Panel Discussion on FERC Order 1000 Informative

"Our electricity supply is changing, like it or not, there is a role for government policies that take these changes into account, including FERC's recent transmission planning and cost allocation rule."  Joe Kelliher, Executive Vice President of NextEra Energy and former Chair of FERC from 2005-2009 during his presentation our panel discussion, Transmission Reform:  What Does It Mean for Renewables?

Yesterday’s panel discussion was a huge success.  Our panelists did an amazing job of pointing our how they believe last weeks FERC rulemaking will affect their industry.

Bill White, the well respected leader in clean energy  from the Energy Future Coalition, did a brilliant job of outlining  the main provisions of the FERC ruling. 

Joe Kelliher, former Chair of FERC under the George W Bush Administration and currently Executive Vice President for Federal Regulatory Affairs of NextEra Energy, laid out the broader implications of how this FERC ruling on regional cost sharing will change the picture for wind developers and the renewable industry by ensuring a more balanced and fair cost allocation for the building of transmission lines.

Joe was followed by Nina Plaushin, Vice President of Federal and Legislative Affairs at  ITC Holdings.  ITC Holdings is one of the largest transmission developers in the country and Nina pointed out how this ruling will create a new framework where interstate, regional, and interregional transmission projects may be fully considered and then linked to cost allocation authority.  In the future, this new framework should allow large scale transmission proposals to receive a fair evaluation that accounts for all of the benefits they generate for an entire region.

Tom Vinson, Director of Regulatory Affairs at American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) pointed out how wind’s phenomenal growth will be positively impacted by the FERC ruling. This FERC ruling should result in more reasonable costs for building new transmission lines enabling wind and other renewable resources to take a far larger share of the energy market.

Michael Moynihan, Director of our Clean Energy Initiative, gave an overall perspective of the positive effects of this FERC ruling on the renewable industry. 

This panel, the third in our Clean Energy Solutions Series, will be followed this September by a panel on the Deployment of Large Scale Renewable Energy in September.  We will not have any panels during the month of August.