Transmission Company ATC Sets 10-Year Capital Plan of Between $3.6 Billion and $4.4 Billion

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Written by John Egan for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--The American Transmission Company (ATC) (Waukesha, Wisconsin) expects to invest between $3.6 billion and $4.4 billion in transmission projects in the Upper Midwest over the next 10 years, the company said in its annual transmission system assessment. That capital plan is down slightly from prior 10-year plans, which ATC acknowledged by saying, "Our 10‑year plan recognizes a slowing, but continuing, need to expand the regional grid as well as the need to efficiently maintain and upgrade older assets."

Ron Snead, ATC vice president of system planning, added: "We also anticipate continued challenges in the next 10 years as generation sources change due to the Clean Power Plan."

ATC operates a network of over 9,540 miles of high‑voltage transmission lines and 548 substations in Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota and Illinois. Formed in 2001, ATC was the nation's first pure-play transmission utility. ATC's 10-year capital blueprint was released in October.

One of its major current projects is the Badger Coulee Transmission Project, an 180‑mile, 345‑kilovolt (kV) line between La Crosse and Dane counties in Wisconsin. That line, being built in collaboration with Xcel Energy Incorporated (NYSE:XEL) (Minneapolis, Minnesota), is expected to be operating by early 2018. That project, with total investment value (TIV) of about $390 million, is expected to offset the need for about $190 million in lower‑voltage upgrades in western Wisconsin, increase access to the wholesale energy market, and provide between $118 million and $700 million in net economic benefits over the life of the line, the company said.

Another large project currently under construction, the Bay Lake Project, is a package of proposals the company said is intended to "address the delicate, shifting balance between generation, load and transmission in the northern portion of our service area." One part of that project, the $120 million Holmes-Old Mead Road segment, is a 58-mile stretch of 138-kV line from Menominee County to the Old Mead Road Substation in Escanaba, Michigan. That line was completed and energized this summer. Another portion of the Bay Lake project is the North Appleton‑Morgan project, a mix of 138- and 345-kV lines from the North Appleton substation in Outagamie County, Wisconsin, to the Morgan Substation in Oconto County, Wisconsin. Construction of a new substation, and upgrades to 11 existing substations, also are part of the $328 million Bay Lake project. Construction began this year on the remaining elements of the Bay Lake project, and the entire project is expected to be operating in late 2018.

One of the company's larger future projects is the Cardinal‑Hickory Creek line, a 125-mile, 345-kV line from Dane County, Wisconsin, to Dubuque County, Iowa. ATC's partners on that project are ITC Holdings Corporation (NYSE:ITC) (Novi, Michigan) and Dairyland Power Cooperative (La Crosse, Wisconsin). If utility regulators in Wisconsin and Iowa approve this project, construction could begin in 2019 and the line could be operating by 2023. This project has a TIV of about $540 million.

"Industrial Info is tracking about 1,076 planned North American transmission projects valued at about $67.6 billion that are scheduled to kick off between 2017 and 2020," Britt Burt, Industrial Info's vice president of research for the Global Power Industry, told several hundred attendees at Industrial Info's Industrial Outlook briefing in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, earlier this month. "We don't expect all of those projects to begin construction according to their original schedules. However, we see 676 projects worth $21.7 billion as having a high probability of kicking off on schedule. These projects are to upgrade and modernize the grid, connect new renewable generation to the grid and address shifting population patterns that affect peak load concentrations."

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