The Mississippi Energy Institute authored and sponsored this post.
A bill passed by the MS Legislature this year to regulate interstate electric transmission projects is looking better and better.
SB 2341 authored by Senate Energy Chairman Joel Carter requires any electricity rate impacts in regulated utility areas associated with the construction of interstate transmission projects be decided at the MS Public Service Commission and not left solely to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The MS PSC is made up of 3 officials elected by Mississippians. The FERC is made up of 5 (currently 4) Presidential appointees. SB 2341 passed with near unanimous bipartisan support, 109-7 in the House and 50-1 in the Senate.A 7/26 Wall Street Journal column exposed where Democrat Majority Leader and New York Senator Chuck Schumer wants FERC to be able to force electric ratepayers in states to pay for interstate transmission project costs when those states may be getting little to no benefit. Excerpts from the column:
Mr. Schumer last week sent a letter demanding that FERC expedite a “strong transmission planning and cost allocation rule” to deliver more “clean power to Americans.” He claims that disagreements among states on permitting new transmission lines and allocating their costs is stalling renewable projects.
Under FERC’s current rules, costs of transmission projects are allocated based on which parties benefit from improved reliability or reduced congestion costs. For example, Illinois residents would pay higher electric rates for a new transmission line to move power from a gas-fired plant in Wisconsin to Illinois to maintain reliability...
States in a regional transmission organization negotiate how to divide the costs, which hasn’t been controversial as long as projects solved reliability problems. The increasing problem now is that more than half of states have renewable energy mandates...
States without renewable mandates such as Arkansas, West Virginia and Tennessee (and Mississippi) don’t want or need heavily subsidized green energy from other states, which could drive their own baseload fossil-fuel and nuclear plants out of business. They also don’t want to pay for new transmission lines whose sole purpose is to help other states meet their renewable mandates.
No matter. Mr. Schumer writes that FERC should order states that “act as free riders” to pay for transmission upgrades. He also wants FERC to clarify its “backstop authority” to issue permits when states won’t. In other words, if West Virginians don’t want to pay for connecting New Jersey offshore wind farms to the grid, FERC should mandate that they pay anyway.
You may remember Sen. Schumer was the one who tweeted in February that "nobody is taking away your gas stove." Then in April, Schumer's home state New York passed a law banning the use of gas appliances in new residential developments. The aggressiveness and pace of the DC Democrats' (anti) energy agenda is something voters should be watching more closely.
14 comments:
SB 2341 was nothing more than an Entergy-driven protectionist move to insure their money machine was not disrupted by the availability of lower cost power transmitted from sources across state lines. Regulated utilities don't like it when they cant build new power plants and produce all the electrons and pass the cost of both construction and production on to their customers. Got to protect the system at all costs.
August 8, 2023 at 9:13 AM
Would you like to explain to the class how adding an "interstate transmission fee" would actually result in lower costs?
No, SB 2341 was a necessary response to the over-aggressive, federally-subsidized buildout of wind and solar, which will result in lots of needed interstate transmission projects to get the power from the Midwest to where power is needed in big cities. Dems in DC want rural states like MS to help pay the costs.
"My name is Ed Entergy and I approve this legislation."
You can be sure that Entergy has been regularly sending some money to the bill sponsor's PAC.
He wants the federal governments fingers in everyones pockets across all state lines. Wealthy elite bastards like him see no issue redistributing the funds of others. End the fed.
This is the same Entergy who had to repay customers over $300 million for overcharging ratepayers by selling them expensive fossil energy they produce rather than cheaper energy form other producers. This is the same Entergy that got fined $180 million for overcharging for transmission. And don't forget the Kemper plant that tried to stick customers with 4& billion dollars to subsidize coal. Case closed.
Kemper is Miss. Power's. Not Entergy. Different companies. Carry on.
9:18 There is lower cost electricity available through an connection to interstate transmission. Entergy has blocked projects that would have benefited Mississippians-I have been a part of those projects. The access to the lower cost electrons only comes with the interstate connections.
Really? You want to stop Entergy from selling the energy generated from the plant you paid for to others and hiking up the rate when MSP&L promised you " nearly free" electrical power? Oh oops they " sold " to Entergy so the promise could be broken. Geez ,is it possible that our old power monopoly just changed names and logos so you wouldn't throw stones at them on the street or kick them out of social groups?
More nuclear power!
If we want an all electric world and we can’t have it without at least 5 nuclear reactors in every state!
Mississippi is the perfect place for generating nuclear power.
We are very seismically stable and very rural.
We can power several of our neighbor states with our excess power!
We can all have EV Silverados and Hummers and Teslas too!
This is an absolute no-brainer!
Fun Fact: Mississippi "typically produces about one-fourth more electricity than it uses, and the surplus power is sent to other states over the regional grid."
Source: https://www.eia.gov/state/analysis.php?sid=MS
Therefore, if someone wants to install new transmission lines to get electricity from Texas to NY, they can pay for the line, and the lease of the land, too.
3:28, While your concept makes sense, the bill makes it illegal.
August 8, 2023 at 9:58 AM, all that happened the day after the Germans boomed Pearl Harbor. I remember it well.
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