Small Town News

Utility agencies explore transmission project

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Ray Luhring, the general manager of the Lassen Municipal Utility District, has called LMUD's right of way for transmission lines one of the district's most valuable assets -- and with a number of potential generation projects under development in Lassen County and beyond, the district plans to develop its transmission corridor to provide a way for the energy generators to get their product to market. LMUD could then collect a fee -- called a wheeling charge -- from the generation companies that moved power through its system.

The publicly owned utility district approved a Memorandum of Understanding on Tuesday, July 27 with the Transmission Agency of Northern California and the Western Area Power Administration to "investigate various transmission configurations in Northern California to accommodate the increased imports of power from Northeastern California and Northwestern Nevada into Central California load centers."

Directors Wayne

Langston, Bud Bowden and Richard Vial voted in favor of the MOU. Directors Fred Nagel and Jay Dow were absent.

Dave Folce, LMUD's operations manager, said most of the MOU deals with non-disclosure agreements between the agencies that would share confidential information with each other in order to explore creating a new transmission system.

The purpose of the study would be "to determine if the potential project is technically and economically

feasible, "and "to identify issues that may surface during the environmental and siting process if the potential project is further developed, "according to the MOU.

The MOU will remain in effect through Dec. 31 and may be renewed for another 12 months.

Additional agreements would be necessary for the project to proceed.

In addition to studying the technical and economic aspects of the project, the parties will study power flow and stability, mitigation, environmental and land use issues, construction and operation principles and attempt to resolve any potential conflicts between the parties.

Upon completion of the studies, the parties will issue a report and make a recommendation.

Each party will be responsible for its own costs including labor and travel, and the owner of property involved in the study will be the lead party for that part of study.

The parties may agree to share some costs when the studies overlap, but only by prior written agreement.

According to the MOU, "As currently envisioned, the potential project will consist of a double circuit 230-kV line and related facilities between the existing Reno-Al-turas Transmission Project and the Olinda Substation with possible interconnections at Raven Substation, Viewland Substation, West-wood Substation and Cottonwood Substation. In addition, the potential project will include at 60-kV underbuild between the Viewland and Westwood substations with a new 230/60-kV substation in Susanville."



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© 2011 Lassen County Times Susanville, California. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from DAS.

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