Category — Planning & Development

On February 7, 2011, the Department of Energy (“DOE”) and Department of the Interior (“Interior”) announced a joint strategic plan entitled the National Offshore Wind Strategy: Creating an Offshore Wind Industry in the United States in order to accelerate the deployment of offshore wind and decrease cost.  The new plan aims to deploy ten gigawatts of offshore wind capacity by 2020 and fifty-four gigawatts by 2030.  This new plan will fund $50.5 million in offshore wind projects and designate several high priority Wind Energy Areas. [Read more →]

On January 31, 2011, several parties submitted formal protest to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or “Commission”) opposing the Atlantic Wind Connection (“AWC”) project request for incentive rate treatment which included a 13.58 percent return on equity (“ROE”).  Notably a large group of PJM Interconnection, L.L.C (“PJM”) transmission owners (“PJM Transmission Owners”) asked FERC to reject the AWC petition and direct the project to follow the Regional Transmission Expansion Plan (“RTEP”) for PJM. [Read more →]

On November 1, 2010, Exelon Corporation (“Exelon”), American Electric Power (“AEP”), and Electric Transmission American (“ETA”) announced the companies will partner to build a new transmission line dubbed the Reliability Interregional Transmission Extension (“RITE Line”).  The new project will construct 420 miles of extra high-voltage lines from Illinois to the border between Indiana and Ohio. [Read more →]

On October 20, 2010, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (“NERC”) released its 2010 Long-Term Reliability Assessment. The annual ten-year reliability assessment evaluates the bulk power system, and it identifies new trends and areas of concern. [Read more →]

Search engine giant Google has announced plans to invest in a clean energy “superhighway” off the Mid-Atlantic coast to help accelerate offshore wind energy development.  [Read more →]