Texas Power Grid Shivved By Louisiana Lawmakers

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Ratepayers in Texas have been reeling from one large energy outage to a different, struggling lack of life on prime of financial impacts. A key offender is the state’s remoted energy grid. Assistance is lastly on the way in which within the type of a federally funded transmission venture aimed toward hooking Texas up with energy assets in neighboring states. Nonetheless, that’s already heading to the dustbin of historical past, if the Louisiana state legislature will get its means.

The Texas Energy Grid Wants Assist

Earlier than we get to Louisiana, let’s check out that energy grid scenario in Texas. Not like the remainder of the US, the Texas energy grid is essentially remoted from outdoors assist. Additionally it is nearly completely remoted from federal transmission laws, the results of a call made by state legislators again within the twentieth century.

As a consequence of that call, the state’s grid supervisor — the considerably paradoxically named Electrical Reliability Council of Texas — is essentially by itself when an emergency strikes. Not like grid operators in different states, ERCOT can not name upon assist from one other energy grid in a neighboring state.

On the plus aspect, the remoted nature of the Texas energy grid has motivated ERCOT to optimize in-state sources of electrical energy, which explains why Texas has change into a hotbed of renewable energy activity and revolutionary energy storage solutions (see extra ERCOT renewable energy background here).

On the down aspect, when climate emergencies kneecap in-state producing assets, a lot of the Texas energy grid is helpless. ERCOT can not name upon out-of-state energy era assets, as is routine for grid operators in different states. Right here’s the Texas Tribune summing up the deadly penalties of the blizzard of 2021, for instance:

“As Texas faced record-low temperatures in February 2021 and snow and ice made roads impassable, the state’s electric grid operator lost control of the power supply, leaving millions without access to electricity. As the blackouts extended from hours to days, top state lawmakers called for investigations into the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, and Texans demanded accountability for the disaster.”

Ouch!

The Texas Energy Grid Is Getting Assist, Lastly…

In one other ironic twist, photo voltaic producers in Texas are gearing as much as ship new photo voltaic panels and different renewable vitality {hardware} out to different states, serving to to construct extra resiliency into energy grids elsewhere across the nation. CleanTechnica took a take a look at a few of the new exercise in August, and in case you scroll down previous the information about all the new solar factories in Texas you’ll discover this statement on the backside of the article:

“Earlier this summer word dropped that the long distance transmission firm Pattern Energy is considering a new project to shunt wind energy from Texas to Mississippi and Louisiana.”

Positive sufficient, on October 4th, the US Division of Power introduced a $1.5 billion package deal of economic assist for 4 main interstate transmission initiatives, one in every of which can join the Texas energy grid to MISO, the Mid-Atlantic Working System. The sprawling MISO territory covers all or a part of Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, the Canadian province of Manitoba, together with a finger-shaped sliver of counties that dips into the japanese a part of Texas.

With an help from the Power Division, Sample Power’s, Southern Spirit department will assemble “a new 320-mile HVDC line connecting the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) grid for the first time with electric grids in the southeastern US power marketsincluding Midcontinent Independent System Operator South (MISO-S) and Southern Company (SOCO), which will enhance reliability and prevent outages during extreme weather events, like Winter Storm Uri that hit Texas in 2022,” explains the Power Division multi function breath.

The meat of the proposal is 3,000 megawatts’ price of bidirectional transmission. As soon as Southern Spirit is up and working, ratepayers in Louisiana and Mississippi can get their palms on clear, low-cost wind and photo voltaic vitality from Texas, and communities in Texas won’t be frolicked to dry the following time their energy grid need assistance.

…Oh Wait, Perhaps Not

After all, constructing new interstate transmission lines within the US shouldn’t be as straightforward because it sounds. Property homeowners alongside the trail can dig of their heels towards giving up their rights, and state lawmakers can come to their assist with protecting laws.

Texas ratepayers could have to attend some time for that Southern Spirit energy grid connection as a result of Southern Spirit is already going through a brawl in Louisiana. Final April the Louisiana Illuminator took be aware of recent protecting laws sponsored by State Senator Sen. Alan Seabaugh (R-Shreveport), described as “specifically tailored” to use solely to the Southern Spirit transmission line.

After Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry signed SB 108 into legislation, the Illuminator continued the thread in June. “Seabaugh crafted the legislation to target Pattern Energy’s Southern Spirit Transmission line,” emphasised Illuminator reporter Wesley Muller.

“The senator has acknowledged he sponsored the bill upon the request of at least one Louisiana landowner who is opposed to Pattern Energy,” Muller continued, including this attention-grabbing element:

“One of those landowners is Paul Dickson Sr., a principal owner and former board chairman of the Shreveport-based Morris & Dickson Co., one of the nation’s largest pharmaceutical distributors that federal authorities charged with mishandling thousands of large orders of prescription opioids during the height of the nation’s opioid crisis, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.”

Attention-grabbing! Muller additionally describes Dickson as a “a major GOP donor and Jeff Landry backer.”

“If Pattern Energy or some other party files a lawsuit over Seabaugh’s law, the state would be the defendant. Louisiana taxpayers could bear the cost of legal fees for what is essentially a private land dispute that the landowner would have otherwise paid for if lawmakers had not gotten involved,” Muller concluded, neatly summing up how the wealthy get wealthy and keep wealthy.

One Approach Or One other, Extra Reliability & Resiliency For The Texas Energy Grid

As of June 3, when Muller’s report was posted by native station KTBS, the Southern Spirit venture gave the impression to be blocked by the brand new state legislation, or a minimum of going through a protracted authorized delay. Nonetheless, as Muller notes, Southern Spirit is an interstate energy grid venture that may come below the jurisdiction of FERC, the Federal Power Regulatory Fee, doubtlessly superseding interference from state lawmakers.

The Power Division, for one, seems to think about the matter settled. The brand new monetary help for Southern Spirit will come from a brand new $1.5 billion revolving mortgage program known as the Transmission Facilitation Program, funded by way of the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Legislation.

In a press launch describing the brand new funding, the Power Division described the Transmission Facilitation Program as “an innovative revolving fund program that helps overcome the financial hurdles facing transmission development.”

Along with the Southern Spirit transmission line — if it ever occurs — the Power Division additionally introduced funding for 3 different energy grid initiatives, the Aroostook Renewable Challenge in Maine, the Cimarron Hyperlink in Oklahoma, and Section 2 of the Southline venture connecting New Mexico and Arizona.

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Picture: The beleaguered Texas energy grid might get some much-needed assist from the proposed Southern Spirit transmission lineapart from a monkey wrench thrown into the works by state legislators in Louisiana (courtesy of US DOE).