$635 million power line looks green to Big Country
June 1, 2007
The ''DFW Express'' may soon zip along at lightning speed from Abilene to Dallas, but it won't be carrying people. That's the name given to a proposed 200-mile, 2,000-megawatt power line that would transport electricity produced by West Texas wind farms to the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Lone Star Transmission LLC applied Thursday for permission from the Public Utility Commission of Texas to build and operate the power line. If permission is granted and the project is completed, the ''DFW Express'' would transmit enough electricity to power 500,000 homes. Construction costs are estimated to be from $635 million to $655 million, with a substantial part of that staying in the Big Country.
It could take four years to complete. Construction would bring in highly skilled workers, temporarily, and permanent workers in the long run, said Steve Stengel, a spokesman for Florida Power and Light, or FPL. He said he could not provide numbers until the details of the proposed line are settled with the PUC. Lone Star Transmission, or LST, is a Houston-based company and a subsidiary of Florida Power and Light Energy LLC, owner of 11 wind farms in Texas - including two in the Big Country.
The line would transmit direct current (DC) high voltage electricity rather than the more common alternating current (AC). DC would have to be converted to AC to be used by provider utilities. The company plans to use public rights-of-way as much as possible to install the line, he added. To build and operate such a line as Lone Star has proposed, the PUC would have to license LST as a public utility. ''DFW Express'' would be Lone Star's first project in Texas. State Sen. Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay, and State Rep. Susan King, R-Abilene, support LST's application to provide the ''DFW Express.''
