Hoeven: Midwest Governors Report Identifies Transmission Corridors To Aid In Wind Energy Development Findings To Facilitate New Regional Transmission Projects

Press Release

Gov. Hoeven today announced that a group initiated by the governors of five Midwestern states -- North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, South Dakota, and Wisconsin -- has completed a study by members of their state utility commissions that identifies six energy transmission corridors connecting more than 15,000 megawatts of wind development in the region. If fully developed, lines within these corridors will help realize the full economic potential of the region's wind and other clean energy resources.

Initiated in 2008 by Governors Hoeven, Pawlenty, Rounds, Culver, and Doyle, the Upper Midwest Transmission Development Initiative (UMTDI) has as its goal the continuing resolution of transmission planning and cost allocation problems that limit the needed build-out of large transmission lines in the region.

"The real significance of this report is that the Midwest MISO will now look at common pathways and incorporate them into plans for new projects," Hoeven said. "Especially important is a corridor between eastern South Dakota and Ellendale, North Dakota. Together with the CapX 2020 project, which is oriented toward Minnesota and the eastern United States, this effort will result in several significant portals to start moving more energy out of North Dakota to new markets."

In 2009, UMTDI developed a set of cost allocation principles that can serve as a foundation for ongoing cost allocation discussions in the region and the country. It also chose 20 renewable energy zones within the five-state region to serve as proxies for the likely regional growth in renewable energy.

These zones were reasonably balanced between those close to customers (and thus requiring less transmission investment) and those with a stronger wind resource (which are generally farther from customers and thus requirement more transmission capacity). The 15,000 megawatts of potential wind is the amount required to serve the existing clean energy objectives of the five states, and the zones provide a basis upon which additional wind can be developed for export to other regions.

The six renewable energy transmission corridors span the five-state region, connect the 20 renewable energy zones, and, if built upon, provide for reliability and transmission congestion relief in addition to renewable energy benefits. The corridors were chosen after extensive work by UMTDI with assistance from the Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator (Midwest ISO) and transmission owners in the region.

The estimated cost is $3 billion, an amount that would be incurred as the system is gradually built, and that would be subject to any appropriate cost-sharing mechanisms in effect in the Midwest ISO.

Copies of the UMTDI Executive Committee Final Report, as well as relevant maps, can be found at http://www.misostates.org/UMTDIList.htm.

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