Wind Today - Q4 2008 - (Page 45) T ransmission A Look at North American T ransmission Lines Competitive Renewable Energy Zones electrical grid. A selection process for eligible entities to build transmission to the five CREZs began in the summer. Several transmission owners expressed immediate interest in building the lines. As of mid-November, the largest proposal had been submitted by a consortium of utilities including: Electric Transmission Texas, LCRA Transmission Services Corp., Oncor Electric Delivery, Sharyland Utilities, South Texas Electric Cooperative, and Texas-New Mexico Power Co. “Our expectation is that the commission will select transmission grid suppliers in January 2009,” says PUCT spokesman Terry Hadley. Once these suppliers are selected, adds Hadley, they will submit transmission line applications to PUCT for specific projects outlining route and transmission lines. Hadley says a hearing to select transmission line subscribers is set for Dec. 1. “These electric utilities need to demonstrate that they have the ability and financial backing to build transmission lines,” he adds. Hadley says the project could begin construction in 2010 and be completed by 2012. Heather Ervin, associate editor To accommodate the state’s rapidly growing wind industry, Texas legislators passed Senate Bill (SB) 20 in 2005. The legislation requires that competitive renewable energy zones (CREZ) be created by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the state’s transmission operator. In 2006, ERCOT published a report identifying the geographic areas that the Public Utilities Commission of Texas (PUCT) could legally designate as CREZs. After evaluating the report, the PUCT in 2007 selected eight areas as CREZs, which were subsequently combined into five zones. Three of the zones are located in the west-central areas around McCamey, Abilene, Sweetwater, and two in the Panhandle. In early 2008, ERCOT published its CREZ Transmission Optimization Study, which presented four scenarios for developing wind generation transmission plans within the five zones. In July, the PUCT selected and approved ERCOT’s Scenario 2, a $4.93 billion project to build 2,400-miles of transmission lines (345 kV) that would add approximately 18,500 megawatts (MW) of wind power to the state’s Response No. 451 45 http://wecselectric.net http://wecselectric.net
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.