The Fight

Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Q&A

How to Find Consensus to Build More Transmission

A conversation with Cici Vu and Morgan Putnam of DNV Energy Systems

Cici Vu and Morgan Putnam
Heatmap Illustration

Today we’re speaking with Cici Vu and Morgan Putnam from DNV Energy Systems, who helped craft a must-read report out this week on community relations in transmission with Americans for Clean Energy Grid (ACEG). Their report compiles findings of a roundtable with environmentalists, Indigenous rights activists, developers, and individual land owners, and finds transmission can fare better than solar and wind in this current political climate – and that community benefit agreements can be helpful for getting projects across the finish line. But some issues divided the roundtable, including how to structure labor benefits to ensure lots of people get job opportunities from transmission.

The following is a lightly edited and abridged version of our conversation:

Jael: Can you walk me through what you and ACEG found as a part of your research?

Morgan: ACEG identify – like you have – that there is a realness to the community opposition that can arise with these projects. While there are clearly cases of money being spent to augment that, it doesn’t mean the opposition isn’t present. ACEG’s interest was to help make meaningful progress on this issue and figure out how we can do better to accelerate the rate at which we develop transmission. As the report calls out early on, development really proceeds at the pace of trust within a community.

Cici: There are a lot of reports out there on best practices. There are 1,500-page reports on desktop research and lots of interviews and so forth. But I think ACEG hit the nail on the head by bringing in the voices at the same table. With my expertise in mediation, we were able to do that. The recruiting of all the voices helped make the report more inclusive, and more comprehensive and more holistic in viewpoints and perspectives.

The other thing that was really important was bridging the technical aspects of these large infrastructure projects that are so complex that communities don’t understand [them.] Being able to bring the large complexities of these projects – transmission, in this case – and community needs and interest, and being able to translate and interpret and be able to talk to one another, is a core piece of this report.

The tool that gets us there is these community benefits agreements, project work agreements. And they only work well and are effective if they are co-developed with the voices, the developers, the landowners, the host communities alike.

Jael: Did you feel there was a need for a consensus on best practices for community engagement?

Cici: It’s a differentiator. It’s one of the reasons we’re doing this.

We all recognize the needs of load growth demand. But to most effectively advance some of these best practices and make them actionable, these trusted voices have to discuss and agree. Or not agree – because we have a non-consensus segment as well where there were issues that did not meet consensus. When that happened, we made a recommendation to continue the discussion toward consensus.

Jael: What issues were most difficult to find consensus on and why?

Cici: The big piece of tension was how would these projects treat workforce development [and] bring in a local workforce while balancing the needs of labor,because labor has the skills. For instance, one of the issues was that local workforces need to be up-skilled in a way that is much more structured and systematic because there are safety issues in climbing a pole and doing electrification and things like that.

Jael: At a high level, are we seeing a similar broad backlash to transmission like what we’re seeing in specific communities with solar and wind?

Morgan: No, we’re not. It could happen. But those types of things you’re referencing are not yet occurring in transmission. I think it is less likely but not impossible, because–

Jael: What about Grain Belt Express or what’s happened around Piedmont? Do those situations give you any pause?

Morgan: So Grain Belt I think a little bit but it’s in a different category in my mind. Grain Belt is a specific project and, well, just look at the MISO region where that project sits. MISO’s moving forward with a lot of transmission. That project is but one project and it is being developed by an independent transmission developer that has… I think they face additional hurdles at times by virtue of their independence.

Having said that, I think the earlier statement still applies to all transmission. It’s about trust. It’s something where I think if you have the trust and support of the communities, you’re going to be able to move the projects forward.

Cici: We’ve seen a lot of momentum in favor of longer term regional planning of transmission. We haven’t seen as much attention on the triggering words we see with solar, or wind, and the incoming administration for transmission. And we also have a lot of the load demand, which is data centers.

We’re all crossing our fingers with the incoming administration. It’s so unpredictable.

This article is exclusively
for Heatmap Plus subscribers.

Go deeper inside the politics, projects, and personalities
shaping the energy transition.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
or
Please enter an email address
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Hotspots

Judge, Siding With Trump, Saves Solar From NEPA

And more on the week’s biggest conflicts around renewable energy projects.

The United States.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

1. Jackson County, Kansas – A judge has rejected a Hail Mary lawsuit to kill a single solar farm over it benefiting from the Inflation Reduction Act, siding with arguments from a somewhat unexpected source — the Trump administration’s Justice Department — which argued that projects qualifying for tax credits do not require federal environmental reviews.

  • We previously reported that this lawsuit filed by frustrated Kansans targeted implementation of the IRA when it first was filed in February. That was true then, but afterwards an amended complaint was filed that focused entirely on the solar farm at the heart of the case: NextEra’s Jeffrey Solar. The case focuses now on whether Jeffrey benefiting from IRA credits means it should’ve gotten reviewed under the National Environmental Policy Act.
  • Perhaps surprisingly to some, the Trump Justice Department argued against these NEPA reviews – a posture that jibes with the administration’s approach to streamlining the overall environmental analysis process but works in favor of companies using IRA credits.
  • In a ruling that came down on Tuesday, District Judge Holly Teeter ruled the landowners lacked standing to sue because “there is a mismatch between their environmental concerns tied to construction of the Jeffrey Solar Project and the tax credits and regulations,” and they did not “plausibly allege the substantial federal control and responsibility necessary to trigger NEPA review.”
  • “Plaintiffs’ claims, arguments, and requested relief have been difficult to analyze,” Teeter wrote in her opinion. “They are trying to use the procedural requirements of NEPA as a roadblock because they do not like what Congress has chosen to incentivize and what regulations Jackson County is considering. But those challenges must be made to the legislative branch, not to the judiciary.”

2. Portage County, Wisconsin – The largest solar project in the Badger State is now one step closer to construction after settling with environmentalists concerned about impacts to the Greater Prairie Chicken, an imperiled bird species beloved in wildlife conservation circles.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow
Spotlight

Renewables Swept Up in Data Center Backlash

Just look at Virginia.

A data center.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Solar and wind projects are getting swept up in the blowback to data center construction, presenting a risk to renewable energy companies who are hoping to ride the rise of AI in an otherwise difficult moment for the industry.

The American data center boom is going to demand an enormous amount of electricity and renewables developers believe much of it will come from solar and wind. But while these types of energy generation may be more easily constructed than, say, a fossil power plant, it doesn’t necessarily mean a connection to a data center will make a renewable project more popular. Not to mention data centers in rural areas face complaints that overlap with prominent arguments against solar and wind – like noise and impacts to water and farmland – which is leading to unfavorable outcomes for renewable energy developers more broadly when a community turns against a data center.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow
Q&A

How the Wind Industry Can Fight Back

A conversation with Chris Moyer of Echo Communications

The Q&A subject.
Heatmap Illustration

Today’s conversation is with Chris Moyer of Echo Communications, a D.C.-based communications firm that focuses on defending zero- and low-carbon energy and federal investments in climate action. Moyer, a veteran communications adviser who previously worked on Capitol Hill, has some hot takes as of late about how he believes industry and political leaders have in his view failed to properly rebut attacks on solar and wind energy, in addition to the Inflation Reduction Act. On Tuesday he sent an email blast out to his listserv – which I am on – that boldly declared: “The Wind Industry’s Strategy is Failing.”

Of course after getting that email, it shouldn’t surprise readers of The Fight to hear I had to understand what he meant by that, and share it with all of you. So here goes. The following conversation has been abridged and lightly edited for clarity.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow