Black Hills Bolsters Power Grid, Access Across U.S. West

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Black Hills Corporation (NYSE:BKH) (Rapid City, South Dakota) took another step forward in its effort to build out transmission and distribution (T&D) across its service area, which covers much of the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains regions. The Wyoming Public Service Commission approved the company's Wyoming Ready expansion project. Like similar Black Hills projects in Colorado and South Dakota, it is designed to improve resiliency and access to the power grid. Industrial Info is tracking more than $700 million in active projects from Black Hills, more than half of which is attributed to projects in Wyoming.

Click on the image at right for a graph detailing Black Hills' active projects, by project type.

The two major segments of the Wyoming Ready project are a 150-mile line from western Cheyenne to Glenrock, Wyoming, and a 90-mile line from the existing Prairie Generating Station in Cheyenne to a new substation in Morrill, Nebraska, which would sit near the state border and would be named the Bluff Substation. Subscribers to Industrial Info's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) Power Project Database can read detailed project reports on the intra-Wyoming line, the Wyoming-to-Nebraska line and the Bluff Substation.

"We've laid out a clear path forward for our infrastructure across our electric utilities in total," said Linden Evans, the chief executive officer of Black Hills, in a recent quarterly earnings-related conference call. "We plan to add 600 megawatts of renewable resources in battery storage, and 260 miles of electric transmission, as part of our Ready Wyoming initiatives."

Altogether, Industrial Info is tracking a dozen projects associated with Wyoming Ready, totaling more than $250 million in value. Other projects include two replacement substations, four expanded substations, and three transmission-line segments that each run for five of fewer miles. Subscribers can click here for a list of detailed project reports.

Black Hills expects to begin construction on the earliest phases of the transmission project in 2023, although it is unlikely to begin work on the two major transmission lines until 2024. The full project is expected to be completed by the end of 2025.

Black Hills also is evaluating a possible expansion of its Prairie Generating Station, which is a 132-megawatt (MW), gas-fired power plant that was commissioned in 2014 to replace the company's three oldest coal-fired power plants. As proposed, a new combined-cycle unit would add 125 MW of generation to the facility. If the unit is approved, construction would not begin for several years. Subscribers can learn more from Industrial Info's project report.

In Colorado, Black Hills and the Public Service Company of Colorado, a subsidiary of Xcel Energy Incorporated (NASDAQ:XEL) (Minneapolis, Minnesota), are wrapping up a 20-mile rebuild of a transmission line from Boone to Fowler. The project is expected to improve reliability and allow for additional capacity loads. Subscribers can learn more from Industrial Info's project report.

Black Hills' Colorado-based subsidiary is performing reliability upgrades across southern Colorado, largely by constructing a transmission line from Pueblo West to Cañon City, which runs roughly 37 miles, and a separate line from north of Penrose to Cañon City, which runs 13.7 miles. Both lines will terminate in the new Hogback Substation in Cañon City, which is expected to finish construction in first-quarter 2023.

The company says the new lines and substation will enable it to connect a 200-MW solar-power plant in Pueblo County to its system, reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by as much as 71%. Evans said Black Hills is planning a 90% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions intensity by 2030 from a 2005 baseline, through the addition of about 400 MW of wind and solar resources and 50 MW of battery storage between 2025 and 2030. Subscribers can read detailed reports on the power lines originating in Pueblo West and Penrose, and the Hogback Substation.

Subscribers to Industrial Info's GMI Project Database can click here for a full list of detailed reports for projects mentioned in this article, and click here for a full list of related plant profiles.

Subscribers can click here for a full list of reports on active projects from Black Hills.

Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is the leading provider of industrial market intelligence. Since 1983, IIR has provided comprehensive research, news and analysis on the industrial process, manufacturing and energy related industries. IIR's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) platform helps companies identify and pursue trends across multiple markets with access to real, qualified and validated plant and project opportunities. Across the world, IIR is tracking more than 200,000 current and future projects worth $17.8 trillion (USD).