October 14, 2010
Texas
Texas
PUC staff plan less-intrusive
The Fredericksburg Standard/Radio Post, www.fredericksburgstandard.com 13 October 2010
The Fredericksburg Standard/Radio Post, www.fredericksburgstandard.com 13 October 2010
A wind transmission line route through the Hill Country significantly different from the one suggested by the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) was filed Monday by the state’s Public Utilities Commission staff.
Today, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) will provide the PUC with an expanded analysis of the Kendall-to-Gillespie (K-G) portion of the line, and the PUC will meet in Austin tomorrow with one of the items on their agenda being the alternative evaluation of the K-G and Gillespie-to-Newton (G-N) segments.
At stake is where large transmission towers carrying electricity from West Texas wind farms to urban areas in the eastern portion of the state will be located. Also at issue is whether existing private power lines might be improved and utilized at a lower cost than building new transmission towers.
The PUC staff’s recommended route starts at the McCamey D substation near Eldorado and follows Interstate Highway 10 for a while, bypassing both Junction and Kerrville before paralleling a private line to the Kendall substation near Comfort.
LCRA’s proposed route did not follow I-10 and took a more cross-country direction.
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2010/10/14/puc-staff-plan-less-intrusive/