POWERnews

The Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator (MISO) on Thursday approved 215 new transmission infrastructure projects as part of the grid operator’s Transmission Expansion Plan 2011 (MTEP11). The projects include 17 transmission line projects that are estimated to cost as much as $5.2 billion to manage a “severe drop in planning reserve margins” that MISO has forecast could occur in the next years if pending environmental regulations proceed as planned.

An agreement reached between LS Power and environmental groups on Monday ends a decade-long legal battle, but it will force the company to ditch plans to build the 1,200-MW coal-fired Longleaf Energy Station near Blakey, Ga.; shelve plans for at least five years to build the 665-MW Plum Point II coal-fired plant near Osceola, Ark.; and limit pollution from the 900-MW pulverized Sandy Creek plant in Riesel, Texas.

Rules proposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that could require operators of new and existing boilers burning coal, oil, natural gas, and biomass to install a “maximum achievable control technology (MACT)” and limit air pollutants were revised on Friday to offer more flexibility.

Days after the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) warned in a new assessment that new federal air quality rules could stress the nation’s power grid, the Department of Energy (DOE) released its own report examining the potential impact of two standards on electricity reliability. Those rules would prompt the closure of 29 GW of coal-fired capacity, but they should not create resource adequacy issues or unmanageable reliability challenges, the DOE finds.

A Texas District Court today dismissed two appeals challenging air quality permits granted by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) last December for the 600-MW coal-fired Tenaska Trailblazer Energy Center under development near Sweetwater in Nolan County.

CMS Energy Corp.’s Consumers Energy, which has the oldest fleet of coal plants in the nation, with an average age of 50 years, on Friday said it was immediately abandoning plans to build a $2 billion, 830-MW clean coal plant project near Bay City, Mich., and was planning to suspend operations at seven smaller coal-fired units in 2015.

Texas will be short 2,600 MW during the summer 2012 peak, and reserve margins will dip to 12% owing to decisions to mothball some generation units, several delays in planned generation, and a higher load forecast, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) said on Thursday.

A report unveiled on Monday by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on the future of the smart grid over the next two decades finds that the U.S. grid can stand up to the challenge of integrating electric vehicles as well as new sources of distributed and intermittent power generation—as long as certain policy changes are made.

Last week, as Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) announced he would propose a federal Clean Energy Standard (CES) bill early next year, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) released an impact analysis that examines how such a policy would affect the nation’s power profile and carbon emissions.

Illinois’ Senate on Tuesday revived Tenaska’s plan to build its $3.5 billion Taylorville Energy Center (TEC), a 602-MW integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plant designed to capture more than 50% of its carbon emissions.