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Forbes Breaking News
  • 4 months ago
During a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on Thursday, Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO) questioned Member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission nominee, David LaCerte, about energy grid reliability.
Transcript
00:00Thank you. Senator Hickenlooper. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank both of you for being
00:06willing to subject yourselves to the questions and to your public service.
00:11Ms. Swett, let me start with you. As we discussed yesterday, thank you
00:17both for spending some time and being willing to answer any question, which I
00:21appreciate. As we discussed, Ms. Swett, your experience focuses really on oil and
00:28gas. As you know, FERC's authority goes well beyond oil and gas, as we discussed
00:33to a certain extent. As you, I'm sure, could feel from the direction of my
00:42questions yesterday, regional transmission planning and cost allocation
00:47electricity markets are essential to its most fundamental, I think, some of its
00:53most fundamental statutory responsibility. And as we talked about, the reliability
01:02and the affordability, I think, are the two bulwarks. I could actually ask both of you
01:06this question. Unlike most other places in the world, our grid is regionalized and
01:13doesn't operate under a unified policy. Therefore, the oversight of FERC is
01:18essential. So I, I guess the question would be, how, how can you work to ensure the
01:24electrical liability and affordability through the regional transmission
01:29planning and the, let's just call it the market oversight, the electricity market
01:35oversight?
01:36Thank you for the question, Senator, and I really enjoyed time speaking with you
01:41yesterday. I actually spent over half of my career working for electric utilities and
01:46transmission owners. And given my experience with them, I'm very aware of the
01:52competing interests that go into regional transmission planning. The, the decisions
01:57on the physical grid, also cost allocation planning, taking into account
02:02congestion points and all of the science that goes behind it. And FERC has a
02:07very difficult role as the federal agency tasked with ensuring that all of that is
02:13combined into a just and reasonable rate. So I am confident that if we really put
02:20our heads to it and we can figure out a solution that will ensure that American
02:24consumers pay a just and reasonable rate given all of the factors in front of FERC.
02:29Great, great. Mr. Assert, you want to add anything to that? Senator, thank you and like to
02:36note that's, that's a trillion dollar question. It's one which is not gonna be
02:40solved here in two minutes, but I can tell you that it's something that requires
02:43very intensive discussion with all the stakeholders at the table. And it's a
02:47multifaceted issue, and it's a definitely a challenge facing FERC today and tomorrow.
02:52Great, I appreciate that. And Mr. Assert, I'll stick with you with this question,
02:57which we discussed a little bit yesterday, but I thought about it more. You know, the
03:01interregional transmission helps deliver the lowest cost energy sources from where
03:08they're generated to where electricity is needed. And oftentimes that's reflected
03:13in the cost, you know, where it's more valuable. This committee recently had a
03:18whole hearing trying, looking at how do we meet demand in an efficient way. And we
03:25heard the transmission is going to be clearly needed to address AI boom. That's
03:31called a, for lack of a better thing, an AI boom. So do you agree that transmission
03:36across state lines increases the reliability of the grid, right? In other words,
03:43that the, as we cross state lines, that is one of the best basic methods to
03:49increase reliability. Yeah, I would agree, Senator, that interstate
03:54transmission, when properly planned and executed, will increase the reliability.
03:58Great. And, and then are there reforms in terms of how do we do that? Again, we
04:05touched on this a little bit yesterday. What are the reforms we need to, to the, to
04:14make sure that we do that build out in the appropriate way? Thank you. And I know we
04:19spent some time talking about this yesterday in your office. I think it, we
04:23need to make it easier to do business with the federal government. And by reducing
04:27some of the barriers to entry, by reducing some of the exclusion of the mid and
04:31smaller companies that can do business with the company, we're going to invite
04:34more investors to the table to invest in our grid, invest our infrastructure. And
04:38that's going to pay dividends in both the reliability and the affordability of
04:42our energy systems. Right. And is it your sense that, that we are going to need to
04:46expand our, our, our transmission capacity in order to address the load growth
04:52after, you know, given AI and all the other things that are coming? Senator, it only
04:57makes sense that with increased load growth will require increased transmission. Yes.
05:01Yeah, I think that's basic. Ms. Fred, do you want to add anything to that? Either of those.
05:05Thank you for the question, Senator. As a general premise, and there are, this matter
05:11is under litigation in various stages. However, as a general premise, increasing
05:17the amount of transmission available increases the geographic availability of new
05:23generation to join the grid. As you know, it was high population load centers are not
05:30good places to build increased generation that we need. And if we have more
05:34accessibility across state lines, like you're proposing, then that means that
05:40there is more flexibility for generators to use the specific characteristics of the
05:46land around them, wherever that may make sense for it to be in per the state's
05:49decisions. Exactly. I, I could not ask for, we, we agree. Anyway, I'm out of time as
05:58always. Thank you both again for your willingness to, to serve the country. Thank you.
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