Recently in Transmission Category

Jon Wellinghoff, chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, wasted little time responding to the Wall Street Journal's Monday editorial excoriating FERC about transmission cost allocation. Though his answer isn't in the Journal yet, a draft is in a blog at the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

A few different things came together, probably, to make that happen. The Las Vegas paper's editor, Thomas Mitchell, blogged about the WSJ's editorial (he may have said some pretty strong things in favor of it, but we don't know for sure because his original post isn't there any more.) Wellinghoff is from Nevada, where some years ago he was the state's first utility consumer advocate. And doubtless FERC was already drafting a response to the WSJ; one can imagine the hackles that editorial raised at the commission.

In some recent orders the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has continued to make good on its promise to find ways to promote the Obama administration's commitment to renewable resources.

Friday, FERC determined that although Southern California Edison had not proven that two transmission projects are needed to reduce congestion or ensure grid reliability, they still qualify for some form of incentive rate treatment because they further the public policy goal of getting more renewable power online.

The novel transmission project may still be a proposal, but in what has to be a first-ever development, Tres Amigas is forever immortalized as bronze art.

In Santa Fe, New Mexico, last month, Tres Amigas not only celebrated the opening of its corporate headquarters, but also had Governor Bill Richardson on hand to unveil a sculpture depicting the proposed energy superstation, which is the brainchild of Phil Harris, former CEO of the PJM Interconnection. Richardson has been excited about Tres Amigas, which would use superconducting technology.

Snail mail at the office long ago lost any compelling aspects, but one delivery that still offers subway-reading potential is the EPRI Journal, from the Electric Power Research Institute. The newest issue doesn't disappoint.

You may not be interested in on-site production of activated carbon for controlling mercury emissions. It's hard, though, not to get caught up in the possibilities of robotic transmission line inspection.

When people in Washington start thinking of their work as so important, it's grounding to be reminded of the whole big world out there full of people who really keep the wheels turning. Lineworkers are among them, and darned if it doesn't make an office worker jealous to know that every year, these all-weather power-system fixers get to show off their prowess at contests evocatively called rodeos.

At this year's Public Power Lineworkers Rodeo, in Omaha this past weekend, Turlock Irrigation District kicked butt for the second year in a row, we learned from the American Public Power Association today.

Through the many years, Representative John Dingell has used blunt questions, and sometimes innocent-sounding ones, to make points with witnesses at the Energy and Commerce Committee.

The other day, if he was being true to historical form, Dingell made a point about the diversity of ways that new transmission facilities are paid for. Incredulity was always one of his questioning strategies, and he employed it effectively, though only briefly, at an Energy and Environment Subcommittee hearing.

A study done for the Southwest Power Pool state regulators has revealed the kind of information that usually is not seen beyond a small group of those directly involved. It provides a window into the "who benefits and why" question that so many times is opaque to outsiders.

SPP has a package of transmission projects under consideration, and this study was to show how the projects would affect wind revenue in SPP's various zones. With arguments at regional and national levels about how broadly new-transmission costs should be shared, this piece of research reminds us that in the midst of policy debates, brass-tacks talk about dollars and cents is at the base of much of the wrangling. 

One of the most interesting jobs available right now in Washington may be director of the Eastern Interconnection States Planning Council. Who will be interested? One of cynical bent might say: people inclined toward self-punishment.

The positive way to say that would be: super self-disciplined people who love challenges.

The EISPC is to be funded by $14 million in stimulus money from the Department of Energy to the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. The point is to represent state interests in planning transmission facilities for the entire Eastern Interconnection, from the Great Plains to the Atlantic seaboard -- something never before tried, and incredibly complex.

New York Assemblyman Richard Brodsky has it in for the New York Independent System Operator, and on its birthday, too. Which seems not very nice.

It isn't anything new, though. Brodsky has had a problem with NYISO for some time. Unsuccessful with efforts against the grid organization so far, he told the Albany Times-Union last week: "I'm going to make the end of the NYISO a major priority for the next legislative session. So, happy birthday."