The board of directors of the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) issued a statement showing its approval of more than 350 transmission projects — representing an investment of $2.6 billion — as part of the 2017 MISO Transmission Expansion Plan (MTE) aimed at improving energy access and reliability.
The regional transmission organization said that the extensive upgrades were deemed necessary to
Seeing a need to examine the issue of grid resilience more “holistically,” the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has rejected a proposal from Rick Perry, secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), under which owners and operators of nuclear and coal-fired generating facilities would be eligible for a rate adder to account for their role in offering an extra level of protection and dependability to the nation’s electric grid.
A federal appellate court has determined that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) had been issuing certain California electric utility transmission rate decisions in a rote or routine manner without adequate reasoning to back them up.
The New York Public Service Commission has approved an electric utility’s proposal to include public housing residents as well as tenants in master-metered apartment buildings in the utility’s program offering summertime cash rebates to those customers who permit the utility, Consolidated Edison Company of New York (ConEd), to remotely control their room air conditioners (ACs) during brief periods of high demand for electricity.
Entire Economy Pays Price
This past year three hurricanes affected an area which encompassed about eight percent of the U.S. population. According to an article by Joel Achenbach in The Washington Post, dated November 19, 2017, “Disaster claims soar in year of calamities: Federal resources stretched as applications for aid rise tenfold,” these three storms contributed to a year of “record setting disasters.”
4.7 million Americans registered for FEMA aid compared to four hundred eighty thousand in 2016, and an average of a hundred and eighty thousand for the previous three years.
Pendulum Swings Again