The California ISO board has voted to conditionally advance the development of a 285-mile link in a transmission pathway that would deliver Idaho wind power to California and the Southwest and enable Idaho Power to import additional energy into its system.
In conditionally approving the 500-kV Southwest Intertie Project-North (SWIPNorth), the CAISO took action to enable the project to move into the next stage of development. That will include the California and Idaho Public Utilities Commissions completing their assessment of interest in the project and the project sponsor, LS Power, submitting its application to become a participating transmission owner with the CAISO, including commercial terms and conditions.
Final decisions on the project by the CAISO board and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) would be targeted for the end of 2024 and early 2025, respectively.
The project will connect to a longer 600-mile transmission line already delivering power between east-central Nevada to just south of Las Vegas, where the Harry Allen substation connects into the ISO system.
“As planned, the Southwest Intertie Project will open up more than 1,100 megawatts of new capacity to the California ISO network and support the state’s goal of accessing clean wind resources from Idaho,” said Elliot Mainzer, CAISO president & CEO. “The line will provide valuable additional connectivity between California, Nevada, and Idaho, with the potential to benefit electricity consumers by accessing cost-effective renewable energy and improving grid reliability.”
In a memorandum to the board, the CAISO transmission planning staff said the new link will “provide resource diversity, improve reliability by creating a parallel path to the California Oregon Intertie (COI) line, reduce congestion costs on the COI, reduce renewable resource curtailment, and enable the ability to export excess solar from the state.”
The line is proposed to run from Robinson Summit substation in central Nevada to Midpoint, ID. In tandem with an existing capacity-sharing agreement between LS Power and NV Energy, the line would allow the ISO to tap into wind resources reaching the Harry Allen substation in southern Nevada, while providing more than 500 MW of capacity for the ISO to flow north to Idaho.
The line is currently estimated to cost about $1 billion and the ISO will ultimately be responsible for 77.2% of the overall project costs, with Idaho Power evaluating a 22.8% share in the project associated with its portion of south-to-north capacity. The line is projected to be operational in 2027.
