The company planning to build the Grain Belt Express transmission line to carry wind-powered electricity from southwestern Kansas to Illinois now says it will distribute more of the electricity in Kansas and Missouri.
Invenergy Transmission says the reason is because it ran into regulatory delays in Illinois. So it intends to increase the delivery capacity in Kansas and Missouri to as much as 2,500 megawatts which is about two-thirds of its planned total capacity of 4,000 megawatts.
The company had previously announced only that 500 megawatts of power would go to Missouri according to a report by the Associated Press.
The planned Grain Belt Express transmission line would stretch 780 miles (1,255 kilometers) from the wind-whipped plains of Kansas across Missouri and Illinois before hooking into an electric grid in Indiana that serves the eastern U.S. After previously being rejected in Missouri, the project won regulatory approval in both Missouri and Kansas in 2019.
The transmission line still needs regulatory approval in Illinois, where a court overturned the state’s previous approval.
Invenergy said Tuesday that it will seek whatever regulatory approvals are necessary to expand its delivery in Missouri and Kansas and to begin construction in those two states prior to gaining approval in Illinois.
Source: Associated Press