BLM Approves Construction of TransWest Express Transmission Project

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on April 11 announced it has issued a notice to proceed (NTP) that paves the way for construction of the TransWest Express (TWE) Transmission Project, a bi-directional, 732-mile transmission line that will extend from Wyoming through Colorado and Utah, ending in southern Nevada. The project is designed to add 3,000 megawatts (MW) of new transmission capacity capable of delivering renewable energy.

TransWest Express LLC, a subsidiary of The Anschutz Corporation (Denver, Colorado), owns the project.

"Achieving the BLM NTP milestone provides important certainty that is needed as we work to complete other pre-construction steps such as finalizing our EPC contractor team," said Bill Miller, president and chief executive officer of TransWest, in a press release. "We plan on commencing construction activities on the TWE Project before the end of the year." About two-thirds of the TWE Project is located on federal land.

The full transmission line will feature high-voltage direct current (DC) and high-voltage alternating current (AC) technology and run from Sinclar, Wyoming, in the south-central part of the state, to the operational Eldorado Substation in Boulder City, Nevada, south of Las Vegas. The project involves the construction of the North Converter Station near Sinclar, in Rawlins, which will convert the AC line to DC; the planned North Converter-Utah Terminal Transmission Line will feature a 600-kilovolt (kV) line that will run 381 miles from the station to a connection point in Utah.

That connection point is near the operational Intermountain Substation in Delta, Utah, and as part of the TransWest project, five miles of new transmission line are being built to connect those two points. Meanwhile, a planned AC 341-mile segment will link the connection point in Utah to the planned South Converter Station near Las Vegas, Nevada.

In an April 11 press release, the company said it expects the first phase of the project will wrap up in 2027. Subscribers to Industrial Info's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) Power Project Database can click here to see a full list of reports on the TransWest project.

The project will carry renewable electricity from the "largest onshore wind generation project in North America," according to the BLM: the Chokecherry and Sierra Madre Wind Energy Project, south of Sinclar and Rawlins, Wyoming, which will provide a combined 3,000 MW of wind generation. Power Company of Wyoming LLC (Denver, Colorado), another Anschutz subsidiary, owns the wind-generation project.

Construction of the 1,500-MW Chokecherry Wind Farm kicked off in the first half of 2022. Built on both private and federal land, the windfarm will feature 500 turbines, each rated at 3 MW. Meanwhile, the other half of the project--the 1,500-MW Sierra Madre Wind Farm--is expected to kick off in June and also will feature 500 3-MW turbines. Engineering, construction, and procurement contractor M.A. Mortenson Company (Minneapolis, Minnesota) is expected to wrap up construction on both projects in 2025. Subscribers to the GMI Database can click here for the report on Chokecherry and here for Sierra Madre. In late 2021, TransWest Express agreed to sell 1,500 MW of transmission line capacity to Power Company of Wyoming.

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