Wind Power Transmission Line Plans Move Foward

If all goes according to plan, 400,000 megawatts of low-cost wind power from the Oklahoma Panhandle will be pumped into the Mid-South by 2020, allowing residents to power their homes and businesses with eco-friendly renewable energy.

The Plains & Eastern Clean Line, a 700-mile overhead, direct-current transmission line that begins on a wind farm in Oklahoma and culminates at a converter station near Millington, won a major approval from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) late last month. That approval clears the way for construction of the line, which is set to begin in late 2017.

“West Tennessee and Memphis will be the hub, not just for transportation and logistics, but also for renewable energy,” said Clean Line Energy co-founder and executive vice-president of development Mario Hurtado, referencing the Millington area substation the company will build for the project. The wind energy will be sold to the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), which provides power to Memphis Light, Gas, and Water customers and other utilities across the South. — Bianca Phillips

click to enlarge

Flyer: How would you explain the Clean Line Energy project?

Mario Hurtado: This project is basically a super-highway or pipeline, but in the form of electric transmission to take the cheapest energy in the country and get it, in the most efficient way, to Arkansas, Tennessee, and the rest of the Mid-South.

An hour of wind energy from the Panhandle costs about two cents [to produce] and two cents to get it to TVA and the rest of the Southeast. Four cents for wind energy on a long-term basis with zero emissions, we think is a very good deal.

Wind energy is extremely inexpensive right now, and part of that has to do with federal policy. For people in the Tennessee Valley, that means the opportunity to save billions of dollars on their electric bills.

Was the DOE approval the last hurdle?

This is the last regulatory approval, but we still have some permits to get on the environmental front. We have some commercial engineering milestones. This approval from the federal government allows us to do a lot of the work we need to do in Arkansas and Oklahoma.

Some Arkansas property owners protested the project because they didn’t want a transmission line going over their property. Are you still working to get permission to build the line through Arkansas?

There are more than 2,000 parcels on the transmission line, and we have to talk to every one of those landowners. We’re working very hard to start that conversation. We need to continue to do that, which is why we have time now to purchase more right-of-way and make sure people understand our compensation package for easements and how we want to treat them fairly and compensate them properly to build a transmission line on their land.

When the transmission line gets built, the landowners still own the property. They just give a limited permission for that transmission line to be there. And it takes up very little land on the ground because most of it is in the air.

Once the line is built, people can still farm on [the land], ranch on it, or use the property however they want. We are paying them the full market value for square footage for that right-of-away. We pay based on the market value of the property, and in addition to that, every year the project receives revenue, they will receive a piece of that revenue for having granted the easement for the transmission line.

How is this more eco-friendly?

We’re connecting to a power source, which is wind energy, that doesn’t have any emissions and has a very low impact. This country has been shifting from coal-fired power generation, from boilers that burnt coal, to [power] generation that is much cleaner.

Wind Power Transmission Line Plans Move Foward

Construction Could Start in 2017 On Wind Transmission Line

Officials with Houston-based Clean Line Energy Partners say construction could begin in 2017 on a planned 700-mile transmission line to carry wind-generated electricity across Oklahoma and Arkansas into Tennessee.

The planned Plains & Eastern Clean Line would carry the wind power from as-yet undeveloped wind farms in the Oklahoma Panhandle to Memphis, Tennessee, where it would connect to the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Mario Hurtado, Clean Line vice president for development, told The Journal Record that he expects the project, announced in 2010, to be operating by 2020.

“It takes a lot of time to put together an infrastructure project like this,” Hurtado said.

However, opposition has surfaced in Arkansas, where the state’s six-member congressional delegation has objected to the federal government possibly using eminent domain to take land for the project. The federal lawmakers say eminent domain should be decided at the state and local level.

“We continue to have serious concerns that this project erodes the rights of local communities and the state of Arkansas to have a seat at the table in the decision-making process,” according to a statement from Sens. John Boozman and Tom Cotton and Reps. Steve Womack, French Hill, Rick Crawford and Bruce Westerman following a Dec. 10 meeting with U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz.

All of the six lawmakers are Republicans.

Clean Line officials say about $7 billion will be invested in the project, boosting economies in both Oklahoma and Arkansas.

“Several hundred permanent, quality wind tech and support jobs will be created to operate and maintain the line and wind farms,” said Vicki Ayres-Portman, Clean Line outreach manager based in Guymon.

“Millions of dollars annually will go to counties, schools and landowners,” Ayres-Portman said. “It is a great way for our farmers and ranchers to diversify their income as well.”

In November, researchers from the center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Arkansas published a study that estimated the construction of operation of the transmission project will add more than $660 million to the economy in Arkansas.

Published 36 minutes ago

Copyright Associated Press

Construction Could Start in 2017 On Wind Transmission Line

European Investment Bank Agrees GBP 168 Million Backing for Lincs Offshore Transmission ...

Tomasz Wyszoamirski/iStock/Thinkstock

The European Investment Bank has agreed to provide GBP 168 million for a new connection between the Lincs offshore wind farm and the UK national transmission network. The approximately 100-km connection, between high voltage transmission connections on the mainland and the 270-MW Lincolnshire wind farm, has been tendered under a dedicated regulatory regime for offshore transmission networks by OFGEM, the UK gas and electricity market regulator.

“Offshore wind will play a significant role as part of the UK’s energy mix over the coming decades and the European Investment Bank is committed to supporting long-term investment in energy infrastructure that both enhances production of electricity from renewable sources and connects renewable energy into the national network. We are pleased to continue support for offshore wind infrastructure in UK waters and investment in transmission connections under the OFTO regime facilitates new investment in offshore wind farms. This sector is creating hundreds of new jobs along the North Sea coast and supporting manufacturing and research across the country.” said Jonathan Taylor, European Investment Bank Vice President.

The transmission connection to the Lincs wind farm, 8 km off the Skegness coast, will include one offshore substation and connect to the national transmission network at an onshore substation at Walpole, Norfolk. The Lincs wind farm will comprise 75 turbines that when operational can produce enough clean renewable energy for over 200,000 homes, equivalent to around two thirds of the homes in Lincolnshire and contribute to the UK government’s strategy of ensuring that 15% of energy is from renewable sources by 2020.

Assets for the Lincs offshore transmission connection have been developed by Lincs Wind Farm Limited, a joint venture between Centrica, Dong Energy and Siemens Project Ventures. Under the OFTO regime the transmission assets will be transferred to Transmission Capital Partners, a consortium comprising Amber Infrastructure, International Public Partnerships and Transmission Investment, who will own and operate the connection under a twenty year agreement.

This is the sixth connection under the OFTO regime, developed to ensure that offshore renewable generation projects are economically and efficiently connected to Britain’s electricity grid, to be supported by Europe’s long-term lending institution. Previous OFTO connections supported by the EIB include Walney 1 and 2, Sheringham Shoal, Greater Gabbard and London Array.

Last month the board of the EIB, comprising all 28 European member state shareholders, approved EIB’s participation in Round 3 of the OFTO regime.

European Investment Bank Agrees GBP 168 Million Backing for Lincs Offshore Transmission ...

To Unlock Wind, Build Transmission Lines Linking the Plains to the Cities

A vital factor affecting the economics of any energy source is transportation: where is the fuel extracted, where is it used, and how does it get from point A to point B?

An example is the case of Texas versus North Dakota, both of which have experienced a boom in oil and gas production from shale since the introduction of hydraulic fracturing.

Texas, with its long history of oil and gas development, is riddled with underground oil and gas pipelines connecting remote areas of the state with regional trading hubs.

Many U.S. oil (red) and gas (blue) pipelines are clustered in and around Texas, which not only produces but also refines much of the country’s petroleum supply. Unconventional shale regions like Pennsylvania and North Dakota have significantly less oil and gas infrastructure. (Source: ProPublica)

North Dakota, on the other hand, was not traditionally a major oil and gas producer, so it has far less pipeline infrastructure in place than Texas. The result: between May 2012 and May 2013, $1 billion worth of natural gas was flared at well sites in North Dakota—burned off essentially as a waste product. For the most part, drillers in North Dakota operate a well to extract higher priced oil, which can be shipped via rail, albeit sometimes with disastrous results.

Fossil fuels are not the only energy source that can fall victim to transportation constraints. In fact, in many ways these constraints are far more onerous for renewable energy.

Like oil and gas resources, renewable energy regions are often located far away from major population centers. A prominent example is the U.S. wind belt, which stretches through the Great Plains from North Dakota to Texas. While this region is one of the greatest wind energy resources on the planet, it also happens to lie in the very center of the continental U.S., far from the coasts, where most Americans live.

The U.S. wind belt, which runs from North Dakota to West Texas through the Great Plains, is one of the greatest wind resources on the planet. However, it is located far away from major U.S. population centers, so transmission lines are needed to ship wind from the plains to the cities. (Source: NREL)

What makes renewable energy different from oil and gas is that renewable “fuel” (in the form of wind, water, or sunlight) is converted into electricity on-site, and, to date, there is only one feasible way to move lots of electric energy across the country: high-voltage transmission lines. If the requisite transmission infrastructure is not in place, a wind farm’s electricity output might have to be voluntarily turned down to avoid overloading what transmission lines do exist. And unlike the case of oil, no train or truck can come to the rescue.

Simply put, without the adequate transmission infrastructure in place, there is no way to bring wind energy from the plains to the cities, and wind will not produce at its full potential.

It seems like a no brainer then—build transmission lines. Unfortunately, a new transmission line can cost over $1 million per mile, and that’s for the equipment alone, before any of the NIMBY (not in my backyard) related costs that tend to plague major transmission projects. Moreover, unlike oil and gas pipelines, it’s impossible to control whose electricity is flowing on whose power line. Electricity flows through the entire grid at close to the speed of light, going where it pleases based on the voltage and resistance between various nodes of the grid. For this reason, the cost of transmission lines is typically socialized, even where electricity market competition has been introduced. This is good for raising the capital required to build the transmission infrastructure we all need, but it can also introduce partisanship and bureaucracy, slowing the whole process down.

Nevertheless, experience shows us that if government and private industry get their act together and carve out a path for renewable energy transmission lines, the wind energy developers will follow. In 2008, Texas allocated $4.93 billion dollars for the CREZ (Competitive Renewable Energy Zones) transmission project, which connects West Texas and the Panhandle to the population centers of Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio, and Austin. While the final price tag of the project climbed to $6.8 billion, it has helped Texas maintain its decisive lead in total installed wind energy among the 50 states. And there’s plenty of room to spare. The 3,600 miles of new lines can deliver up to 18,500 megawatts of power from West Texas to the state’s cities, about 50 percent more than the amount of wind power installed in Texas today. In fact, Texas grid operators are currently reviewing 21,000 megawatts of new wind projects, including a planned 1,100-megawatt wind farm near Lubbock that will be the nation’s largest.

While new transmission lines may be costly, in many regions of the U.S. they are a required precursor to unlocking wind energy’s true potential. The example of Texas shows that if we build new lines, the wind developers will follow. States that wish to encourage renewable energy development should work to invest in the requisite transmission infrastructure, so that wind energy growth is not held back by external constraints.

Image credits: ProPublica, National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), ERCOT

To Unlock Wind, Build Transmission Lines Linking the Plains to the Cities