The Transmission Expansion Era w/ John Hairston

Public Power Underground

John Hairston returns to discuss what BPA is doing to navigate an era of transmission expansion for the grid.

John Hairston, the CEO and Administrator of the Bonneville Power Administration, shares his enthusiasm for transmission and people in an interview with Paul Dockery and Crystal Ball. The interview is wrapped in informative discussion on energy industry news, research, and reflection by Ahlmahz Negash, Conleigh Byers, Farhad Billimoria, and Paul Dockery.

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01:36 - How transmission is addressed in seminal texts

• Power System Economics: Designing Markets for Electricity by Steven Stoft
• Imperfect Markets and Imperfect Regulation: An Introduction to the Microeconomics and Political Economy of Power Markets by Thomas-Olivier Léautier

05:23 - Short-to-Ground; a segment where we blow a fuse covering the news.

• Wednesday February 28th the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission hosted the eighth public meeting of the Joint Federal-State Task Force on Electric Transmission
• Rob Gramlich and his team at GridStrategies released a report in February titled “Fostering collaboration would help build needed transmission”
• Utility Dive published an opinion piece by Will Kenworthy and Boratha Tan titled “Advancing energy justice: A new paradigm in grid equity and reliability analysis”
• The Bonneville Power Administration identified 14 new transmission projects costing an estimated $3.9 billion in its 2023 TSR Study and Expansion Process
• The Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC or Commission) has released a draft determination on a 'flexible trading' rule
• The Western Transmission Expansion Coalition announced the members of its Regional Engagement Committee
• Spot market power in the U.S.
• Wholesale spot prices for the National Electricity Market (NEM)
• Energy Information Administration’s Natural Gas Weekly Update

17:17 - John Hairston’s interview with special-correspondent Crystal Ball

41:00 - John Hairston’s analogy; the electric system is like golf
45:24 - Crystal Ball’s analogy; the electric sector is evolving like the eras of Taylor Swift
1:17:33 - Updating our priors

• Risanger, Simon, and Jacob Mays. "Congestion risk, transmission rights, and investment equilibria in electricity markets." The Energy Journal 45.1 (2024).
• Baker, Erin, et al. "Who is marginalized in energy justice? Amplifying community leader perspectives of energy transitions in Ghana." Energy Research & Social Science 73 (2021): 101933.

1:15:22 - ESA (Energy System Analogies) World Cup Standings

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