Wires For The Southeast Face Controversy

Southeast market set to shake up renewables in 12 states

Miranda Willson, October 13, 2022 (E&E News Energy Wire)

“An electricity market in the Southeast aimed at supporting renewables and lowering energy costs is set to launch next month, despite a pending lawsuit challenging the program and disagreement over how it would affect clean power…[Proposed by 23 utilities in the South including Southern Co., the Tennessee Valley Authority, Duke Energy Corp. that collectively serve nearly 60 million people,] the Southeast Energy Exchange Market (SEEM) is a first-of-its-kind electricity trading program that would affect customers in 12 states. It will commence operations Nov. 9…

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…[P]articipating utilities will be able to buy and sell power within the region and to and from the Midwest at times of day close to when energy is consumed…[The framework would it easier to trade solar and wind] when it’s available…[But] clean energy advocates maintain that the trading platform could limit renewable energy development by discriminating against small clean energy developers. In a pending lawsuit before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, advocacy groups are asking the court to review FERC’s approval of the initiative…

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…[Ari Peskoe, director of the Harvard Law School Electricity Law Initiative,] argued that FERC’s approval of SEEM went against the commission’s general policy concerning] the idea that utilities cannot bar competing companies from accessing transmission resources…SEEM utility sponsors maintain that any entity that is eligible to participate in the existing power market in the region would be able to buy and sell electricity under the new framework…FERC commissioners do not agree on the benefits of the exchange market…” click here for more

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