FERC gives OK for Calif. green power lines plan

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - California's innovative financing plan to help relatively small renewable energy firms get their power to market over high-voltage transmission lines won approval from federal regulators on Thursday.

Developers of new power plants generally pay the cost for building high-voltage "trunklines" to connect their plants to utilities that deliver the power to consumers.

But most renewable energy companies are smaller firms that develop wind, solar or geothermal resources in remote locations that need new lines, which they often cannot afford to build.

The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission gave the OK for the California Independent System Operator to spread the cost of building the new lines among the utilities that receive the power.

The wind and solar developers will pay their share of the cost once plants begin operating instead of before they produce power.

The California plan is the first of its kind for U.S. utilities, the Cal ISO said.

FERC Commissioner Suedeen Kelly said that California's financing method "will become a model for others in the industry."

The American Wind Energy Association, an industry group, applauded FERC's unanimous approval of the Cal ISO plan.

Wind development has faced a "chicken or egg problem...where no wind farms are built unless there is transmission, and no transmission is built unless there are wind farms already in place," the AWEA said in a press statement.