Montana’s new transmission line would be the first in 30 years

The $3.2 billion North Plains Connector will connect the eastern and western power grids by running a 750-kilometer dedicated high-voltage line between the Colstrip substation and Center, North Dakota.

Grid United from Texas is responsible for North Plains.

As a result, the line allows power to be transmitted between the West Coast and the Midwest, something no major U.S. transmission line currently does. The connection increases New Montana’s power generation potential and should make energy more available, and therefore cheaper, during periods of peak demand caused by extreme weather.

Analysts say Montana needs more power transmission lines

In the case of Portland General Electric, facing a state law requiring the phaseout of coal power, North Plains is expanding the company’s renewable energy footprint in a way that increases the likelihood that it will be available regardless of whether the wind spins turbines in the Pacific Northwest . This is a strategy enshrined in PGE’s latest Integrated Resource Plan, a 20-year energy action plan in which the company explains how it will reach areas of the country with different climates to fill gaps in the availability of wind and solar energy.

“We really saw the need for diversity and we call them climate zones. In this IRP, we saw our focus on Wyoming as a proxy and the desert southwest as a solar proxy. But what we’ve really been signaling is that if you can get wind power from different regions, solar power from different regions, you now have a portfolio of variable resources that looks more like the base resource,” said Brett Greene, senior director of clean energy generation at PGE and Structuring. “Now, I don’t want to say, ‘We’ll never replace coal or gas,’ but if we add wind and solar that actually blow all day long, and couple that with battery energy storage, we’ll make a lot of progress in decarbonization.”

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The utility’s expected share of North Plains Connector capacity is 20%. The 525 kilovolt line can transmit 3,000 megawatts of electricity at any given time. Grid United is the contractor on the project and has already told Lee Montana Newspapers the line should be completed within four years.

Grid United expects to begin the permitting process for North Plains in October, said Brant Johnson, vice president of development. This means Montana and North Dakota will begin a site and construction review while the U.S. Department of Energy determines whether the transmission line requires an environmental impact assessment or a more detailed environmental impact statement under the National Environmental Protection Policy Act (NEPA ).

Grid United estimates that construction will create 600 jobs in Montana and North Dakota.

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In Oregon, decarbonization has been written into energy law since 2016, when lawmakers created a law requiring PGE and PacifiCorp to ditch “coal by wire.” The utilities will do so no later than the end of 2029. Both utilities own a stake in the Colstrip plant and will phase out a 1,480-MW coal-burner at a generator in southeastern Montana over the next few years.

Portland General Electric has a 296-megawatt stake in the Colstrip plant, dating back to the construction of Generating Units 3 and 4 in the 1980s.

The Portland utility, which serves nearly one million customer meters, maintains its share of the 500-kilovolt Colstrip transmission line, which, when combined with the North Plains Connector, will connect Portland General Electric to energy markets in the interior of the United States. Greene explained that the North Plains Connector will also allow PGE to sell self-generated renewable energy when it has a surplus. Company records show the plant generated more than a gigawatt of wind energy in February.

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Equally important is the ability to access power generated outside the Pacific Northwest and Montana during periods of peak demand, when the rush of regional energy suppliers looking for additional capacity drives up market prices. In mid-January, utilities in the northwestern United States were paying close to $900 per megawatt hour for electricity as freezing temperatures sent regional electricity demand soaring. Cheaper electricity was available from southern Idaho to the Midwest, but utilities in the northwestern states, especially Montana, did not have transmission lines to provide access to cheaper power. This situation has cost NorthWestern Energy customers in Montana tens of millions of dollars in costly market purchases.

Energy demand in the Pacific Northwest is growing with the emergence of data centers, centrally located computer servers and other network equipment designed to process massive amounts of information. Each data center can use as much electricity as a small town.

“The new reality is that across the United States, and certainly in the Pacific Northwest, there is an increase in demand for data centers that we are all experiencing. For us, it’s not just about data centers in Oregon, it’s also about semiconductors,” Greene said. “So we have a lot of federal and state funding to drive economic development. And that is all the energy demand that we have to meet in an aggressive time frame.”

Start of construction of a wind farm near Rapelje

Currently, the new development schedule is too slow to keep up with demand, Greene said.

PGE’s involvement in the North Plains Connector is the second utility purchase for transmission line developer Grid United. In early 2023, Minnesota-based Alette secured a 35% stake in the transmission project. In early May, Alette was acquired for $6.2 billion through a stock purchase and debt assumption by Canadian Pension Plan and Global Infrastructure Partners, a major infrastructure investor.

“We are pleased that PGE has joined us in our efforts on this historic and transformative infrastructure project for our nation,” Bethany Owen, CEO of ALLETE, said in a press release. “Large-scale projects require collaborative solutions. We look forward to working with PGE and its strong team to accelerate this critical project.”

Allete owns the 80-MW South Peak wind farm in north-central Montana.

North Plains would be the second major interstate transmission project built in Montana in the last 30 years. Improved transmission is considered critical to Montana’s energy export industry.

Montana ranks fifth in the nation for wind energy potential, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. When it comes to actual wind energy production, the state is in the middle of the pack. Montana ranks 50th on the grid modernization index, with no plan to modernize the state’s grid and no mention in Montana’s energy plan to modernize the grid for resiliency.

The Grid Modernization Index is produced by the GridWise Alliance, a nonprofit organization that describes itself as a diverse membership of energy industry stakeholders focused on accelerating innovations that ensure a more secure, reliable, resilient and affordable grid that supports the decarbonization of the U.S. economy.