POWER SHORT?
Report urges more involvement by green companies
Large U.S. companies are adding renewable energy to their power profiles at an impressive pace.
But a report issued this month by the Wind Solar Alliance (formerly known as U.S. Wind Energy Foundation) states that trend likely won’t continue unless those companies step up their involvement in the planning and execution of projects to add more transmission lines to the nation’s energy grid.
The report, titled “Corporate Renewable Procurement and Transmission Planning: Communicating Demand to RTOs May Yield More Low-cost Options,” states an alliance of more than 100 U.S. firms called the Renewable Energy Buyers Alliance has supported the development of about 13 gigawatts of renewable energy during the past five years.
However, the report also notes the alliance’s goal was to have supported an
additional 60 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity by 2025. It predicts that will be difficult to achieve without significant improvements to the nation’s electrical grid.
“Companies buying affordable clean energy today are benefiting from yesterday’s transmission plans,” John Kostyack, executive director of the Wind Solar Alliance, stated in a release issued about the report.
“To meet their sustainability targets for the next decade and to make low-cost renewable power accessible for themselves and other customers, they need to join efforts to jump-start a new era of transmission planning.”
How it works
Companies typically support renewable projects by entering into power purchase agreements with renewable energy developers that provide up-front cash to help get the projects built. In return, the companies
get locked-in energy prices and are able to tell their investors they are adding renewable energy to the nation’s grid.
Oklahomans began hearing about such agreements in 2008, when the University of Oklahoma committed to using 100 percent renewable power by 2013 in a deal it made with Oklahoma Gas and Electric Co.
The agreement helped pay for the utility to build the OU Spirit wind farm near Woodward.
Google has entered into numerous power purchase agreements that helped build nearly 1,700 megawatts of renewable wind energy in Oklahoma and elsewhere as part of its plan to support its power consumption needs entirely with renewable energy inputs.
And Kimberly-Clark entered into power purchase agreements offered by EDF Renewable Energy for its Rock Falls Wind Project, which was built in Kay and Grant counties northwest of Blackwell.
Many other examples exist.
Building wind and solar farms is one, thing, however. Getting that power from those projects onto
the grid is something else.
Some major consumers, including Walmart, are active supporters of renewable energy projects and transmission plans needed to get the power into the grid.
Walmart routinely involves itself as an intervening party in cases before state regulators, and also belongs to the Southwest Power Pool, something the Wind Solar Alliance report notes.
The Southwest Power Pool is a regional transmission organization that helps member power generators and distributors operate the portion of the nation’s Eastern Interconnect that covers the Great Plains from Oklahoma north to the U.S.-Canadian line.
A Walmart spokesman said Thursday the company recently has entered into power purchase agreements that support two new large-scale wind farms in South Dakota, three other utility-scale farms in Illinois and Indiana and a wind farm in Texas.
He said Walmart’s recent activities are helping to provide more than 1.6 billion kilowatt-hours
of renewable energy into the grid annually, which is enough power to supply electricity to more than 139,000 homes.
Walmart officials have said increased renewable energy use benefits everyone.
“Walmart works to deliver on our mission to save our customers money so they can live better, and does so through focusing on the operational success of our stores and cost-effective procurement of renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies,” Steve Chriss, director of energy and strategy analysis for Walmart, said. “The development of renewable energy and associated infrastructure creates a secure electrical grid, economic opportunity and jobs.”
Shorted plans?
New transmission lines have been added in Oklahoma by Oklahoma Gas and Electric Co. and Western Farmers Electric Cooperative to help get power from renewable energy projects onto the grid.
But other proposed projects, particularly ones outside of western Oklahoma, haven’t fared well.
A line hundreds of miles in length that Public Service Co. of Oklahoma and Southwestern Electric Power had proposed as part of the Wind Catcher Energy Connection project was dropped earlier this year.
And Clean Line Energy Partners tried for years to develop a 720-mile line to carry at least 3,500 megawatts of renewable energy from the Panhandle across Oklahoma and Arkansas to the Tennessee Valley Authority. It dropped that plan in January.
There are other proposed projects out there that could help, such as TransGrid-X 2030.
Developed by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Lab, TransGrid-X proposes building a new network of high-voltage, direct-current transmission lines that would overlay the nation’s major grids and would be capable of sending energy to all areas of the Lower 48, on demand.
Backers say the proposal would bypass roadblocks in moving power from one regional grid to another, which could benefit consumers that pay more for power on the East and West coasts.
Additionally, it could lead to future retirements of up to 290 gigawatts of existing coal-powered and nuclear-generated electrical capacity in favor of the addition of 600 gigawatts of renewable generation, about 60 percent of which would be wind.
Loyd Drain, an Oklahoma-based renewable energy consultant who helped work on the plan, said it also could generate $1 billion of economic benefits through new construction in just 20 years, plus provide energy costs savings to much of the country.
Drain said he and other plan backers continue to scheme ways to get state, regional and federal regulators supportive of the plan, and agreed corporate support would help.
“The road map is there; it is laying out right in front of us,” he said.
“We are going to continue to see progress, but in order to really take advantage of the wind and solar resources Oklahoma and other states have, we have got to have that new construction.”