Renewable energy vs. the electric grid - Solar, Wind and Land: Conflicts in Renewable Energy Development - page 155

conflicts.28 28 According to the group's materials, these hubs were identified
“for purposes of evaluating interstate transmission lines in future phases of
the initiative.” 29
Although efforts like the Western Renewable Energy Zone Initiative
are laudable, they will never fully resolve interstate transmission siting
difficulties because they do not consolidate the authority to fully approve
multistate lines. Accordingly, some states have initiated discussions about
going one step further and signing interstate compacts to create contractual
one-stop siting approval systems. 30 At least one FERC commissioner has
expressed support for this approach, which envisions using an interstate
agreement to vest a single entity with the authority to approve all interstate
transmission siting proposals confined within states that are signatories to
the agreement. 31 Interstate compacts could eventually be an effective means
of facilitating the interstate transmission build-out necessary to utilize the
United States' vast supply of wind energy resources. Of course, the devel-
opment of this innovative policy strategy is still in its embryonic stages and
could face numerous political and other obstacles of its own.
Chickens, eggs, and “open season” siting schemes
In addition to the regulatory headaches just described, transmission
planning in remote areas can also sometimes suffer from a classic chicken-
and-egg problem: big wind and solar projects are only installed where there
is adequate transmission capacity, but such capacity typically exists only
where there are energy projects ready to use it. Developers of utility-scale
renewable energy projects are hesitant to invest money in rural project
sites that lack adequate grid access. At the same time, public utilities are
hesitant to pursue new transmission projects in remote areas without high
confidence that major wind or solar energy projects that would use them
will be built there in the near future. 32 This unusual dynamic can also be an
impediment to the build-out of transmission lines needed to fully support
utility-scale renewable energy development in some countries.
Regulators in some nations of the world have used an “open season”
siting scheme to address this chicken-and-egg problem and promote more
optimal high-voltage transmission siting for renewable power. For example,
the Bonneville Power Authority (BPA), which operates in the northwest
United States, commenced such an open season program in 2008. Over
an approximately three-month period, entities in that region were invited
to submit requests for new high-voltage transmission capacity in whatever
specific locations they desired. 33 All entities submitting such requests
were required to commit in advance to actually purchase transmission
capacity along any routes they had proposed if those lines were ultimately
constructed.
The BPA's open season program enabled the agency to quickly gather a
vast amount of high-quality information about which transmission projects