Moving SW Kansas Wind Power to Indiana—-It’s up to Missouri Regulators

An electrical transmission developer already with a project moving western Oklahoma wind-generated electricity to Tennessee is asking Missouri regulators to approve a similar kind of transmission line stretching from southwest Kansas to Indiana.

Clean Line Energy Partners LP wants to build a $2.8 billion line delivering Kansas wind energy to the East. The request comes two years after the Missouri Public Service Commission voted to deny the Houston company approval to build the 780-mile Grain Belt Express line.

Clean Line Energy went back to work and focused on the concerns and questions raised by the Commission. The company already has spent seven years and 450 million on getting approvals for the 4,000-megawatt Grain Belt Express. The line would stretch from Kansas to Illinois and regulators in Indiana, Kansas and Illinois already approved it years ago.

Clean Line Energy used a provision of federal law to build the Plains and Easter high-voltage line from Oklahoma to Tennessee. But it does not intend to make the same move in going before the Missouri regulators.