Following a landowners meeting last week in Mexico that focused on the proposed Tiger Belt Connector to the original Invenergy Transmission’s Grain Belt Express project, a number of Audrain County citizens left with questions they felt needed answers.

With no representatives from Invenergy on hand, they were provided an opportunity in recent days to answer a collection of inquiries posed by county landowners and officials as well as The Mexico Ledger.

Dia Kuykendall, Director of Public Affairs for Grain Belt Express, responded to nine questions and subsequent follow ups in an attempt to clarify some of those areas that might still be a little foggy for some.

The following are the questions and Kuykendall’s responses:

What measures will the company actually take to minimize negative impacts for affected landowners?
Kuykendall: “Missouri stakeholders have urged Invenergy to develop solutions to deliver more power to Missouri from the Grain Belt Express project. The Tiger Connector is necessary to meet that request, and in doing so provide billions in energy savings to Missourians.

“The first step in delivering that benefit is working with landowners and regulators to develop the best possible route to connect that power to Missouri. That’s where we are at today, which has included notifying and seeking input directly from potentially impacted landowners.

“Grain Belt Express will submit a final proposed route for review by the Missouri Public Service Commission, and that process will include additional public input.

“If a final route is approved by the Commission, Grain Belt Express land representatives will work one-on-one with landowners on the final approved route to seek additional information about their parcels. Parcel-specific information may include the presence of existing structures, ag operations or other productive uses, center pivots, future property plans, and other relevant information, and this information will be factored in to minimize impacts to the extent possible in design and engineering of the line.”

Will Invenergy move lines from the middle of fields? Bury lines?

Kuykendall: “We will propose a route that takes the input gathered from these public meetings into account. We understand the desire for some or all parts of the Tiger Connector line to be buried.  Undergrounding the Tiger Connector would require burying two separate transmission systems to meet safety and reliability requirements. This makes undergrounding a non-starter.

“The Tiger Connector line will have one circuit for MISO and one circuit for AECI.

“Overhead line maintenance can be performed by shutting down one circuit while the other continues to deliver power.

“This is not possible underground because workers cannot work with a live circuit present, and federal reliability requirements prohibit a system design that would shut down power delivery to multiple markets at once. This would require two separate buried systems.

“Undergrounding would also have much greater impacts on ag operations, including:

Eight times as much land permanently taken out of production.

Over 80 times the excavation that can reduce yields from compaction and soil mixing.

Permanent “call before you dig” requirements for landowners in easement areas.

Ag impacts result from:

Excavating two buried cable trenches across the entire length of the line – with the trenches separated sixty feet from each other. Recent studies of other buried infrastructure projects have shown reduced yields for corn and beans between 15-25 percent due to compaction and the mixing of topsoil and subsoil caused by trenching.

Installation of permanent access bunkers which are like U-Haul trucks parked in the ground every 2,000 feet in pairs, one along each set of buried cables. Crops cannot be grown over these, and each set would be farmed around.

“In addition to the significant land impacts, this request could set a precedent for other future transmission lines in Missouri, representing billions of dollars in added costs for Missouri electric consumers over time.

“Stakeholders have cited the importance of balancing energy affordability and reliability while also serving landowner interests. Burying any part of Grain Belt Express would fail both of these goals.”

Kuykendall added these statistics to the response:
1.3 acres permanently out of production, vs. 0.16 acres
484,853 total cubic yards of soil excavation for undergrounding, vs. 5,759 cubic yards for monopole foundations

What will the company do to avoid condemnation, which is likely the biggest issue?

Kuykendall: “This is always a last resort for us. We’ve already acquired 84 percent of the parcels needed along the Phase I portion of the Grain Belt Express HVDC route, with nearly all of them coming through voluntary easements.

Can we see more financial information to understand Invenergy’s business plan/model?

Kuykendall: “This information will be a key part of our filing with the Missouri Public Service Commission later this month.”

Will you honor the provisions of the new 2022 law in terms of valuation?

Kuykendall: “Yes. The Missouri Farm Bureau and other ag groups have asked that Missouri’s new forward-looking state standards for landowner protections and compensation be extended to Grain Belt Express Tiger Connector landowners. Consistent with the spirit of the new legislation, we plan to honor these wishes by compensating Grain Belt Express Tiger Connector landowners at 150% of fair market value for easement payments while also designing the project to be capable of delivering half of the line’s capacity to Missouri, as recently announced. We will engage further with the Missouri Farm Bureau, other ag groups, and the Missouri Public Service Commission to implement these commitments to balance energy affordability and reliability and landowner interests in Missouri.”

Can you confirm that Invenergy intends to honor the 7-year Sunset revision on easements as stated in the law?

Kuykendall: “The company is still reviewing that provision of (House Bill 2005) and expects this issue to be addressed in any regulatory filings before the Missouri Public Service Commission. As you know, HB2005 does not apply to Grain Belt Express and any commitment to comply with portions of the law would be voluntary in nature.”

Have you entered any new agreements with any potential partners or “customers” who will use the Grain Belt and the connector?

We have an existing contract with a consortium of 39 Missouri communities to take power from the Grain Belt Express at an annual savings for $12.8 million, and we see very strong market interest in transmission capacity from the line, which is one factor in the recent announcement to expand local delivery capacity.

Will you move forward prior to an agreement or wait until you get enough before beginning construction?

Kuykendall: “We will begin construction after acquiring the necessary easements and approvals from regulators.”

Have they started to narrow down which route they are considering now?
Kuykendall: “Yes, the input provided to us at recent meetings are a key component in developing a proposed route, which we will submit to regulators this month.”

The Mexico Ledger then followed up with two questions for clarification:

So, to clarify customers that pay into Grain Belt Express through money or service, who, if anyone, have you entered into an agreement with? If you have no one paying into the line - a customer - you are saying you would build anyway? Or do you want to expand on this?

Kuykendall: ““Grain Belt Express will be bringing power to 350,000 electric consumers across Missouri through a signed transmission service agreement with the Missouri Joint Municipal Electric Utility Commission (MJMEUC) representing 39 Missouri municipal utilities. Grain Belt Express has seen strong interest in the market and expects to secure additional customer agreements prior to construction beginning.”

How would you rate the overall feedback from Audrain County landowners who could be directly impacted by the Tiger Connector? Would you rate it as highly approving, average approval, below average approval, or much concern and worry about how this will play out? Could you break down by percentage? If so, do you have any empirical data that would support those numbers?

“The public input process is intended to gather feedback that informs the final route to be proposed. The recent public meetings and other outreach have been valuable in gathering this feedback and appreciate everyone who has participated in the process.”

Ewell Larson, of the Missouri Public Utilities Alliance, confirmed the MJMEUC had entered a working relationship with Invenergy Transmission since 2016 with the hope of the project’s success leading to

“We have contracted with Invenergy to take transmission delivery of supply which we have contracted for in Kansas,” Larson said. “How it works: I brought a product in Kansas and Invenergy will truck it to Missouri for me.”

Larson also emphasized this deal involves the original Grain Belt Express and reminded that the Public Service Commission issued the certificate of need on the project with MJMEUC listed as a customer of Invenergy.

“There is a contract in place,” Larson said, adding that the MPUA is the “wholesaler” working for 39 cities that are distributors which have their customers or the individuals in each city.

“They are going to receive benefit with the transmission line going through,” Larson said. “I have been lobbying down in Jefferson City for eight years that 39 cities will benefit from this project. We have contracts in Kansas for power we plan – when this gets built – to put onto that pipeline.

“We will be paying them for the delivery of energy.”

Larson added the benefit of the Tiger Connector is it will connect the entire grid throughout the state and noted that “instead of paying for the cost for transmission in two grids, we end up paying that cost once.”