It sounds like your current position on transmission is that it has benefits for both local and national renewables, but that it is receiving too much political support at the expense of local renewables, and that federal decision-making on transmission is a step in the wrong direction, because federal decionsion-making will be worse that the state based decision-making we currently have.

As I believe I demonstrated in my article, the greatest benefits of transmission come from a national grid: it is the ability of transmission to extend across weather regimes which allows long distance transmission to stabilize variable renewables. We currently only have a very weak national grid in large part because transmission decisions are taken at a state level, and because no one state can capture the global benefits of transmission, we have seen massive chronic underinvestment.

EPACT2005 had more (but not enough) for transmission than it had local renewables, but the much larger ARRA (stimulus) had large support for energy efficiency and the smart grid technologies we both advocate, and these investments dwarfed those in long distance transmission. Hence, I think we can say that the current administration is more likely to get energy policy right than the previous one. Some local governments are better, and some are worse, but, no matter how competent, they lack the ability to decide what is best for the nation as a whole because their remit is local.

In order to plan a functional national grid, we need to plan at a national level. Local planning gave us the collection of weakly connected local grids we currently have. Our lack of a national grid acts as a barrier to renewable energy penetration. I don’t think that local planning can fix the problem it created, nor do I agree that “The focus should be on upgrading the transmission, subtransmission and distribution systems inside states.”

The focus has to be on a national grid, and the decisions (however flawed) to create national grid have to be taken at a national level because the benefits of a transmission line flow to all the states along the route… if each state sizes transmission to suit only its internal funding ability and internal benefits, we will continue with a transmission like the one we have now: undersized, under invested, and delivering only a fraction of the potential benefits.

I wish that governments thought about public spending the way you illustrate in your last paragraph. If only we were so thoughtful we might have incentives for renewable energy that didn’t require odd tax equity partnerships but instead focused purely on per kWh payments.

And I think that illustration of perverse policy, at the heart, is the source of our disagreement.

Renewable energy presents a new paradigm. It’s available virtually everywhere. In many cases, it does not have the same economies of scale as large fossil fuel thermal generation. From a standpoint of generation cost, there’s little to hold us to the paradigm of large, centralized power plants and long distance transmission. And that difference also means an opportunity for communities with renewable energy resources to benefit economically rather than just getting clean energy.

As you have illustrated effectively, this new paradigm doesn’t eliminate the need for a grid or transmission. Nothing you say is wrong. Transmission can address variability issues, whether season or daily. Transmission can address resource inequalities. Transmission can alleviate the need for backup generation or storage. As we note in our report, “The focus should be on upgrading the transmission, subtransmission and distribution systems inside states.”

If we had technocrats like yourself in charge of the electric grid, I would have more optimism about the system being structured in a way that maximizes the benefits and minimizes costs, with transmission as a tool in designing that system. You are obviously very thoughtful about the cost tradeoff between a wind/solar mix, storage, and transmission. But the debate in the broader policy community is rarely so nuanced.

In transmission certificate of need proceedings, utilities are not even conducting alternatives analysis to see what other options exist or if they are less expensive. (See CAPX in Minnesota, or PATH in the Northeast, for example). In the Congress, legislation (by Senator Reid and Bingaman) would preempt state authority to review transmission that is purportedly for renewable energy, obliterating the process for alternatives analysis. The folks building transmission lines get a bonus return on investment thanks to the Energy Policy Act of 2005, but none of the other options (from conservation to demand response to energy efficiency to distributed generation) do. Even the renewable energy incentives (PTC, ITC, etc) are only available as tax credits rather than production incentives that would allow cities, counties, schools, and others to compete to produce renewable energy, especially in areas where their utilities are unwilling to move ahead.

The point is that we probably agree on the technical value of transmission as an element of an effective toolbox for maximizing renewable energy development and that it has a place alongside distributed generation, demand management and other tools to deliver reliable, clean power (especially when it is the most cost effective option).

But I believe you underestimate the political power of transmission. Rather than being a straw man, transmission is the 800 pound gorilla. In the advocacy community and in Congress, transmission from hot spots of renewable energy to demand centers is the conventional wisdom, despite plenty of examples where – even on the narrow metric of cost – it is not the most effective option.

Our report, Energy Self-Reliant States, does not prove that energy self-sufficiency is possible or desirable for every state (it wasn’t meant to and couldn’t if it wanted to). But it does illustrate that there are alternatives to the conventional wisdom, that increasing energy self-reliance may pay dividends in clean energy and the economy, and that our policy playbook should – as you illustrated – have as many options as the technical one.

Tom,

HOMER Energy

Regarding the national grid vs. seasonal storage, I was arguing within the framework of your study… you were talking about 100% local renewables, so I looked to see what it would cost. When I said “natural gas imports” I meant imports into those states that don’t produce natural gas locally. Why do you prefer importing natural gas to importing electricity?

Transmission, in general, reduces the need for backup generation, even without resorting to renewables. Because demand peaks at different times in different places (note the different demand shapes (green) in neighboring MN and ND above. Transmission allows demand to be aggregated, so the overall difference between peak and trough is a reduced as a percentage of overall demand.

Saying that “we have plenty” of backup generation for renewables in the short term is misleading. As someone who has filed expert testimony in resource planning cases, I can tell you from first hand experience that growing penetration of air conditioning is causing peak demand to grow in many states even faster than overall demand, and so more peaking capacity is something that utilities often need. Wind does not help much with this because wind is often weakest on the hottest days, and utilities only grudgingly will credit it with a 10% capacity factor. Transmission does help, because the hottest days happen at different times in different regions of the country. Solar also helps, but is far, far more expensive than transmission.

Furthermore, our existing renewables *do* put a strain on current backup capacity, causing it to run less efficiently than it would if it were only needed to compensate for fluctuating demand. See: http://knowledgeproblem.com/2009/11/16/reduced-air-emissions-due-to-wind-power-not-as-much-as-you-might-think/

In other words, even if we have enough capacity to backup near-term renewable supply, the lack of transmission and small balancing areas make the fluctuations more severe, and put strains on gas turbines, reducing the system benefits of wind and solar. See also:
http://www.altenergystocks.com/archives/2009/04/our_undiversified_wind_portfolio_1.html

I did not see in your report the source of your $100-$200 Billion cost number, but nor did I assume that it was able to compensate for all the needed storage that would be required by your 100% local renewables proposal: I used two assumptions: that it would reduce the need for storage by 10% or 50%. With the 10% number, I still found that transmission was 4x more effective than storage, and I did not include the benefits of transmission that I outline above in this comment.

Regarding the local economic benefits of renewables, most of these flow from the economic benefits of *inexpensive* renewables, and (especially) energy efficiency. See:
http://www.altenergystocks.com/archives/2009/07/not_all_green_jobs_were_created_equal_1.html
I strongly agree with you that we should pursue all local energy efficiency and combined heat and power opportunities that are available, since these are very cost effective.

However, your emphasis on local renewables, especially rooftop PV means that low resource states would be pursuing high cost renewables. Sure, each MW of rooftop PV creates lots of local jobs, but this is simply because the level of spending per MW is gigantic. Why not just use a fraction of that amount to purchase cheap wind and transmission, and use the rest to create jobs by investing in local mass transit. If you follow my link above, you’ll see that each $1M spent on transit improvements creates 20.1 jobs, while each $1M spent on Solar or Wind creates about 14 jobs. So, if you have $1M to spend, and want electricity and jobs, you can spend $300K on cheap, out of state wind (4 jobs elsewhere) and $700 on local mass transit (14 local jobs), or you can spend the whole pile on local solar and get the same amount of electricity and local jobs, but no mass transit, and no jobs elsewhere. I don’t call that a local economic benefit.

I appreciate you response to our report and your analysis of storage versus transmission. Thanks for engaging us.

On the subject of renewable energy variability and transmission, your analysis looks interesting, but I’m stymied by the lack of labels on the charts and the fact that I can’t seem to access the Energy Timing website. I’ll address the basic argument that the wind and sun don’t blow or shine at the right time to meet demand in various places and thus we need transmission to smooth variability.

Variability is the transmission advocate straw man. Right now, renewables make up a mere fraction of electricity generation in most states, on most days, and even at most hours of the day. Even with the penetrations of wind or solar projected for most states by 2025 (25-30%), there’s still plenty of backup from conventional power sources (like natural gas) to fill the gap. And with the major gas finds in the U.S. of late, it seems odd to fearmonger about imports.

And in the one state that has actually made an engineering analysis of the electric grid – Minnesota – it was discovered that getting to 25% renewables could be done at a fraction of the cost of new high voltage transmission by dispersing 10-40 MW wind projects across the state on the existing grid.

In other words, states should be examining ways to maximize their existing infrastructure before investing in a new, high-voltage and more costly transmission network.

On that subject, cost is much more complex than the simplistic “month of storage” v. national grid. First, I’ve not heard anyone suggest that the transmission superhighway proposal is sufficient for a 100% renewable scenario. In fact, I believe that it was part of a 20% “wind by 2030″ report, so the comparison you make appears rather disingenuous.

Second, we have years before we bump up against the tradeoff between high-voltage interstate transmission and storage. Right now, renewables are such a small part of the mix that storage is unnecessary. The smart grids you dismiss have already shown promise to reduce peak demand by 20% in selected pilots. That extends the time horizon for significant storage. We don’t know the price of storage because we aren’t ready to buy it.

Third, cost in this debate never looks beyond the electricity system, but nobody but us wonks are so shortsighted. When 10 East Coast governors wrote a letter to Congress to register their concern with federal preemption of transmission planning, it was in large part because they wish to exploit their own renewable resources and the attendant economic benefits. For them, it’s not just about the cheapest kilowatt hour but also about the overall benefit to their citizens.

Getting to our ultimate goal of a fully renewable electricity system may require some new transmission. No question. But when the proposed new transmission superhighway may be orphaned by expanding smart grids, existing grid capacity, and states with a legitimate interest in developing their own renewable energy resources, it’s should be heretical to suggest it’s the only option.

They are probably right that utility scale renewables benefit *more*, but, even so, fighting utility scale renewables by fighting transmission is cutting off your nose to spite your face. I see advantages to both local renewables and large scale renewables (recall these two articles:
http://www.altenergystocks.com/archives/2009/04/our_undiversified_wind_portfolio_1.html
and
http://www.altenergystocks.com/archives/2009/05/doing_solar_incentives_right.html)

but if they want to fight utility scale renewables, they should do it directly, IMO.