North Plains Connector -- Electrifying North Dakota -- Update -- What's Really Going On? A Trojan Horse? November 9, 2022

This project raises some peculiar questions. Bakken "aficionados" may want to take notice. 

The importance of asking the right question.

Is this the right question: exactly why is this needed?

Link here.

Being developed by Grid United, a Texas-based company.

Parallels I-94, to the south.

The project:

• connects the "eastern grid" with the "western grid"
• the entire western half of the US -- the WECC -- is the western interconnect
• Texas-based Grid United: new operator; followed the power outages of the 2020 Texas winter storm
• that, apparently, was the impetus for this project (link here)
  
• 370 miles long
• a 600 kV high voltage DC (HVDC) transmission line
• origin: southeastern Montana, at Colstrip
• terminus: central North Dakota
• route: parallels I-94, several miles to the south
• no reservation or trust lands involved (Native Americans shut out of revenue)
  
• in the permit approval stage
• permit approval expected in 2025
• could be operational as early as 2028
• $2 billion

Counties:

• Montana: Rosebud, Custer, and Fallon
• North Dakota: Golden Valley, Slope, Hettinger, Grant, Morton

More, link here:

“On the eastern side, there are two RTOs (Regional Transmission Organizations) that manage the eastern grid. One of those is the mid-continent (MISO) and the other is the Southwest Power Pool (SPP). Both of those manage the grid on the eastern side. We have to connect to both of them so the line splits. One goes to a MISO connected to a power plant and the other is going to be a new SPP station where two basin lines cross to create a new substation,”  according to Brant Johnson, the vice president of the North Plains Connector project.

Colstrip power plant, link here:

The Colstrip power plant, consists of 2 active coal-fired generating units capable of producing up to 1,480 Megawatts of electricity.

Units 3 and 4 each have about 740 megawatts of generating capacity; Talen subsidiary, Talen Montana has 30 percent ownership in Unit 3 and no ownership in Unit 4. Talen Montana operates the plant. Units 1 and 2 were retired in January 2020.

Talen Montana’s share in the plant’s generating capacity is approximately 222 Megawatts. The plant is owned by Talen Montana, Puget Sound Energy Inc., Portland General Electric Company, Avista Corporation, PacifiCorp and NorthWestern Energy.

Low-sulfur coal and state-of-the-art scrubbers restrict sulfur dioxide emissions to less than levels required by the Clean Air Act. The plant also meets Environmental Protection Agency standards for nitrogen oxides emission. The plant consistently ranked as one of the lowest-cost fuel plants in the Western Electricity Coordinating Council, a regional member of the North American Electricity Reliability Council that includes all the western states and the Canadian provinces of Alberta and British Columbia.

See wiki for list of coal-fired plants in the US.

• I don't understand why wiki lists only one of the two coal-fired plants at Colstrip?

Question: 

• is this Texas-based company getting the jump on coal-generated electricity at "expense" of all that Bakken natural gas potential? 
• how does this effect North Dakota's existing coal plants; does this put at risk these existing plants?
• is this an effort to "save" Colstrip?
  

Colstrip, link here:

The Colstrip steam electric station (CSES) is a 2,094MW coal-fired power plant located near Colstrip, Rosebud County, Montana, US.

It is operated by Talen Montana, a subsidiary of Talen Energy, which is a privately-owned independent power producer based in Pennsylvania.

The Colstrip power station comprises four coal-fired units commissioned between 1975 and 1986.

The first two units of 307MW capacity each are scheduled for permanent shut down by the beginning of 2020, while the units three and four of 740MW capacity each are expected to be operational at least until 2025.

Colstrip ownership:

The Colstrip units one and two are owned by Talen Energy (50%) and the Washington state energy utility, Puget Sound Energy (PSE, 50%).

Unit three is owned by Talen Energy (30%), PSE (25%), Avista Corporation (15%), Portland General Electric (PGE, 20%), and PacifiCorp (10%).

Talen Energy doesn’t have any ownership interest in the Colstrip unit four, which is owned by the South Dakota-based utility NorthWestern Energy (30%), PSE (25%), PGE (20%), Avista (15%), and PacifiCorp (10%).

The total generating capacity shares held by the six co-owners of the facility are PSE (32%, 677MW), Talen Energy (25.2%, 529MW), PGE (14%, 296MW), Avista (10.6%, 222MW), NorthWestern Energy (10.6%, 222MW), and PacifiCorp (7%, 148MW).

NorthWestern Energy announced that it plans to buy an additional 25% stake in Colstrip unit four from PSE in December 2019. Its total generating capacity at the facility will be increased to 862MW after the acquisition. 

Decommissioning Colstrip:

The six co-owners of the Colstrip power plant were sued by Sierra Club and the Montana Environmental Information Centre for the violation of the US Clean Air Act in 2013.

The plant owners agreed to retire the two older units by 2022 as part of a settlement reached in July 2016.

In June 2019, operator Talen Energy, however, announced its plan to close units one and two by the end of 2019, citing poor economics to operate the units as the reason.

Changing environmental laws and increasing operating costs have also led other co-owners to plan for exiting units four and five as early as 2025, approximately nine years ahead of previous estimates.

The fog is beginning to clear. 

Is this all about "saving Colstrip" at the expense of Bakken natural gas and existing coal-fired plants in North Dakota?

The red flag: "conflating" the Montana-ND grid with the "once-in-a-century" winter storm in Texas.

I'm thinking Trojan Horse. 

Brant Johnson: previous, representative for TransCanada and Keystone pipeline. Link here. Now VP for United Grid. All this needs to be fact-checked.

EarthJustice, October 4, 2022: link here.

Am I completely misreading this?