Okla. allows ITC to operate as utility in state

Oklahoma regulators issued an order that will allow a Kansas-based company to build transmission lines in the state.

Another order issued Thursday by the state Corporation Commission will permit Oklahoma Gas and Electric Co. to recover the costs of a planned wind-power transmission line that will be built between Woodward and Oklahoma City.

"Taken together these two orders represent an important step in creating infrastructure needed to make wind power, and possibly other renewable energy resources, available for the future electric needs of Oklahoma," Commissioner Bob Anthony said.

Under the first order, ITC Great Plains, a Topeka, Kan.-based subsidiary of Michigan-based transmission company ITC Holdings Corp., will be allowed to operate as a transmission utility in Oklahoma. That will allow ITC Great Plains to construct, own, operate and maintain electric transmission lines in the state.

The company, which received similar approval last year from the Kansas Corporation Commission, has high-voltage transmission lines in the development and planning phase in both Kansas and Oklahoma, said Joe Welch, the president and chief executive officer of ITC Holdings Corp., the Kansas company's parent.

Before such work can begin, "there are a whole bunch of checkmarks that you have to get, and this is a big one," Welch said. "We still have to become a transmission owner, which means we have to build. ... From here we start to do the rest of the work."

He said tentative plans call for the construction of the high-voltage transmission line in western Oklahoma, but no specific location has been determined. The Oklahoma line eventually would connect with other lines in Kansas and Texas, he said.

He said it would be at least 2012 before any line built by the company would be operational.

Carl Huslig, the president of ITC Great Plains, said the company has worked with the Southwest Power Pool, which has been designated by federal officials to oversee the power grid in Kansas and Oklahoma and parts of Arkansas, Missouri, Louisiana, New Mexico and Texas.

"We believe, based on the growing national scope of our business and what we are already doing in this region, we are indeed the best positioned and best qualified to execute the SPP's plan in Oklahoma," Huslig said.

"Oklahoma is ripe for the emergence of wind energy as an economic development driver and renewable energy resource, and we believe new electric transmission infrastructure will play a key role in establishing wind energy as even more of a reality than it is today."

The second order will result in OG&E customers soon seeing renewable energy credits on their bills, commission Chairman Jeff Cloud said.

Because of the use of renewable energy credits, OG&E customers "will actually receive some of the benefits of the planned Woodward-to-Oklahoma City wind-power transmission line before it is completed," Cloud said, "even though construction on the line will not be completed until 2010."

OG&E submitted a request to the Corporation Commission in May, saying the company would commit to quadruple its wind energy capacity in the state to at least 770 megawatts, with the 115-mile, 345-kilovolt transmission line a centerpiece of the plan.

The commission order Thursday included the cost to build the transmission line, a rider to allow for recovery of costs for the line beginning at the time it goes into service and a tariff that will allow more OG&E customers to choose up to 10 percent renewable energy.

OG&E officials said the cost of the plan to the average residential customer has been estimated at $1.50 per month in 2010. The company will implement a renewable energy purchase program early in 2009, and the program will be expanded as new wind generation capacity comes on line.

Pete Delaney, OG&E's chairman, president and chief executive, called the line "an important step in unlocking the full potential of wind energy in western Oklahoma."