And this is why, even if it became the first state to adopt an anti-renewable portfolio standard, Louisiana isn’t out of the woods from its energy policy being affected in negative ways by other states’ faith in the existence of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.
This summer, the state passed a law that essentially made it state policy to pursue the most reliable and inexpensive energy as possible. By doing so, it disallowed the Public Service Commission if it ever desired to do so from trying to impose an RPS on power utilities operating in the state. An RPS would force production of that power through the use of renewable resources to reach a certain proportion of all produced. Almost half of states have one, and in some the eventual target as early as 2040 is 100 percent.
As the higher the proportion of renewable sources reaches the more average expense is attached to that production for consumers, because of both the technology required and the vastly higher degree of production unreliability endemic to relying on renewable resources, Louisiana’s new law guards against consumers having to bear this burden just to kowtow to the myth of CAGW that increased renewable sourcing theoretically alleviates. But, as a recent incident illustrates, state boundaries can’t stop foisting the unneeded RPS costs onto ratepayers’ power suppliers not even subject to an RPS.
Earlier this summer, the LPSC along with the public utility commissions of four other states all of whom have power suppliers part of the Midcontinent Independent Systems Organization petitioned the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to prevent MISO from passing along costs to their consumers concerning a $22 billion infrastructure project known as Tranche 2.1. This portfolio of 24 projects in the northern portion of MISO territory without this complaint succeeding could have its cost apportioned throughout the entire system, although currently the plan is to limit that to the Midwest where the transmission lines will be built.
In order to allow for apportioning costs to all member utilities, the portfolio benefits must exceed costs. But the legally-mandated monitor reviewing the justification gigged MISO for faulty assumptions, related to the fact that the power to be brought into the system through building these lines would come in part from renewable sources that must account for intermittency, from providers in states with an RPS. That is, the cost to bring that power in is much higher because of its far greater degree of intermittency, but that was downplayed in the calculations. Proper calculations, the monitor concluded, would reduce the expected benefit dramatically, making the portfolio ineligible for cost-sharing.
FERC already has ruled that MISO cannot discount the monitor’s oversight, and hopefully it will rule that MISO only can apportion the costs to providers, thus to their ratepayers only, operating in states forcing them to use more renewable sources because of an RPS. But there’s no guarantee that will happen, although with Republican Pres. Donald Trump making new appointments to it, including former Louisiana Secretary of Veterans Affairs David LaCerte, it is expected to take a more realistic and critical view of the role of renewable resources in energy provision.
Still, a future scenario could occur where a less-ambitious foray into the use of renewable sources even if calculated realistically could leave a project on the plus side and therefore legally could be apportioned out to ratepayers in Louisiana, making Louisianans pay for others’ needless CAGW hysteria. That this may happen speaks to the structure of MISO and similar regional transmission organizations under the law.
That possibility lends fuel to the fire for Louisiana providers to leave MISO and the other RTO in the state the Southwest Power Pool in favor of the Southeast Energy Exchange Market, which isn’t an RTO and can’t force unnecessary costs onto ratepayers. While they can’t be ordered to do this, surely the LPSC can use regulatory incentives and disincentives to push them out of MISO of SPP and into SEEM, to ratepayers’ benefit.
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