Clean Line Energy announced an agreement with the East Texas Cooperatives that provides the latter with an option to own up to 50 MW of capacity on the Plains & Eastern Clean Line and a portion of the project's assets.
The Plains & Eastern Clean Line will deliver more than 3.5 GW of low-cost wind power from the Oklahoma Panhandle region to utilities and customers in Arkansas, Tennessee and other markets in the Mid-South and Southeast.
The East Texas Cooperatives include four Generation and Transmission cooperatives throughout East Texas – East Texas Electric Cooperative, Northeast Texas Electric Cooperative, Sam Rayburn Generation and Transmission Cooperative, and Tex-La Electric Cooperative of Texas – and collectively serve 10 not-for-profit distribution cooperatives, serving approximately 330,000 member-owners.
According to Clean Line, the East Texas Cooperatives have made it possible for thousands of residents and businesses in their service territories to take advantage of the lowest-cost, reliable energy available.
Clean Line has submitted an application with the Southwestern Power Administration and the U.S. Department of Energy regarding their potential participation in the Plains & Eastern Clean Line project pursuant to Section 1222 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Section 1222 is intended to foster private sector/public sector cooperation to upgrade or build new transmission projects.
Construction of the Plains & Eastern Clean Line is estimated to begin in 2016 and will require about three years to complete. The Plains & Eastern Clean Line is expected to begin delivering electricity as early as 2018.
