Gov. Mike Leavitt and Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal are cosponsoring a transmission planning initiative to break the logjam of inactivity regarding needed electric transmission planning and investment.

Leavitt and Freudenthal will kick off the Subregional Transmission Planning Initiative in Salt Lake City Sept. 26. A finalized agenda will be available closer to that date, but preliminary information is available online at this address:

http://psc.state.wy.us/htdocs/subregional/home.htm.

The idea for the planning initiative has been in the works for at least five months, and events on the East Coast last week threw into sharp relief the need for improved electrical transmission. Experts say there has been no significant transmission upgrades in the West for the past 10-15 years.

Solidifying plans for the planning initiative was one of the key outcomes of a very productive meeting between the two governors in Salt Lake City early last week. Freudenthal and Leavitt will be inviting stakeholders from consumer groups, industry, and regulatory agencies at both the state and federal levels.

“For most of the recent past and for a variety of reasons, utilities and other entities have been hesitant to invest in the infrastructure necessary for electrical transmission, a reluctance that has led to transmission congestion,” Freudenthal said. “That’s a problem across most of the United States and certainly in the West, but it has become most acute in the Rocky Mountain area. I’m looking forward to working with Gov. Leavitt on a subregional plan for addressing those shortcomings.”

Leavitt, too, said he was looking forward to the event.

“Coordinated transmission planning has been the Achilles heel of the Western grid,” Leavitt observed. “I am confident a regional, stakeholder-driven planning process will help make power delivery in the interior West more reliable and affordable.”

Both governors said they want to bring a serious focus to identifying specific, incremental transmission and generation projects to meet the growing consumer demands in the Rocky Mountain region and to utilize the Enlibra principles to accelerate progress. Their goal is to identify – in an open and public process – the most critical electric transmission and generation project needs in their region.

This planning process will focus on the Rocky Mountain region, particularly the states of Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Utah and Wyoming. The focus on these five states will fully recognize the Rocky Mountain area as a subset of the Western interconnection, which is comprised of 11 states, two Canadian provinces, and northern Mexico.

Infrastructure expansions in the Rocky Mountain subregion will likely benefit consumers throughout the West. Necessarily, the studies performed in this subregional planning initiative will capture the economic and operational impacts throughout the West.

Experts believe that electric transmission in the Rocky Mountain region is constrained. Moreover, there currently is no collaborate Rocky Mountain planning effort to consider transmission expansion from a regional, holistic perspective. Governors Freudenthal and Leavitt are taking action to close this significant gap.

4:52:50 PM