The Enid News and Eagle, Enid, OK

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November 18, 2010

Energy company looks to generate, transmit electricity to Tennessee

By Joe Malan, Staff Writer Enid News and Eagle

ENID — A Houston-based energy company is working on a project that would transmit power from the Oklahoma Panhandle to Tennessee.

Clean Line Energy Partners is in the early stages of its Plains & Eastern Clean Line project, which will be powered by wind turbines in the Panhandle and generate electricity to Tennessee Valley Authority, a major power provider in the Southeast.

Mario Hurtado, executive vice president of development for Clean Line Energy, said western Oklahoma is a prime position to begin its transmission line.

“Oklahoma has a huge wind resource,” Hurtado said. “More than you’ll probably utilize.”

The Plains & Eastern Clean Line project calls for the company to build a transmission station in Texas County, Oklahoma, which will transmit direct current electricity to Tennessee Valley Authority in Memphis.

In order to generate the electricity, Hurtado said, Clean Line will connect to wind turbines in the Panhandle that are being built for the purpose of electricity generation.

The wind turbines would be built in counties such as Texas, Cimarron and Beaver. Others would be built in the states of Texas and Kansas.

“There’s 10,000 megawatts of wind development out (in western Oklahoma) right now,” Hurtado said.

So the wind turbines will generate electricity, which will be sent to the transmission station in Texas County. From there, high-voltage, direct-current lines, accommodating 3,500 megawatts, will send the power to another transmission station in Shelby County, Tenn., to Tennessee Valley Authority.

Once in Tennessee, the direct current will be converted to alternating current for public use.

“We are of the belief that (Clean Line’s) concept, their idea of transmitting energy produced in northwest Oklahoma to population centers on the East Coast is something that could be revolutionary for this part of the country,” said Brent Kisling, executive director of Enid Regional Development Alliance.

In September, the development alliance hosted its second annual Wind Energy Forum, where Hurtado came and talked about the project.

Kisling said the development alliance has been talking with Clean Line Energy for the last two years about the project. During that time, he said, Clean Line has addressed all questions and concerns about how landowners could be impacted by the project.

Hurtado said the project is expected to take five years to complete. The project has been ongoing since May 9.

The next step in the project is an important one. Clean Line Energy will be appearing in January before Oklahoma Corporation Commission in a hearing to be recognized as a public utility in Oklahoma.

“The (overall) process will take a while,” Hurtado said. “We’re studying the region and figuring out what areas to avoid, where linear infrastructure is already in place ... we want to avoid causing problems for farmers or ranchers (who use pivot irrigation).”

Once the project is in full swing, Hurtado said thousands of jobs will be created in Oklahoma when the transmission stations and lines are constructed.

The company will retain “hundreds of jobs,” he said, after everything is constructed.

Hurtado said the project also would pay millions of dollars a year in property taxes that would go to local schools, and the hundreds to thousands of people who work on the project would spend money in cities and towns around western Oklahoma.

To read more about the project, go to www.plainsandeasterncleanline.com.

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