By Tom Kleckner
Clean Line Energy Partners has filed a rehearing request with the Missouri Public Service Commission, which earlier this month rejected the company’s request for a certificate of convenience and necessity for a portion of its $2.3 billion Grain Belt Express transmission project.
The company said Friday the request is a procedural step necessary to preserve the right to appeal the PSC’s decision to the state courts. It is one of several options Clean Line mulled over following the PSC’s second rejection in three years. (See Clean Line Ponders Options After Grain Belt Rejection.)
“Clean Line continues to believe that the Grain Belt Express project is too important not to pursue and is therefore exploring many options to move the project forward,” Clean Line spokesperson Sarah Bray told RTO Insider. “The Grain Belt Express would be the largest clean energy infrastructure project in Missouri’s history and would save Missouri ratepayers more than $10 million annually.”
Four of the commission’s five members said in a concurring opinion Aug. 16 that the project is needed, economically feasible and beneficial to the public. However, they referenced a March state appeals court ruling on an unrelated case involving Ameren Transmission Company of Illinois, which found that infrastructure projects must first secure approvals from each county it crosses.
The project developers said the PSC’s decision that it could not “lawfully issue a CCN” until they could prove they had obtained the necessary county assents was in error. In their filing, they asserted the appeals court ruling interprets a statutory provision that was never invoked in and is not relevant to this case, and that “there are particular legal and factual distinctions” between the two cases.
“The commission’s findings of fact and conclusions of law are not supported by substantial and competent evidence on the record as a whole and are grounded in legal error,” the filing contends.
Clean Line was unable to gain permission to construct the line through Caldwell County. However, the project has approvals from all other Missouri counties and from the neighboring states of Kansas and Illinois.
The project would deliver approximately 4,000 MW of wind power from western Kansas through Missouri and Illinois to the Indiana border over 780 miles of HVDC lines. Clean Line expects the Grain Belt Express to enable about $7 billion of new, renewable energy projects to be built.
