Paving over paradise
The state Public Utilities Commission (MPUC) is on the brink of approving two massive new electric transmission line projects.
Next week (April 10) the Commission will meet to take up just two agenda items. First is the Big Stone to Alexandria line, running from Big Stone City, South Dakota, to Alexandria, in west central Minnesota. If approved, the 100-mile, 345-kV line will be in service early next decade.
A 2022 cost estimate for the interstate project puts the price tag at $574 million. The project has already been approved, at this point, we’re just arguing over the exact route of the line across the countryside. It’s actually just one segment in a larger endeavor, with this leg being overseen by the Minnesota-based utility Otter Tail Power Company.
The second item involves an even bigger project, a 180-mile, 345-kV line running from the massive Sherco power plant complex near Becker, to Lyon County in southwest Minnesota. The project is being helmed by Xcel Energy, who first applied for Commission approval some three years ago.
That this line is “needed” in any sense is an artifact of the utility’s desire to move electricity to Becker, where it used to be produced locally, at the soon-to-be shuttered coal plant.
The estimated cost for this project stands at somewhere around $1.3 billion (with a “b”), give or take a few million, depending on the final route chosen. The MPUC will take up project approval and provide input on potential routes next week.
Combined, the MPUC will be ruling on $2 billion worth of projects next week.
The purpose of both projects is the same: to move renewable energy (wind, solar) from the far-flung, remote areas where it will be produced to the local markets where people live and consume electricity.
Project proponents describe this power as “low-cost.” But these cost estimates do not include the billions of dollars in new transmission line projects needed to move the electricity.
To add injury to insult, transmission-line costs are perversely assigned to nuclear and natural gas assets, as these are the resources providing power to the grid 24/7. Since wind and solar power is available less than half the time, they escape responsibility for these costs in the twisted world of utility accounting.
Also, utility regulators largely ignore the phenomenon of “line losses.” Simply put, when you inject 100 units of power into the grid in South Dakota, only 98 or so show up in the middle of Minnesota.
Who’s paying for all of this? You, the electricity consumer. You get to pay for the unreliable, but fashionable, wind and solar power, the transmission lines that otherwise wouldn’t be needed, and the nuclear, natural gas, and other conventional resources needed to maintain the system around the clock.
Keep this in mind, the next time you pay your power bill.