Arizona utility eyes Wyoming wire

Confronted with exploding population and energy consumption, Arizona’s largest utility is pitching a $3 billion power line connecting to Wyoming’s coal and wind resources for future electrical supply.

Arizona Public Service Co. has asked the Wyoming Infrastructure Authority to help fund a study to determine whether the project is feasible.

"It’s something that the APS resource planning folks have been looking at for some time now, and we’ve decided to go that next step and look at building the transmission system, or at least a feasibility study to analyze the potential of building a transmission system that would enable those resource purchases," said Robert Smith, manager of APS’s transmission planning department.

By DUSTIN BLEIZEFFER
Star-Tribune energy reporter

Full Story: http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2005/11/29/news/wyoming/d4f58df93d844a35872570c80004636f.txt

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Buzz about the grid: Experts agree new power lines needed in West – but who will pay?

By WILLIAM McCALL Associated Press

There is one thing that just about everybody agrees has to be done about the thousands of miles of electricity transmission lines that crisscross the West – build more of them.

The big question is, who pays for them? Another is, who controls them? And finally, how much should it cost to use them?

Utility managers and regulators say those questions need to be answered soon – before demand outstrips the power supply to some of the fastest-growing areas of the nation.
Otherwise, the risk of a blackout like the one that left the East Coast in the dark in 2003 keeps rising.

Full Story: http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2005/11/29/business/biz01.txt