Tri-State Co-op Seeks To Improve West-East Green Energy Flows

Tri-State Co-op Seeks To Improve West-East Green Energy Flows

Tri-State receives all the power from the 30-MW San Isabel Solar Project in Las Animas County, ... [+] Colorado. Out where the buffalo roam, the sun shines and the wind blows. Western states including Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming are reliable green energy producers, but they lack transmission from east to west and they don't have a regional transmission organization (RTO) to manage the market. Duane Highley, president and CEO of Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, which supplies power to 42 rural electric utility cooperative members in those three states, as well as western Nebraska, wants to change things. He is crusading to build new transmission and establish an RTO or hook into an existing one in the western grid. Nebraska, in the eastern grid, already benefits from the Southwest Power Pool (SPP) RTO. Highley told me in an interview, which took place partly in his office in Westminster, Colorado, and partly by telephone, that to build on what is being accomplished with renewables, more east-west transmission is critical along with an RTO. The former to move power in and out of the Intermountain region, and latter to provide day-ahead pricing for the electric market and facilitate more efficient use