When a wintertime stormknocked out Texas ’ power gridin 2021 , the scale of the devastation it wrought was exacerbated by a rum fact about the Lone Star State : It has its own electric gridiron , an “ energy island ” thathas long been unambiguously isolated from the sleep of the state , with just four transmission lines connect it to neighboring states . When the violent storm hit , Texas was ineffectual to reassign enough emergency world power from other electricity grocery to keep the lights on . The death bell was in the hundreds .
A young multi - billion - dollar substructure project could mitigate a similar power emergency in the future . For more than a decade , a individual renewables developer , Pattern Energy , has been test to make a320 - mile infection linelinking Texas ’ magnate grid to the Southeast . But the labor , do it as Southern Spirit , is now facing opposite in not one but two DoS it would traverse . Entergy , a public utility company fellowship whose affiliate in Mississippi and Louisiana would stand to gain if the new project fails , has raised dubiousness about the proposal before Mississippi regulator . And even if Mississippi moves frontward , a bill in the Louisiana legislature — which was revised at the behest of Entergy — could derail the entire project .
It ’s not just Texans who would gain from more transmittance . In order for the U.S. to decarburize its electricity , a lot more power lineswill postulate to be built across the country . Most all important is the want for more interregional transmission lines like Southern Spirit — those that connect the nation ’s patchwork quilt of energy grids to one another . These are specially crucial for renewable get-up-and-go , in part for geographical reasons : The sunny deserts of the Southwest and the gusty plains of Texas and Oklahoma are disproportionately strong producer of solar and wind baron , severally , but most of the potential customers for that office are clump near the country ’s coasts . As a result , the Department of Energy count on thatinterregional transmittance capacity will need to expandby a factor of five to meet the Biden organisation ’s goal of decoke the power sector by 2035 .
Power lines in Houston, Texas.Photo: Brandon Bell (Getty Images)
But at least two major hurdle race digest in the way . The first is that transmission lines sometimes confront underground from landowners along the way , whouse the permitting and environmental review processesto block developing through litigation or like mean value . A 2d , underappreciated obstruction to raw interregional transmission lines isresistance from power companies , who may face a firm deterrence to allow competition in the form of punk , faraway electricity . Ona recent podcast show , Mark Lauby , chief engineer at the North American Electric Reliability Corporation , an industry group that govern the national transmission grid , acknowledged this difficulty , call for , “ How do I get a [ transmittal ] line through multiple grocery when markets themselves do n’t want to contend with other markets ? ”
“ We have substantial challenges within market , within generators , that are adjudicate to stop the building of transmission . It ’s not just permitting ; it ’s also those folk that feel that they in reality get profit out of having that reek solar material a shipway away , so they can make more money topically , ” Lauby added .
Beyond helping make Texas ’ grid resilient , more infection lines connecting Texas to nearby grids would also aid maximise the carbon emissions deliverance from the state ’s abundant wind power . Texas produces more hint energy than any other DoS , butwind farms are often draw to reduce their outputdue to unequal transmission . Building more transmission blood line grant manufacturer to produce more malarkey energy by give it somewhere to go .
For these reason , the Southern Spirit project look like a profits - win : If built , it could help decarburise the region , lower great power bills , and protect Texans from a repeat of 2021 . It was this last benefit that seemed to finally put some farting in the project ’s sails after the storm win over control grid planner at ERCOT , Texas ’ energy storage-battery grid , that more transmission was ask .
But clouds appear on the horizon last October when Entergy Mississippi expressed business organisation around the transmission project infilingsbefore the Mississippi Public Service Commission , which must sanction Southern Spirit for the task to move forward .
Neal Kirby , a spokesperson for the Entergy Corporation ( the Mississippi utility program ’s parent company ) , say Grist in an email that Entergy Mississippi has not taken a position on Southern Spirit overall , but rather has “ raised business concern about the impacts of the project on its customers . ”
Kirby told Grist that the utility was touch that “ eastward menses from the bloodline would cause overloads on the arrangement that Southern Spirit would not be involve to call or resolve . As a result , Entergy Mississippi homes and business may be leave with either less reliable electric help or foot up the banker’s bill for system upgrades to reliably accommodate injections of vim from the new rail line . ”
In other words , Entergy ’s system might not be equipped to plow the extra power ship in from Texas without majuscule upgrade — and because utilities croak on the costs of okay upper-case letter upgrades to consumer as a affair of course , this would mean gamy electric bills .
Daniel Tait , a investigator at the Energy and Policy Institute , a nonprofit public-service corporation guard dog , called Entergy ’s contention that access code to Southern Spirit would destabilize the control grid and make its energy more costly “ absurd and a masquerade party for its anti - competitive behavior . ”
Just what might be “ anti - competitive ” about Entergy ’s stance on Southern Spirit was captured in testimony submitted to the Mississippi Public Service Commission by Jeff Dicharry , a transmitting deviser employed by Entergy , who say the propose transmission line could force the utility to scale back service at its natural gas plant in Mississippi .
“ The predictable result would be an inability to operate [ Entergy - mesh natural gas plants ] Choctaw and Attala during periods with due east - bound flowing on [ Southern Spirit ] due to over-crowding on the transmission system . This would be knotty , ” wrote Dicharry .
Tait say Entergy Mississippi ’s complaint amount to “ an implicit acknowledgment that this [ transmission line ] is economically beneficial for customers , ” because the Mississippi utility would only reduce operations at its gas plants if the energy fall in from Texas were loud than its own output .
In Louisiana , meanwhile , nation legislator are considering a bill that would effectively kill the task by deny expropriation authority — the power to evolve private belongings through soaring domain — to all transmission lines that run through the state unless a majority of their index is ware within the state .
Alan Seabaugh , the bill ’s Republican supporter in the Louisiana commonwealth Senate , secern Grist his measure was intended to protect North Louisiana landowners from their land being impound for a task that does not do good the nation ’s residents . The bill passed the Senate by 36 to 1 on March 25 and is pending before the House ’s Civil Law and Procedure Committee .
Because Southern Spirit connects Texas to Mississippi , “ there is no way to legitimately with a straight brass fence that Louisiana ’s going to benefit from this one iota , ” Seabaugh said , though he elucidate that he has not ingest a formal billet for or against the projection .
Adam Renz , Pattern Energy ’s conductor of task development , told Grist that Seabaugh was “ very much technically incorrect ” in his assessment that Louisiana would not profit from the transmission line . Though the line does terminate in Mississippi rather than Louisiana , it would rescue energy into a regional power grid known as MISO South , which much of Louisiana string power from .
“ The negatron the project will inject into the system can and will course into the state of Louisiana , ” Renz say in an email .
Entergy ’s Louisiana subordinate has not claim a position on Seabaugh ’s bill , but the utility was subservient in the passage of an amendment that exempted any transmission lines within an be baron control grid from its horizon — effectively guarantee its own next project would not be affected . “ They gave us an amendment to make certain that they were keep out , ” Seabaugh said .
Kirby , the Entergy interpreter , confirmed this . “ When the poster author share the lawmaking with us , we raised concerns that it may impede projection deemed necessary by MISO or SPP , the entities that are finally responsible for making independent determinations about what transmission projects are take in most of Louisiana , ” he say . “ Entergy Louisiana suggest to the bill source some language that would come up to this concern . ”
To Davante Lewis , an elect utility regulatorin Louisiana who spell aletterto the state Senate opposing the bill , the amendment efficaciously “ gives the incumbent utility all the right to build transmission ” and amounts to “ pushing interregional infection costs onto ratepayers , ” because utilities have the confidence to fall out on their capital costs to ratepayers once they get regulative blessing . By contrast , Pattern Energy is in camera financing the Southern Spirit projection with an investment of more than $ 2.6 billion , and will deduct that investment from tariffs on great power sold over the product line once it ’s usable . Renz tell the projection has not find any Union or state incentives .
Lewis , whose commission is presently reviewing a prayer for credential by Pattern Energy , has not read a position on Southern Spirit but said he opposes Seabaugh ’s bill because , while it “ seems to be straightaway point only at the Southern Spirit transmission demarcation , my concern is what would this mean for transmission buildout ” — which he characterized as an important priority for Louisiana ratepayers in the typeface of rise electrical energy demand as well as the need to decarburise .
“ impart on transmittal for curb heyday requirement is vitally important . However , if we look at who has been the biggest objector , it ’s been public utility company , ” Lewis enjoin .
This article in the beginning appear inGristathttps://grist.org/energy/southern-spirit-transmission-line-louisiana-mississippi-texas/. Grist is a non-profit-making , independent medium administration dedicated to severalize stories of climate answer and a just future tense . memorize more atGrist.org
electric storage-battery grid
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