Wyoming group studies tying wind farms to grid

JACKSON, Wyo. -- Transmission developers with plans to send Wyoming wind power to western states hungry for renewable energy are trying to figure out how to connect scattered wind farms with proposed export power lines.

The Wyoming Infrastructure Authority formed the Wind Collector and Transmission Task Force last summer to develop a coordinated system for gathering power from dispersed wind farms.

The task force and a consultant on Monday outlined a conceptual approach for a collector system that could move up to 12,000 megawatts of electricity from wind farms in southeastern and central Wyoming to transmission substations and then export hubs. The Infrastructure Authority expects to release the report by next week.

"There's lots of wind farms built, being built or proposed, but the transmission system in Wyoming has limitations because it was never designed initially for this renewable expansion," said Robert Henke of ICF International, a Colorado firm hired to work on the project.

The task force presented the first stage of the collector system study at a meeting of the Wyoming Infrastructure Authority. Henke stressed that the study's designs are conceptual, developed by engineers behind desks without trying to predict the specific location and size of future wind development in the state.

The task force includes representatives from the Infrastructure Authority, the Western Area Power Administration and companies with proposals to build major east-west transmission lines originating in Wyoming: PacifiCorp, TransCanada, TransWest Express and LS Power.

Each of the companies is in the pre-construction stages of developing multibillion-dollar transmission lines that, if all were fully built, would have the capacity to move 15,000 megawatts to stations in Idaho or southern Nevada. The conceptual collector system would include more than a thousand miles of line, built in stages, to move power to the company's export hubs.

"When we first drew drawings of an uncoordinated development of the collector system, we called it the spaghetti drawing," said Bill Hosie of TransCanada. "There were lines going every which way, which would never fly past the permitting parts of the work."

Hosie said the task force has been successful at working together, despite members' competing interests.

"What we've actually accomplished here is a first stage of work where we're working together, we're cooperating, we're sharing ideas, and it sets the stage for working together in more difficult areas of our future," Hosie said.

One of those difficult areas will be paying for the construction and operation of a collector system. Henke's presentation estimated the cost of the system at between $2.5 billion and $4 billion for labor and materials alone. That doesn't include the costs of financing, permitting or acquiring right of way.

The project may require a public-private partnership of some kind, task force members said.

Steve Ellenbecker, the Infrastructure Authority's executive director, said the task force has received a $248,000 Department of Energy grant to continue the collector system study. The money will be used to develop commercial structure options, update Wyoming's energy corridor map and analyze the use of natural gas-fired power plants to supplement wind power on transmission lines.