Wyoming wind developers commit to power line
LOS ANGELES, Aug 26 (Reuters) - Two wind power developers have committed to almost 70 percent of the capacity of the Wyoming-Colorado Intertie (WCI), a proposed 175-mile, 345-kilovolt transmission line scheduled to open in 2013, participants of the public-private line said on Tuesday.
GreenHunter Wind, a unit of GreenHunter Energy Inc (GRH.A) and Duke Energy Ohio, a unit of Duke Energy (DUK.N), committed to the transmission share in an open auction, said WCI developers.
"We were very pleased with the first round," said Robert Mitchell, chief executive of Trans-Elect. "It's close enough to 100 percent that we are proceeding.
Mitchell said he has "good reason to believe in the not too distant future" the remaining 265 megawatts of space on the line, expected to cost about $325 million to build, will be spoken for.
Trans-Elect is affiliated with global power company AES Corp (AES.N), which is helping to finance the WCI transmission line project.
Construction of the line is not guaranteed. Mitchell said much depends on a determination in about 10 months of how much wind power the biggest electric utility in Colorado, Public Service of Colorado, wishes to purchase. The Colorado utility is owned by Xcel Energy Inc (XEL.N).
The WCI is a group effort by for-profit Trans-Elect; the U.S. Department of Energy's Western Area Power Administration (WAPA); and the Wyoming Infrastructure Authority.
A section of the WCI will run with 15 miles from the GreenHunter 600-megawatt wind farm under development on about 20,000 acres of U.S. Bureau of Land Reclamation near Wheatland, Wyoming. It is called the Wheatland Wind project. GreenHunter, based in Dallas-area Grapevine, Texas, bought the project from Wind Revolutions LLC of Denver in a sale announced last month.
GreenHunter will own 65 percent of the Wheatland Wind project with the Southern Ute Growth Fund, which owns a large share of GreenHunter, holding the remaining 35 percent. The Southern Ute is an Indian tribe.
Duke Energy committed to space on the WCI for wind power projects that are in the pipeline but not yet under construction, said Rick Rhodes of Duke, headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Duke by the end of this year expects to have about 5,000 megawatts of wind generation power in development. Most of that was attained by its purchase two months ago of Catamount Energy and the May 2007 buy of Tierra Energy.
Trans-Elect is based in Bethesda, Maryland. It has a regional office in Denver.
WAPA operates power lines linking Wyoming and Colorado. The agency markets and transmits more than 10,000 megawatts from hydroelectric plants owned and operated by the BLM and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 15 central and western states.
A megawatt generally can serve 800 North American homes.
The Wyoming state legislature formed the Wyoming Infrastructure Authority in 2004 to diversify and expand the state's economy by improving electrical transmission. (Reporting by Bernie Woodall; Editing by David Gregorio)
