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The 11 utilities working on the CapX 2020 project say the new transmission lines are needed to make the state’s electric grid more reliable and to lay the groundwork to supply more power to Minnesota homes and businesses.
The four new high-voltage lines would create extra capacity needed to deliver electricity to growing parts of the state including St. Cloud, Rochester and Alexandria, said Laura McCarten, Xcel Energy’s Director of Regional Transmission Planning and director of CapX.
“Without building something, those communities are at risk of reduced reliability,” McCarten said.
One line would run from Fargo, N.D. to St. Cloud and Monticello. Another would run from Brookings, S.D. to the southeast Twin Cities metro area. A third would run between the Twin Cities and La Crosse, Wis. A much shorter line would connect Bemidji and Grand Rapids.
One long-time critic of the electric power industry said the utilities are going in the wrong direction. George Crocker, director of the North American Water Office, battled the widespread construction of new power lines in the 1970s and has long promoted the idea that distributed generation — small amounts of power from small producers like windmills, that could spring up all over the state.
Meanwhile, the utilities are implementing a huge public relations effort that included mailing notices to 70,000 people along broad corridors where the lines would travel. The utilities are hoping to avoid the bitter controversy that plagued the state’s last major-voltage power line project in the late 1970s, when farmers and other protesters got so angry at power companies that they cut down power poles.
The power lines proposed in the CapX 2020 project are needed now, officials with the utilities said.
Planning is already underway on a second and third phase, and they’ll start talking about those next year.
The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission will rule this fall on whether the first phase is needed.
On the Net:
CapX 2020: http://www.capx2020.com/
