Those who were in the Jeffrey Center in Rawlins April 10 found several posters with a red line illustrated crossing through Carbon County, as well as 20 other counties.
That red line represents a proposed route for a transmission line, which will direct wind energy from Platte County to southern Nevada. Duke American Transmission Company took over the project in 2011 after the original developer, Trans Canada, pulled out of the project, said Chris Jones, DATC president and Zephyr project director.
“We basically restarted development, starting with the routing and sighting of the line,” he said.
The original route of the line went through Idaho, where there was a power converting station.
During the informal open house, interested stakeholders could view posters revealing the proposed route, other route options, the land the line would pass through, a timeline for the project and other information.
DATC hopes to begin construction in 2017. In the meantime, the company will hold open houses to seek feedback from residents across the 20 counties the proposed route crosses, Jones said.
Although the open house was set to seek feedback from owners, and the route is in its early phases of planning, Jones said most of the rout going through Wyoming is set because it goes next to existing infrastructure, Jones said.
“Generally what we did to come up with the route is we followed existing infrastructure,” he said.
The proposed line will be DC rather than AC as is most commonly seen in surrounding areas. The DC line will allow wind energy producers to send about 3,000 watts of electricity to the southern end of Nevada, where it will be converted back into AC power, Jones said.
“It’s a bullet shot from point A to point B,” he said.
The proposed date for completion is 2020. Most of the business would most likely come from California, Jones said.
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