TEXAS WIND FOR ATLANTA

Pattern Energy plans Texas wind-power export path
Eileen O’Grady, September 20, 2010 (Reuters)

"West Texas wind power could reach Atlanta if Pattern Energy Group is successful at building a 400-mile transmission line to create an export path for electricity from the nation's No. 1 wind state…[but] 9,300 megawatts of capacity…is trapped in Texas due to the state's grid configuration.

"Pattern's proposed Southern Cross transmission line would maintain Texas' grid independence while opening a route by 2016 for wind power to be sold into the U.S. Southeast, a region that lacks large-scale wind and solar potential…Texas is spending $5 billion to expand its grid to allow Texas wind output to double to 18,000 MW by 2013…"

click thru for more info

"In Texas and across the nation, new wind-farm development slowed dramatically this year due to tight financial markets, lack of a strong national mandate to cut greenhouse gas emissions and a drop in wholesale power prices linked to cheaper natural gas…Pattern Transmission Director David Parquet said the Southern Cross project could keep Texas wind development on track to 18,000 MW despite current market obstacles…

"At a price tag of more than $1 billion, the Southern Cross line would be a high-voltage, direct-current line stretching from east Texas to northeastern Mississippi, where up to three 500-kilovolt alternating-current lines could deliver power to utilities serving 10 states in the South…Pattern officials have discussed the project with the Tennessee Valley Authority, Southern Co and Entergy Corp…"

click thru for more info

"While Texas has exceeded its renewable power target, Southeastern states have yet to set targets to boost use of renewable power to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from fossil-fueled power plants…Some utilities, however, expect federal mandates in the future. TVA, for example, built the first wind farm in the Southeast and seeks to buy 2,000 MW of wind generation over the next few years. Its 1,300 MW of wind power under contract so far will come from Illinois, Kansas, Iowa and the Dakotas…

"While Parquet said he expects a federal renewable portfolio standard, or RPS, down the road, he said the Southern Cross project can succeed without one…The project will not go forward unless FERC rules that it does not raise jurisdictional issues for Texas…"