Climate and energy

As many of you already know, when it comes to transmission lines Kansas is a trouble zone. It’s hard to move power around within the state. It’s hard to move power outside of the state. And since we lay smack dab in the middle of the country, our transmission problems are the region’s and the nation’s transmission problems, too.

Kansas is an iconic bottleneck when it comes to moving electricity. If transmission lines were sinuses, ours would be horribly congested.

:) sorry. Don’t know what made me go there.

At any rate. It looks like the staff of the Kansas Corporation Commission (KCC) has proposed several hundred days delay in making their decision on the contested transmission line from Spearville toward Wichita, and who gets to build it – Westar or ITC Great Plains.

Regulatory hurdles are not decongestants.

Reprinted in full from Harris News:

Decision on transmission lines will likely take time

By Chris Green

TOPEKA — An unusual battle between two utility companies competing to build high-voltage power lines through southwest Kansas will likely stretch well into next year.

That’s partially because state utility regulators face a number of unanswered questions in deciding the first-ever competition between firms vying to build the same transmission project.

Two utilities, ITC Great Plains and Westar Energy, want to build a V-shaped series of lines running south from Spearville through Comanche and Barber counties and then north to Wichita.

Part of a larger effort to upgrade the region’s transmission capacity, state energy experts believe building the lines could help pave the way for a boom in wind energy production from western Kansas.

Last week, staff members for the Kansas Corporation Commission proposed allowing several hundred days for utility regulators to make a final decision in the case. The commission itself will likely finalize its timeframe after hearing from parties in the case by Oct. 17.

Martha Coffman, advisory counsel for the KCC, said it’s hard to say exactly how long the unprecedented case will take to decide but acknowledged it probably won’t be soon.

“I don’t think there’s any way this could be completed by the end of the year,” Coffman said.

Before the commission can determine who builds the project, staff members say the KCC must certify that a partnership involving Westar meets the requirements for operating as a utility in the state and can compete to build the lines.

The Topeka-based, investor-owned utility shares equal ownership with Electric Transmission America in the new company, Prairie Wind Transmission.

ETA itself is a subsidiary of American Electric Power, owner of the nation’s largest transmission system, and a subsidiary of MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co., one of the nation’s largest transmission holders.

The KCC must also decide how much weight it give to a deal reached last month involving ITC Great Plains, a transmission-only utility and subsidiary of a Michigan company, and the six rural electric cooperatives that form Sunflower Electric Power Corp. and Mid-Kansas Electric Co.

The central and western Kansas power providers announced that they had agreed to let ITC Great Plains build two of V-plan’s three sections inside their service areas instead of exercising their right to build the lines themselves. The companies also offered the plan’s third-section to Westar.

But the commission’s staff indicates that while the commission can consider the Sunflower cooperatives’ preference, it believed the KCC wasn’t bound by the deal.

Coffman said there are also questions about to what extent the Southwest Power Pool, an agency with a federal mandate for planning transmission projects in the south-central U.S., will require the wider region to help pay for the lines.

If it’s ultimately forced between to choose between the two proposals, then Coffman said commission would likely have decide which firm is better equipped to finance, build and operate the line segments.

Westar spokesman Jim Ludwig said that based on the staff’s recommendations, it could take up to a year for the KCC to reach a final decision in the case.

He said he’s confident in the chances of his company’s collaborative effort because of the partners’ experience in building high-voltage lines and its ability to finance the project.

But Carl Huslig, the president of ITC Great Plains, contends that it’s his company that’s the best choice for building the V-plan because of its singular focus on building transmission lines.

“Transmission is the linchpin to Kansas’ future,” Huslig said.

— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org