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DOE Grants Eastern Interconnection State Grid Planning Group $14 Million

WASHINGTON—A coalition of State utility regulators and representatives of Governors' offices within the Eastern Interconnection received a $14 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy on June 29 to form a broad transmission study entity.

The funding allows participants of the Eastern Interconnection States' Planning Council (EISPC) to formally begin its efforts towards studying potential transmission development for the entire interconnection. EISPC consists of the 39 States and the District of Columbia that are located either entirely or partially within the Eastern Interconnection.

Congress made the funding available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which authorized the Energy Department to distribute grants for the formation of two entities that will attempt to study large-scale transmission needs for the interconnection. Aside from EISPC, an industry based Eastern Interconnection Planning Collaborative consisting of made up of utilities and transmission operators also won DOE funding.

With the $14 million grant, EISPC can now begin holding its meetings and deliberative processes. The entity tapped the National Regulatory Research Institute to provide substantive staff expertise and the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners for administrative and logistical support.

"State utility commissioners are fully committed to the EISPC process," said NARUC President David Coen of Vermont. "Transmission studies are a ground-up, regional practice by nature, but we believe that taking a broader, interconnection-wide view will provide important insights as we update the electricity grid. We thank the Energy Department for recognizing the critical role State regulators and policymakers play in planning our nation's utility infrastructure."

"On behalf of EISPC, we are grateful that DOE has made this funding available," said EISPC President Lauren Azar of the Wisconsin Public Service Commission and Vice President Douglas Nazarian of the Maryland Public Service Commission. "State commissioners have been working cooperatively on regional transmission issues for decades, but we hope this process will give all of us a better roadmap for expanding the system. We also hope that Congress gives us the time we need to make this effort successful. This will not happen overnight. Any dramatic shift by Congress to the current balance between State and federal jurisdiction over transmission development will undermine these just-initiated planning efforts."

NARUC is a non-profit organization founded in 1889 whose members include the governmental agencies that are engaged in the regulation of utilities and carriers in the fifty States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. NARUC's member agencies regulate telecommunications, energy, and water utilities. NARUC represents the interests of State public utility commissions before the three branches of the Federal government.