Midwestern Governors Association
America's Smartland
This webinar focused on geothermal policy discussions and include the following themes:
1. How States Promote and Incentivize Geothermal
2. Geothermal and the Grid – How Geothermal can Improve Resiliency and Efficiency
Speakers included:
The next MGA MID-GRID 2035 event will be a virtual session taking place on Tuesday, June 20 at 11 am Eastern/10 am Central. Following-up on the foundations built at our event in Chicago in April, this event will highlight specific topics/issues the MGA will focus on as part of our MID-GRID 2035 effort over the next year or so.
More information can be found on www.midwesterngovernors.org/MID-GRID.
The focus of the this webinar is an Introduction to Geothermal and will focus on providing general information about geothermal, including both residential and community scale geothermal.
Confirmed Speakers include:
This virtual MID-GRID 2035 event highlighted the specific topics/issues the MGA will focus on as part of our MID-GRID 2035 effort over the next year or so.
More information can be found on www.midwesterngovernors.org/MID-GRID.
MGA hosted a quarterly virtual meeting for our Communities Impacted by the Energy Transition initiative. This call was an opportunity to get an update from a number of perspectives including the Interagency Work Group (IWG) on on Coal and Power Plant Communities and Economic Revitalization and several initiatives in Midwestern states.
More information can be found on www.midwesterngovernors.org/power-plant-closures
Since the start of the MID-GRID 2035 effort in late 2019, the Midwest has made considerable
progress toward the vision outlined by the states. Regional and interregional transmission
planning is taking place at a scale not before contemplated, and new generation investments
have provided economic development and other benefits. Simultaneously, the region has dealt
with multiple major weather events, grid reliability challenges, increasing costs due to global
economic turmoil and record inflation, and an increasing rate of generation retirements.
As we look back at where MID-GRID 2035 began and now toward where this work will go, the
nature of the challenges and opportunities ahead has shifted and this event will set the stage for
what we hope to tackle in MID-GRID 2035 2.0.
More information can be found on www.midwesterngovernors.org/MID-GRID.
MGA hosted a quarterly virtual meeting for our Communities Impacted by the Energy Transition initiative.
More information can be found on www.midwesterngovernors.org/power-plant-closures
MGA’s Annual Transmission Summit will cover several key Transmission topics, including weatherization and cold weather operations, interregional transmission, and advanced transmission technologies
The MGA will be joined by Whitney Muse, Chief of Staff, Grid Deployment Office, U.S. Department of Energy to discuss structural changes at DOE, including the formation of the Grid Deployment Office (GDO). Attendees will learn about the mission of the GDO, its programs and initiatives, and the offices role in federal legislation include BIL, CHIP, and IRA
The MGA will host Roger Rosenqvist, Vice President of Business Development for Hitachi Energy’s HVDC Division in North America for a webinar about converter stations. High-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission technology has not been deployed widely in the Midwest, compared to alternating current (AC) transmission. This is in part because the equipment needed to manage a DC grid, and to connect the DC and AC grids, has been prohibitively expensive. Today, HVDC technology is gaining traction around the world as power system are modernized and decarbonized. Technological improvements and cost declines in DC-AC converter stations have helped spur deployment. During this webinar, participants will hear from one of the industry’s leading manufacturers of converter stations on the capabilities these assets can offer and how those capabilities can address emerging reliability needs and be part of an optimized transmission grid that meets the MID GRID 2035 vision.
Liz Salerno, Lead, Transmission and Technology Initiatives for Chairman Glick, FERC provided an update on Transmission related topics at FERC. Since we heard from Chairman Glick at last year’s MGA-OMS Transmission Summit, the FERC-NARUC task force has meet multiple times, FERC’s transmission planning NOPR has received comments from stakeholders, and FERC has issues even more proposed rules related to transmission planning and interconnection, just to name of few of the things that FERC has going on that is impacting transmission.
David Townley, Director of Public Policy at CTC Global will present on their work with advanced conductors. CTC Global is a pioneering manufacturer of advanced transmission conductors. CTC’s innovative design enables more power to flow through existing transmission corridors, delivering more efficient and reliable energy to customers than conventional wires do today. MGA participants will have the opportunity to discuss the benefits of advanced conductors, barriers to their broad implementation, and opportunities for states and utilities to explore their use in the Midwest.
MID-GRID 2035 participants will join a discussion of technological and regulatory approaches for maximizing benefits of transmission development for landowners and local communities. Discussion could include opportunities for conducting outreach to engage stakeholders upstream in the process—early and often—especially with groups that have often not been adequately represented in past decisions, including rural residents, communities of color, and sovereign Tribal Nations. Participants will also discuss opportunities for unlocking co-benefits via transmission infrastructure deployment and how transmission planning and siting process can be structured to minimize conflict and broadly support beneficial outcomes for all stakeholders.
Meeting participants will hear from some of the nation’s leading experts on the pathways these changes present in terms of total system cost. As each state and utility makes its own choices around generation resource types and location, there are regional implications for reliability and cost. Presenters will discuss their research findings on potential pathways to a low-carbon energy system, the of various technologies including distributed energy resources, carbon capture and storage, and the transmission system. Presenters will also highlight opportunities for meaningful collaboration amongst Midwestern states with an eye toward a reliable, affordable system that enables various policy goals.
This event to start Gov. Walz’s Chair’s Agenda that focuses on preparing Midwestern communities for power plant closures.
The 10th Annual Transmission Summit focused on how advanced technology is providing new pathways to optimize and unleash the potential of the Midwestern electric grid. Speakers and panelists discussed how this technology will impact planning and operating the system.
A growing number of corporations are setting goals for renewable energy and carbon reduction in their operations and supply chains. In tandem, the nature of these goals is evolving to include “additionality” requirements and sophisticated operational approaches to match load to renewable generation output. Participants heard from a number of companies and industry groups at the center to these trends to gain a deeper understanding of what these corporate customers endeavor to accomplish, how utilities are responding to these customers’ needs and the implications for the region’s electricity system.
To launch Phase 2 of the MID-GRID 2035 initiative, state participants will be joined by additional stakeholders to discuss their collective goals and objectives as they relate to the electric grid of the future. States will discuss work completed to date as part of the initiative and invite stakeholders to share their perspectives on long-term needs and identify additional relevant issues for achieving the MID-GRID 2035 Vision.
To build upon the region’s successes and the MGA’s past efforts on transmission, this meeting brought together a group of state policymakers, utility regulators, industry representatives, NGOs, and academic experts from around the country to participate in substantive, challenging and thought-provoking conversations on the age-old question of how to determine cost causation and beneficiaries of new transmission. In the highly dynamic and technolog-ically evolving electric industry, two key subjects continue to be transmission planning and development as well as the applicable cost allocation and rate recovery design.
This meeting highlighted key themes including grid security, privacy and data access issues the industry is facing today and how they are expected to evolve in the future. Additional topics to be discussed include emerging investment needs for the Bulk Power System and the confluence of regional policy priorities, and how the industry has confronted extreme weather events that have affected parts of the region over the past year.
The Midwest has made steady progress in planning for the transmission needs of the future. Midwestern governors have been actively engaged in this process to ensure collaboration and progress among the many regional stakeholders. To build upon the region’s successes and the MGA’s past efforts on transmission, this meeting focused on the challenges of integrating grid scale wind, solar and new technologies into the Midwestern grid.
The MGA hopes for a rich discussion of not only what is happening in grid modernization in the Midwest, but also what should states and stakeholders be on the lookout for, as technology, customer choice and changing electricity demand continue to disrupt the traditional framework of our electric distribution system.
This summit served as a capstone event and highlight what makes the Midwest great—the ways we are adapting education and workforce training, infrastructure, energy and quality of life assets to navigate and emerge stronger from the coming wave of disruption that emerging technologies will inevitably bring.
The goal of the project is to help states better understand the issues surrounding the fast-changing nature of the electric sector including pressures on the existing business utility model as more distributed generation and customer choice impact the traditional model.
As part of Gov. Scott Walker’s agenda as MGA chair, the MGA will focus on promoting the economic, recreational, and tourism benefits of the regions’ forests.
