Midwest Transmission
Midwest Transmission Strategy
The Environmental Law & Policy Center hosted a Midwest Transmission Strategy meeting on April 20th and 21st, 2010 in Chicago. The meeting brought together Midwest environmental, clean energy and consumer leaders to develop strategies to address delivery capacity issues for wind power and other renewables as well as important cost-allocation issues for new transmission.
New major interstate transmission lines in the Midwest/Great Plains are a double-edged sword: On the one hand, they can provide additional needed delivery capacity for wind power and other new renewable energy development; on the other hand, they can provide enabling delivery capacity and lifelines of support for the continued operation of old Midwest highly-polluting coal plants (for example, to sell to higher-priced East Coast power markets).
The importance of new transmission capacity to support wind power development is relatively clear. There is a less obvious and equally important goal of relating transmission advocacy to spur the retirement of old, highly-polluting coal plants in the Midwest/Great Plains states. There is a very important set of strategic leverage points because of the structure of the Midwest/Great Plains power market in 2010 – 2020.
Midwest Transmission Strategy Meeting Presentations
Other Resources
News
New Interconnection Standards Clear the Way for Clean Energy in Iowa
The Iowa Utilities Board has issued final standards for interconnection of wind, solar and other forms of clean energy to the Iowa electric grid. These rules are the culmination of years of advocacy by the Environmental Law & Policy Center and a coalition of clean energy business, agricultural and environmental groups.
Interconnection is the process of linking clean distributed wind power and solar energy sources of electric generation to the grid. The new standards create a clear process for Iowa citizens and utilities to bring their clean energy sources online with standard forms, affordable fees and reasonable insurance requirements. Iowa previously had loose interconnection guidelines that resulted in a complicated patchwork of rules.
The new Iowa standards are built on a model by ELPC in Illinois and South Dakota. The goal is to “facilitate the addition of distributed generation” to the electric distribution system. The rules minimize burdensome insurance requirements and application fees for small systems, and they include standard forms and contracts to streamline and provide transparency to the process.
The Iowa Utilities Board’s Final Order which includes the final interconnection rules, forms and standard agreements is available here: https://efs.iowa.gov/efiling/groups/external/documents/docket/041781.pdf
The Iowa Utilities Board Staff Memo describes the process: https://efs.iowa.gov/efiling/groups/external/documents/docket/041952.pdf
New major interstate transmission lines in the Midwest/Great Plains are a double-edged sword: On the one hand, they can provide additional needed delivery capacity for wind power and other new renewable energy development; on the other hand, they can provide enabling delivery capacity and lifelines of support for the continued operation of old Midwest highly-polluting coal plants (for example, to sell to higher-priced East Coast power markets).