TEXAS TRANSMISSION SHENANIGANS

Hill Country Electric Lines Spark New Power Struggle; Sen. Fraser, FPL & LCRA Press the Public Utility Commission
September 145, 2010 (Lobby Watch/Texans for Public Justice)

"…[T]he Public Utility Commission (PUC) could axe two massive transmission-line proposals to help move electricity from windy West Texas to big cities in the Eastern half of the state. How Governor Rick Perry’s PUC appointees handle the matter could free up—or bottle up—huge amounts of clean wind power. It also could save—or cost—ratepayers hundreds of millions of dollars.

"The PUC awarded a staggering $5 billion in contracts to utilities in March 2009 to build a 2,300-mile network of high-powered transmission lines…Utilities will bankroll the projects and recover their investments from ratepayers. The PUC awarded $750 million in transmission contracts to the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA), a public utility also governed by Perry appointees. The LCRA provides power and water to the Hill Country, which is becoming the third rail of transmission-line politics. Wealthy landowners in that area have mobilized unanticipated surges of resistance to building hulking power towers across their scenic horizons…Under pressure, the PUC repeatedly postponed action…"

click to enlarge

"Lobby Watch previously reported that [Republican Senator Troy Fraser] received $11,000 from FPL’s PAC and 15 company executives on a single day in 2008. Fraser later reported receiving another same-day FPL bundle worth $10,500 this January. FPL supplied almost one out of every 10 donations that the Fraser campaign received in the first half of 2010 (accounting for 4 percent of the money Fraser raised in that period).

"Many people who have not received thousands of dollars from FPL also would love to plug into West Texas winds without spending a fortune to erect menacing towers over some of Texas’ prettiest countryside…The viability of the FPL line may turn on two key questions…[1] To what extent does it have technical capabilities comparable to the [proposed line, and]…what would FPL charge to integrate its proprietary line into the Texas grid?"

click to enlarge

"FPL’s NextEra Energy operates the 747-megawatt Horse Hollow wind farm West of Abilene. As with the $5 billion grid proposed by the PUC, Texas power lines typically are built by regulated transmission companies, which can pass their costs on to ratepayers and exercise powers of eminent domain. In a maverick move, wholesaler FPL built its own 200-mile, high-voltage line to connect Horse Hollow to the grid outside San Antonio. Unable to condemn land, FPL reportedly paid some owners top dollar for the right to cross their land…On the map, FPL’s line looks like a close geographic proxy for the southeasterly half of LCRA’s [proposed two 345-kilovolt lines]…

"LCRA estimates that it will cost $275 million…FPL estimated that it would cost $146 million to $211 million to upgrade its private line. Yet these estimates exclude a huge cost: The price that FPL would demand to incorporate its line into the Texas grid…[E]ven experts sympathetic to this FPL substitution said that retrofitting the line would postpone for perhaps three to five years the politically painful problem of where to erect bigger power towers in the Hill Country…Clean-energy advocates…want to push the lines all the way…[and] develop the state’s most promising solar region…With state unemployment hitting 8.2 percent, this is the time to put Texans to work building critical, long-term infrastructure. Hill Country landowners and their elected representatives have every right to protest…[but] the PUC commissioners are charged with drawing lines in the sand that can deliver loads of clean wind power to market…"