Invenergy has announced plans to acquire all the development assets of Clean Line Energy Partners’ Grain Belt Express transmission project.
According to Invenergy, new transmission infrastructure is critical to supporting significant additions of renewable generation sources in the nation’s electricity mix. The proposed Grain Belt Express project is an approximately 780-mile, overhead, direct-current transmission line that would deliver wind energy from western Kansas to Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and neighboring states.
The development will join more than 400 miles of transmission infrastructure Invenergy has already developed in the U.S. The acquisition – whose terms have not been disclosed – is pending appropriate regulatory approvals, notes Invenergy.
In July, Clean Line announced a milestone for the project, when the Missouri Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the Missouri Public Service Commission has clear authority to determine the public need for transmission lines in the state. The ruling overturned a lower court verdict that suggested transmission lines needed to be sited on a county-by-county basis.
Also in July, Clean Line announced the sale of its non-transmission development assets – including interests in a 600 MW wind project and a series of other wind and battery storage developments – to Quantum Energy Partners. In May, Pattern Development acquired two Clean Line development assets in New Mexico, the Western Spirit Transmission Line and the Mesa Canyons Wind Farm. Following these acquisitions, Michael Skelly, chairman of Clean Line, noted that the team would be “solely dedicated to advancing the Grain Belt Express project.”
