As Louisiana’s elected regulators on the New Orleans City Council (CNO) and the Louisiana Public Service Commission (LPSC) continue their work to understand what led to the May 25th load shed event in New Orleans, and other load shed events in North Louisiana, it has become increasingly clear that these outages could likely have been avoided with greater investment in regional transmission.
“There has been a great deal of confusion around what led to the need for these load shed events, but what is crucial to understand is that the problem here is not MISO or SPP – these events are the result of decades of resisting transmission planning and interconnection to protect utility profits,” said Logan Burke, AAE’s Executive Director.
While approval for planning and development of transmission lies with our elected regulators, other state officials are taking notice of the challenges we face in terms of grid reliability, affordability, and sustainability. One such example is Senate Concurrent Resolution 22, introduced by Senator Royce Duplessis of New Orleans.
“We need our state and local regulators to act decisively and stop the finger-pointing,” said Yvonne Cappel-Vickery, AAE’s Clean Energy Grid Manager. “We applaud Senator Duplessis for identifying the solution here: we need Louisiana regulators and utilities to stop standing in the way of regional transmission planning and interconnection.”
SCR22 urges and requests that the LPSC, the Louisiana Department of Energy & Natural Resources (LDENR), and the Boards of Directors for the Midcontinent Independent Systems Operator (MISO) and the Southwest Power Pool (SPP) work together to adopt enhanced regional transmission planning processes that would ensure long-term national security, grid reliability, and resilience. Expanding transmission capacity between MISO North and South, and better integrating Northwest Louisiana with SPP would bring down costs for customers, enhance grid reliability and security, and would mitigate the need for load shed events going forward.
“For years, Louisiana’s regulators have followed the lead of the investor-owned utilities and their consultants, who would rather insulate themselves from competition at their customers’ expense,” said Cappel-Vickery. “The Louisiana Legislature should pass SCR22 to make clear that we cannot afford to continue with business as usual – our regulators need to show real leadership, and demand the utilities work with MISO and SPP on regional transmission planning.”
Contact: Emma Meyerkopf, Communication Manager, 504-229-4643, emma@all4energy.org
