Transmission Superhighway On Track to Carry Cheap, Dirty Coal Power to Northeast

Thanks to federal funding and pending legislation, momentum is building behind a national transmission superhighway meant to propel America to a repowered clean energy future, but the end result in the Northeast may be just the opposite.

The rules proposed to help the nation tap abundant wind and solar resources in Western states will effectively open vast new markets in New England and Mid-Atlantic states to the cheapest, dirtiest power from aging coal plants in the Midwest and Appalachia.

Further, transmission legislation now before the Senate or about to be introduced excludes support for lines that would reach offshore wind resources along the Atlantic coast. The constant ocean winds, relatively shallow water and proximity to heavily populated cities make offshore wind one of the most promising sources of clean energy in the nation.

Lawmakers behind the legislation are from Western states, and they are thinking first about tapping solar and wind energy in the Southwest and upper Midwest. That leaves utility companies, which have had a clear edge in writing the complex rules, supporting onshore corridors in the East that also happen to provide an easier path to profitability for their aging coal plants.

“There’s enormous financial incentive for the oldest and dirtiest coal plants to access markets through transmission,” said Chris Miller, President of the Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC). “Unless we have a change in transmission rules, all this work on the national grid will mostly result in just more coal-fired power.”

It’s a message that for a long time has met with resistance, even among clean power advocates, but now that money is being allocated and legislation is being marked up, Miller is finding that his warnings are finally gaining some traction.

Miller has reason to be concerned because of a policy called “economic dispatch,” which governs the flow of power on the grid. The policy says the cheapest power gets to market first. If the U.S. builds new transmission lines ostensibly for clean power without changing this policy, Miller warns, then coal-fired electricity from the cheapest sources – usually the dirtiest – will get to new markets first.

“Changing the dispatch rule would be changing the world that utilities operate in, in a fundamental way,” Miller said. “But in pending legislation, there’s no change being contemplated.“

Politically, changing the economic dispatch rule would be a heavy lift, because if lawmakers gave transmission priority to low-carbon power – which currently costs more than coal-fired power – in essence they would be voting in favor of an increase in electricity prices for their constituents. It’s not only likely to be a losing battle, it’s also political suicide.

So Miller and his group are trying to stop a freight train that is now barreling through Congress.

In the Senate, Harry Reid (D-Nev.)has already introduced legislation, and Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) has a bill circulating in draft form. Insiders also expect Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) to introduce another transmission bill this week. Standing behind the effort to pass transmission law are a collection of strange bedfellows, among them the country’s major utilities and their powerful lobbies, Al Gore’s Repower America campaign, and T. Boone Pickens.

There’s now also money behind the transmission superhighway from America’s Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 – the giant stimulus package President Obama signed into law – that makes billions available to jump-start work on 3,000 miles of new lines.

Environmental advocates, alerted by the work of Miller’s organization, are trying to temper the potential negative impacts of pending transmission law.