needed win for the hassle to transition the nation’s energy sector away from fossil fuels.
FERC’s motion was praised by clear power and local weather advocates, who’ve been pushing the company for years to craft a “sturdy rule” round long-term planning, with provisions they are saying are very important to construct the tens of billions of {dollars} of latest high-voltage energy traces vital to fulfill the nation’s power objectives. They say the brand new guidelines will permit the U.S. to attach gigawatts of latest clear power initiatives to the grid, scale back energy prices, and enhance grid reliability throughout the nation.
But critics — together with Republican FERC Commissioner Mark Christie, who voted in opposition to the rule, in opposition to fellow commissioner Allison Clements and FERC chair Willie Phillips, each Democrats — say that the order abrogates key state authority to the federal authorities and that it’s going to face severe challenges in court docket. Legal specialists say the rule may very well be weak to being overturned by authorized challenges if it results in entrance of a court docket that favors the so-called main questions doctrine.
In the face of those critiques, Phillips and Clements insisted that the brand new long-term transmission planning guidelines — together with a provision that can make it more durable for particular person states to choose out of paying for transmission upgrades — are far more cost effective than sticking with the established order. Clements has known as the present approach of planning new energy traces “piecemeal,” and each she and Phillips have warned that it’s untenable given the challenges the nation’s grid faces.
Those challenges transcend the pressing must remove carbon emissions from the ability sector. The nation additionally faces rising blackout dangers — a product of extra excessive climate in addition to an lack of ability to construct and join clear power initiatives quick sufficient to switch economically uncompetitive fossil-fueled energy vegetation.
“We are at a transformational second for the electrical grid, with phenomenal load progress from a home manufacturing increase, unprecedented development of information facilities fueling an AI revolution, and ever-expanding electrification,” Phillips stated throughout Monday’s assembly. “At the identical time, the useful resource combine is at an inflection level, with growing old infrastructure, economics, and state insurance policies main sources to retire.”
“On high of all of this, excessive climate occasions have develop into the norm, and the electrical grid is routinely being pushed to the brink,” he stated. “Yet within the face of those challenges, high-voltage energy line development has declined to a file low in 2022.”
The sluggish buildout of latest energy traces is a key hurdle dealing with the U.S. power transition. The quantity of unpolluted power initiatives ready to plug into the ability grid is at a file excessive, largely as a result of the transmission capability wanted to convey extra wind, photo voltaic, and battery storage initiatives on-line merely doesn’t exist.
The new FERC guidelines may very well be one of the highly effective instruments the federal authorities has to resolve this drawback and get clear power on-line sooner, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer stated in a Monday press convention.
“The clear power incentives included within the Inflation Reduction Act have been a large success,” stated the New York Democrat, who has pressed FERC to craft a rule that limits choices for states to choose out of paying for regional transmission. “But a lot of that success can be misplaced with out the flexibility to convey energy from locations that generate renewable power to communities all throughout the nation.”
“A brand new historic development in our transmission insurance policies has been desperately wanted, and the principles launched by FERC immediately will go a good distance, a very good distance, to fixing that drawback,” Schumer stated.
What’s in FERC’s new rule?
FERC’s long-awaited order requires the nation’s regional grid operators, which handle transmission networks delivering energy to roughly two-thirds of the U.S. inhabitants, to create processes to plan and construct transmission traces that may help quickly rising electrical energy demand at the least 20 years into the long run. The nation’s regional grid operators have roughly 12 months to craft plans to conform, which will likely be topic to FERC approval or rejection.
Today these grid operators haven’t any obligation to interact in this type of long-term planning. Some have undertaken large-scale regional plans anyway — the Midcontinent Independent System Operator is one instance. But others — resembling PJM, which serves the 13-state area from the mid-Atlantic to Chicago — have performed little or no regional planning at all.
The order additionally goes additional than the company’s proposed rule issued in 2022 in making components of that course of necessary for the utilities, transmission homeowners, and state regulators that represent the voting members of these regional grid organizations.
That contains the necessary consideration of “a broad set of reliability and financial advantages” that transmission can ship, Phillips stated. It additionally requires that grid plans take into account federal and state clean-energy and decarbonization mandates, in addition to underlying financial components which can be making fossil-fueled energy vegetation more and more economically uncompetitive in opposition to photo voltaic and wind energy, batteries, and different power storage property. This mixture of coverage and financial forces is accelerating the retirement of coal-fired energy vegetation within the U.S. — a main risk to grid reliability in some components of the nation, if not adequately deliberate for.
This facet of the rule has develop into a political flashpoint for FERC. Climate advocates and grid specialists who’ve pressed the company to restrict the flexibility of particular person states or utilities to undermine regional grid planning processes reacted positively to the brand new rule.
“FERC has acknowledged the a number of advantages that transmission supplies and has set out a course of to make sure that all beneficiaries assist to fund initiatives that scale back buyer charges and preserve the lights on,” stated Carrie Zalewski, vp of markets and transmission for the commerce group American Clean Power Association. “If applied successfully, this can result in much-needed growth in transmission capability on the U.S. grid.”
Should states get to choose out of paying for regional transmission?
States that lack clean-energy mandates have beforehand argued that they shouldn’t be pressured to pay for transmission initiatives that help the local weather objectives of states inside their shared grid areas. A group of 17 Republican state attorneys basic warned FERC that they plan to legally problem any transmission planning rule they take into account to be“socializing the prices of a huge transmission build-out to attach renewable power.”
