A spokesman for the Iowa Wind Power Association says a proposal by a Texas company to build a $2-billion transmission line will help the state continue to expand its wind power capacity. Association executive director, Harold Prior, says they want to triple Iowa’s wind power output by 2020, but need a way to get all the new power to the people who need it.
He ways they need extra transmission lines or they will have no way to ship out the electricity. Prior says industry has been moving wind farms to “less quality wind regimes” and using higher efficiency turbines that can produce electricity with less wind. Prior says the transmission line proposed by the Houston company will allow the electricity to move from Iowa’s highly productive wind farms.
Prior says the line will take 3,500 megawatts, almost double the current installed capacity of Iowa, and export it to the east coast through an interconnect in Chicago. He says the $2-billion cost of the project is privately financed and will be paid for by the end user.
Iowa has 2,500 wind-powered generators that produce some 3,600 megawatts of electricity.
