DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
A group of power companies are sponsoring a study of the
transmission capacity needed in the upper Midwest to support
renewable energy development and bring that energy to the East.
Building high-voltages lines to connect wind and other renewable
resources in rural states to cities is seen as a growing
opportunity for transmission companies as the federal government
pushes for cleaner power generation.
Texas regulators have approved billions of dollars in projects
to connect West Texas wind farms with the state's cities. ITC
Holdings Corp. (ITC) is pushing a Midwestern plan known as the
"Green Power Express" - 3,000 miles of transmission lines
connecting the Dakotas, Minnesota and Iowa to urban centers such as
Chicago and Minneapolis.
As for the latest study, Quanta Technology LLC has been hired to
evaluate extra-high voltage transmission alternatives and recommend
types of new transmission in the upper Midwest, from the Dakotas to
Ohio. The Strategic Midwest Area Transmission Study, or
SMARTransmission Study, is expected to be done in January.
"North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa have some of the
richest renewable generation resources in the United States" but
developing those resources requires a very efficient, high-capacity
transmission to bring the energy east to population and electricity
load centers, said Lisa Barton, president of Electric Transmission
America, a transmission joint venture of American Electric Power
Co. (AEP) and MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co.
She said the companies sponsoring the study believe an
extra-high voltage transmission network in the upper Midwest "will
provide significant economic, environmental and reliability
benefits."
Energy and climate-change legislation wending its way through
Congress is widely expected to spark a building boom in
transmission lines to upgrade the nation's aging grid and expand
the network's reach to include wind and other renewable
generation.
Earlier this month, AEP and Duke Energy Corp. (DUK) said they
plan to jointly spend $1 billion on expanding extra-high-voltage
transmission lines and connect two of the nation's regional
electric grids. The announcement came a little more than a year
after the PJM Interconnection, which manages the flow of
electricity for the mid-Atlantic region, approved a proposal from
AEP and Allegheny Energy Inc. (AYE) to build a 250-mile,
extra-high-voltage transmission line across West Virginia and add
50 miles of high-voltage transmission line from West Virginia to
Maryland.
-By Kathy Shwiff, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2357;
Kathy.Shwiff@dowjones.com