Photo caption: Tracey A. LeBeau, Administrator and CEO for the Western Area Power Administration, provides opening remarks for U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm, Oct. 30, 2023, during an event at Apache Substation, Arizona. Representatives from the Department of Energy joined with public and private partners to announce a nearly $1.3 billion commitment to expanding and strengthening transmission lines across six states. The commitment aims to advance transformative projects centered on adding 3.5 gigawatts of additional grid capacity throughout the United States. (Department of Energy photo/Dylan Reed) Download photo
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Oct. 31, 2023
CONTACT: Stephen Collier, mediarelations@wapa.gov, 720-962-7411
LAKEWOOD, Colo. – On Monday, October 30th, 2023, Western Area Power Administration Administrator and CEO Tracey A. LeBeau joined U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm, DOE Grid Deployment Office Director Maria Robinson and other public and private entities to announce nearly $1.3 billion in DOE commitments to expanding and strengthening transmission lines across six states.
The commitment, unveiled by Secretary Granholm at the Apache Substation in Arizona and funded through DOE’s Grid Deployment Office, aims to advance transformative projects centered on adding 3.5 gigawatts of additional grid capacity throughout the United States, equivalent to powering approximately three million homes. These projects include the Cross-Tie Transmission Line through Nevada and Utah; the Twin States Clean Energy Link in New Hampshire and Vermont; and the Southline Transmission Project that crosses Arizona and New Mexico.
In introducing the Secretary, WAPA Administrator and CEO Tracey A. LeBeau highlighted that transmission projects like the Southline project, which will be commercially developed by Houston-based Grid United, will play a critical role as the U.S. continues its energy transformation.
“Projects at this scale often require coordination and cooperation among federal, state, Tribal, local and industry partners to develop and to construct, often taking years of technical planning and sophisticated sponsors to get them over the finish line,” LeBeau commented. “Speaking for WAPA, we have enjoyed playing our part in the development pathway for the Southline project. As Grid United continues with its development, we are excited about the prospective value it will bring to WAPA’s customers and the region, a region that is quickly becoming one of the most rapidly growing in the country.”
More than 10 years in the making, the Southline project’s original statement of interest was submitted to WAPA’s Transmission Infrastructure Program in March 2011. WAPA began its federal evaluation of the project in 2012 in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act, with the final environmental impact statement published in late 2015. This project is a unique multi-party, public-private partnership project, a portion of which will rebuild WAPA’s existing transmission system that delivers hydroelectricity from Arizona’s Parker and Davis dams. When completed, the project aims to improve the region’s transmission infrastructure, strengthen energy resilience and boost reliability for power customers in the American West, as it faces challenges such as drought and increasingly intense wildfires.
Read more in the Department of Energy news release.
###
About WAPA: Western Area Power Administration annually markets and transmits more than 28,000 gigawatt-hours of clean, renewable power from 57 federal hydroelectric powerplants owned and operated by the Bureau of Reclamation, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and International Boundary and Water Commission in 15 western and central states. It is part of the Department of Energy. Visit the website at www.wapa.gov.
Last modified on November 2nd, 2023