Legalectric

It’s the North Plains Connector! This has been sitting in “Drafts” for so long that I almost forgot about it. Good thing “need” comments are due soon for the Iron Range-St. Louis Co.-Arrowhead line next week!

Here we have another transmission line, a DC line running from Colstrip (yes, a coal plant) in Montana across over to a converter station and running AC up to Center (another coal plant, Milton Young) and southeast to St. Anthony (why?).

Here’s what’s there already (openinframap.org – the greatest thing since sliced bread!):

And a closer view of the eastern end, because Leland Olds doesn’t show and also the Square Butte 250MW DC line headed to Arrowhead substation doesn’t show:

The Square Butte 250MW DC line is being upgraded.

In that eastern end of that transmission line, here’s what’s nearby — 4,009.6 MW of COAL:

• Antelope Valley 954MW
• Coal Creek 1,215.6 MW
• Coyote 450 MW
• Leland Olds 656 MW
• Milton Young 734 MW (Center converter station)

Yes, that’s 4,009.6 MW of coal. Which of these coal plants have shut down?

And yes, there are wind projects now in the area,1,008.7 MW:

• Baldwin 102.4 MW
• Bison 496.8 MW
• Glen Ullin 106.7 MW
• Oliver 198.8
• Sunflower 104 MW

Plus there’s the Heskett gas plant, 176.4 MW (don’t know if that’s peaking, intermediate, or what).

How much transmission is needed if they’re really shutting down coal plants, 4,000MW of coal in that one area with transmission already crossing the border into Minnesota?

How many of the 4,009.6MWs of coal need to be shut down for transmission to accommodate 1,008.7 MW of coal? If the 4000 MW of coal are shut down, logically, there’s room for another 3,000 MW of wind. So why transmission?

Spend some time on openinframap.org and get acquainted with this “IT’S ALL CONNECTED” transmission system!

Here are specifics of the North Dakota termini, taken from the Application Appendix G at the North Dakota PSC Docket PUC-26-082 (which seems to be stuck in molasses, or crud oil, in February)

First, heading east, the DC line comes into this “Morton Converter Station” in the middle of nowhere:

At the converter station, it forks off into two transmission lines, the Blue Oliver transmission Line heading to

And the other of the 2 lines, the Orange “Morton Transmission Line” headed to a substation in Morton County:

Because it’s all connected, what’s the plan? I’m getting bleary-eyed trying to figure that out…