The state's electricity regulator has set in motion a process that will more than triple the capacity of infrastructure to carry electricity from West Texas wind farms to the state's big cities.

The Public Utility Commission of Texas cleared 13 companies to build transmission lines at a total projected cost of nearly $5 billion - a move that could jump-start construction of additional wind turbines in the Concho Valley and across West Texas, local leaders said.

"The goal of this process is to coordinate the generation with the transmission," said PUC spokesman Terry Hadley. "This coordination will give certainty to the turbine development, as well as the transmission development that infrastructure will be available at both ends."

The decision looks promising for the future of wind-farm development in the Concho Valley, where farms have been established in Sterling and Coke counties and are planned for Irion, Tom Green and Schleicher counties.

With the recent extension of alternative-energy tax credits, two potential obstacles to the expansion of wind energy in West Texas have been cleared, said Tom Green County Precinct 1 Commissioner Ralph Hoelscher.

"With new transmission lines coming in, that would give opportunities for more turbines to go up and get more energy out," Hoelscher said.

The system can send 8,000 megawatts of electricity, Hadley said, but the planned increases will boost capacity to more than 26,000 megawatts. The state projects that would be enough to handle the increasing wind-generated energy for 10 to 15 years.

A megawatt , or 1 million watts, can provide enough power for 300 to 400 homes in Texas at any given moment.

Construction on the system likely would not begin until 2010, Hadley said, and could take as long as five years.

San Angelo, newly the North American home to one of Europe's largest alternative-energy companies, is between two of the state's largest wind-energy zones - the McCamey zone to the south and west, and the Central zone to the north. According to the PUC, transmission lines in the Concho Valley would be built by the Lower Colorado River Authority and Wind Energy Transmissions Texas, a subsidiary of Spanish company Isolux Corsan.

The LCRA was awarded roughly $750 million in projects to build lines from Odessa to the large McCamey-area wind farm, then east to a planned farm in Schleicher County, where the lines would join transmissions from Coke and western Tom Green counties to be sent southeast toward San Antonio.

WETT was awarded $402 million in projects to build lines connecting farms north of Sweetwater with those north of Midland and Odessa, then feeding the electricity into the LCRA lines headed toward McCamey. It also would build lines connecting the Sweetwater farm with new farms in Sterling and Glasscock counties, then feeding that electricity into the LCRA lines headed toward Schleicher County.