Brief summary: As an open access line, CHC will give priority to cheap coal and natural gas sourced energy. What this means is that under current market policy, the construction of transmission lines may actually increase demand for such energy types. Moreover, demand for remote renewables is dropping steadily as Wisconsin utilities are moving away from purchasing out of state renewable energy in favor of developing renewables within their own service territories.
No. There is no demand for increasing transport of remote renewable energy into Wisconsin and interest in reducing CO2 emissions by this means is decreasing with every passing year.
Within MISO‘s generation footprint from the Canadian border to southern Louisiana are a large number of environmentally harmful lignite coal power plants and an abundance of under-utilized fossil fuel generation facilities.
MISO and ATC have not made clear the relative proportions of coal-generated electricity and wind-generated electricity that will be carried by the proposed Cardinal-Hickory Creek line.
It is important to understand that ATC is an open-access AC line (alternative current) which allows power plants and other lines to “tie in” along the way. ATC and ITC will likely contract with the electricity supplier that pays the highest. Environmentally harmful lignite coal plants in North Dakota and fossil fuel plants in other states are eager to export their surplus electricity to Wisconsin, especially since local utilities in Iowa and Minnesota are developing more in-state wind power and therefore reducing their demand for out-of-state energy. (ELPC, pp. 20,21)
Increasingly, because of market driven, cost effectiveness, Wisconsin will turn to meeting all of its energy needs through energy efficiency, modern load management tools, and locally generated solar, biogas, and wind combined with energy storage. Current and planned wind and solar projects in Wisconsin include:
1) Glacier Hills Wind Park in Columbia County.
2) Quilt Block Wind Farm in Lafayette County
3) Dairyland Power Cooperative 15.5 megawatts of solar projects in western Wisconsin. http://www.dairylandpower.com/article.php?id=4158
4) Xcel Energy Corp’s Northern States Power utility in Eau Claire plans for three new solar projects.
5) WIPPI 100 MW solar (Two Rivers, WI) http://www.jsonline.com/story/money/business/energy/2017/01/30/nextera-eyes-solar-project-nuclear-plant/97260774/
6) Xcel’s plans to build two community “solar garden” projects. http://archive.jsonline.com/blogs/business/382270251.html http://archive.jsonline.com/business/new-projects-by-dairyland-xcel-would-double-states-solar-power-output-b99676212z1-370006521.html