Leaders of Southwest Power Pool gathered in Little Rock last week to elect new officers and approve the construction of 44 power transmission projects in its 14-state footprint, including 166 miles of 345-kilovolt lines.
The SPP’s Regional State Committee approved the integrated transmission plan, which is expected to reduce energy congestion costs by about 21% on average, the nonprofit regional transmission organization said in a news release. SPP said the savings would amount to about 25 cents a month on every electric bill served.
“We collaborated extensively with our stakeholders to determine an optimized portfolio of projects we need to enable the future electric grid,” Lanny Nickell, SPP’s senior vice president of engineering, said in a statement. “We projected considerable wind and solar growth, conventional generation retirements and impacts of new electrification technologies over the next 10 years. SPP members are proactively building infrastructure to ensure our region’s power grid remains reliable and affordable during a time of tremendous change in the electric utility industry.”
SPP President and CEO Nick Brown recognized the service of several stakeholders, including Harry Skilton and Jim Eckleberger as they complete their director emeritus roles after 19 years on the SPP board. Phyllis Bernard was hailed for her 16 years as an SPP director. Julian Brix and Mark Crisson were re-elected to the SPP board.
Seven stakeholders were added to the members committee, which represents all types of SPP member companies. Electric cooperatives’ new committee members are Tom Christensen of Basin Electric Power Cooperative, Stuart Lowry of Sunflower Electric Power Corp. and Joel Bladow of Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association Inc. Rob Janssen of Dogwood Energy will represent independent power producers and marketers; Brett Leopold of ITC Holdings will represent independent transmission companies; Jeff Riles of Google Energy LLC will represent large retail customers, and Chris Jones of City Utilities of Springfield, Missouri, will be the municipal utility representative. Investor-owned utilities will be represented by Bleau LaFave of NorthWestern Energy and Peggy Simmons of Public Service Co. of Oklahoma.
The regional state committee, made up of regulators from across the region, elected officers for one-year terms. They are Dennis Grennan of the Nebraska Power Review Board, president; Kristie Fiegen of the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission, vice president; and Randel Christmann of the North Dakota Public Service Commission, secretary.
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