By Amanda Durish Cook

The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission on Thursday approved a proposal by ITC Midwest and Xcel Energy to build the Huntley-Wilmarth transmission project in the state’s south.

The project consists of a nearly 50-mile 345-kV line connecting Xcel’s Wilmarth substation and ITC’s Huntley substation in south-central Minnesota near the Iowa border (17-184 and 17-185).

Estimated costs for the project, which will include substation upgrades, range from $88 million to $108 million, more than MISO’s original $81 million estimate.

Huntley-Wilmarth was part of MISO’s 2016 Transmission Expansion Plan, meeting criteria to qualify as a market efficiency project. As such, it would have been open to competitive bidding if not for Minnesota’s right-of-first-refusal law.

At the time, MISO respected the ROFR and declined to open the project to competitive bidding. (See MISO Board Approves MTEP 16’s $2.7B in Tx Projects.) Last year, the U.S. District Court for Minnesota rejected competitive developer LS Power’s challenge to the Minnesota law. (See Courts Uphold Minn. ROFR, MISO Cost Allocation.)

Xcel and ITC plan to start construction next year, with the line expected to be in service by the end of 2021. The utilities submitted applications for permitting to the Minnesota PUC in January 2018.

Xcel Energy-Minnesota President Chris Clark said the line will help facilitate Xcel’s goal to reduce carbon emissions 80% by 2030 and produce only carbon-free energy by 2050.

“The Huntley-Wilmarth project will provide several local and regional benefits including relieving congestion on the transmission grid, delivering clean, affordable energy to customers and increasing property tax revenues to local governments,” Xcel Senior Vice President of Transmission Michael Lamb said in a release.

In May, Administrative Law Judge Barbara Case found that “no more reasonable and prudent alternative has been identified to alleviate current and potential future transmission congestion in Southern Minnesota.” Case said the project will strengthen the area’s reliability, allow Minnesotans access to lower-cost energy and will lower emissions by tapping into renewable generation, allowing area coal plants to retire.