The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and Clean Line Energy have mutually agreed to terminate their participation agreement for Clean Line’s Plains & Eastern transmission project.
Under development by Clean Line Energy Partners, the Plains & Eastern Clean Line transmission project is expected to deliver 4 GW of wind power from the Oklahoma Panhandle region to utilities and customers in Tennessee, Arkansas, and other markets in the Mid-South and Southeast. In December, NextEra Energy Resources acquired Plains and Eastern Clean Line Oklahoma LLC and all of the assets for the transmission project in Oklahoma.
Back in June 2010, the DOE published a request for proposals for new or upgraded transmission line projects, to which Clean Line submitted an application for its project the next month. In March 2016, the DOE signed a participation agreement, pursuant to Section 1222 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, with Clean Line Energy Partners for the development of the project.
Under the new termination and release agreement, the DOE will no longer be participating in the project. According to Clean Line, the participation agreement was canceled because of “changes in ownership structure and substantial changes to the nature of the project since the DOE and Clean Line entered into the agreement.”
“The project is on a much slower track in Arkansas and Tennessee,” Clean Line says in a statement. “We are evaluating next steps.”
