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 General Manager's message
Summer 2010
Ken Anderson
Executive Vice President/General Manager
This summer, we are pleased to report that construction is now underway on the 51-mile, 115-kilovolt Nucla-Sunshine transmission project in southwestern Colorado. This long-needed new power path will provide full redundancy to the Sunshine Substation that serves the mountain town of Telluride and the surrounding areas. The project also culminates a decade-long saga that exemplifies the many challenges Tri-State encounters in permitting and siting the infrastructure that is necessary to meet continued growth in our service territory.
New transmission is also a vital component to the plans throughout the region for the development of more energy resources to deliver to consumers for a diverse and affordable source of electricity.
At present, many of the transmission paths serving our member co-ops are at or near capacity and, with long-range load growth projections, it is not difficult to see that new or upgraded lines are urgently needed, particularly in eastern and southern Colorado.
Because a robust transmission system is so vital to our mission of "keeping the lights on," we have projected the largest portion of our 10-year capital project plan - $1.7 billion - on transmission investments. This year alone, we have earmarked more than $142 million for improvements on our 5,200-mile network of lines, substations and telecommunications sites that span across our four-state service territory.
But these days, no single power supplier has the necessary resources to build all of the energy delivery facilities that will be required during the next decade. That is why Tri-State is partnering with other transmission and power providers in the region — such as Western Area Power Administration and Xcel Energy — to share costs in the construction of new lines and make the most efficient use of our shared electric grid.
Among those joint projects is a proposed southern Colorado transmission line known as the San Luis Valley-Calumet-Comanche Transmission Project. Tri-State and Xcel Energy are proposing a transmission line approximately 140 miles in total length between the San Luis Valley Substation north of Alamosa, extending east to a new substation near Walsenburg, then, continuing east to Xcel’s existing Comanche Substation near Pueblo. Reliability concerns and significant growth in this area of the state, coupled with the potential for the development of renewable resources in the San Luis Valley, make this transmission project vital to both the region and the state’s power delivery infrastructure.
Unfortunately, a private landowner’s challenges to the siting of this line are likely to delay timing of the construction, which is estimated to take from 18 months to two years for completion. However, we continue to pursue this project as we believe it will help us provide better service to two member co-ops - San Luis Valley Rural Electric (Monte Vista, Colo.) and San Isabel Electric (Pueblo West, Colo.).
Other regional projects on our planning horizon are transmission network improvements across eastern and southern Colorado that would reliably serve the association’s members, help relieve existing transmission constraints and support additional interconnections.
Longer-term transmission goals at Tri-State involve further integration across the region that supports stability to the transmission system as a whole. The association is also participating in the study of two “extra large” regional transmission projects that are in the preliminary planning stages — the High Plains Express and Sun Zia Southwest projects. In addition to strengthening regional reliability, these new transmission paths would enhance the delivery of renewables throughout the eastern portion of Tri-State’s system, as well as in Arizona.
We believe that the continued pursuit of these types of projects are essential to ensuring that we can continue to provide our membership with a diverse, reliable and affordable supply of electricity in the decades ahead.
Updated: June 30, 2010
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