Proposed line could help export Texas wind powerMay 23 - Ryan Holeywell Houston Chronicle
A California-based energy company hopes to build the first transmission line directly connecting Texas to the Southeast as part of a plan to export the state's wind power to other parts of the country. Pattern Energy Group LP recently won approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for the proposed 400-mile line, which the company estimates could cost $1.5 billion to $2 billion to build. The project has the potential to expand the Texas's wind energy industry by giving it access to another market via a route dubbed the Southern Cross, company officials said. Pattern Energy hopes to complete the line by 2019. It would stretch about 400 miles, running from east of Dallas into northern Louisiana and then into northern Mississippi. "Southern Cross is an innovative transmission project that will allow Texas to share its abundant low-cost wind energy resources with its neighbor states to the southeast," Pattern Chief Executive Mike Garland said in a statement. The high-voltage, direct current line would be capable of transmitting up to 3,000 megawatts of electric power into and out of the state's grid. A Pattern Energy affiliate, Pattern Power Marketing, would purchase wind power from generators within the state's energy grid to sell to electric companies in the southeast. David Parquet, Pattern's head of transmission, said it makes sense to sell some of Texas' abundant wind-generated power elsewhere. Last year, renewable energy production in Texas rose 12 percent, mostly because of wind capacity. Parquet said Pattern hasn't lined up financing for the project and still is negotiating with prospective power purchasers and providers. He noted that power could flow the other direction if Texas approached its capacity during times of peak use and needed electricity from elsewhere. The project would take advantage of newly complete transmission lines, known as the Competitive Renewable Energy Zone, that connect wind farms in the Panhandle and West Texas to more populated areas. Robbie Searcy, a spokeswoman for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which operates most of the state's grid, said ERCOT has only limited connections with other grids to import and export small amounts of power. One links with Mexico and another, called the Southwest Power Pool, connects Kansas, Oklahoma, most of Nebraska and parts of New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi and Arkansas. "The size of this proposed project is significantly larger than any other ties or any other connections between the ERCOT grid and other connections in the U.S. and Mexico," she said.
http://www.energycentral.com/functional/news/news_detail.cfm?did=32578991& |