Portland, Ore.-based agency tries to rev up interest in power line

By Chris Mulick, Tri-City Herald, Kennewick, Wash. -- July 9

The Bonneville Power Administration is taking a last stab at rounding up interest in a new 500 kilovolt transmission line between McNary and John Day dams before its environmental permit expires.

The 79-mile-long, $167 million project would greatly expand the megawatt highway between Southeastern Washington -- an attractive spot for thermal plants and wind farms -- and California. The line would have a capacity of 1,250 megawatts, enough to serve Seattle.

But most of the proposed power plants touted in news releases at the height of the energy crisis since have vanished with the sky-high wholesale market prices and prospects of looming energy deficits.

Bonneville, which operates 80 percent of all high-voltage transmission lines in the Northwest, is hoping to drum up interest by offering power project developers the chance to express interest free of charge. In the past, it cost them a month's transmission bill to apply.

"We're hoping to attract new customers who are not in the queue," said Darby Collins, a spokeswoman for Bonneville's Transmission Business Line. "Right now, we're going to see what we have got out there."

A dozen requests for power projects have been made by power developers for transmission service in the area, though that by no means guarantees the projects will get built.

Bob Kahn, executive director of the Northwest Independent Power Producers Coalition, said he senses there are companies that would be interested in building new power plants, but the hurdle is the same as it's always been -- getting commitments from potential customers.

"Is there a utility at the end of the line that wants the power?" he asked. "This, again, is a chicken and egg problem."

Proposed wind farms are perhaps more likely to get built in the near term but collectively won't come close to generating the kind of transmission demand that is needed.

To some degree, the McNary transmission bottleneck is stifling wind development.

Energy Northwest, the public power consortium that operates the nuclear power plant north of Richland and the wind farm south of the Tri-Cities, has been trying to find buyers for a new wind project near Pomeroy. A number of California utilities are looking for wind power but have rejected the Energy Northwest proposal.

"They were having trouble finding firm transmission paths," said Dan Porter, an Energy Northwest project manager.

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