By Chris O’Malley

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MISO’s Board of Directors last week approved a $2.5 billion transmission expansion plan funding 369 projects, including a 500-kV line to carry Canadian hydropower to Minnesota Power customers.

The $676 million Great Northern Transmission Line is the single most expensive project in MISO’s 2014 Transmission Expansion Plan, the product of 18 months of work by MISO stakeholders. The line, which will connect the Manitoba border to the Minnesota Iron Range, is set for completion around 2020.

The plan also includes 50 baseline reliability projects totaling $269.5 million, six generator interconnections totaling $38 million and 312 “other” projects totaling $1.5 billion, including those supporting lower-voltage transmission systems.

The plan will allow for the interconnection of 726 MW of new wind generation and import of 883 MW of hydroelectric power from Manitoba, said Jennifer Curran, MISO’s vice president of system planning and seams coordination, in a memo to the board.

Interconnection requests are shifting from predominately wind to a mix of natural gas and wind, as gas-fired generation steps in to replace coal plants forced to retire or switch fuels because of federal environmental rules, MISO said. Natural gas interconnection requests in MISO soared to 9,424 MW this year, from 1,994 MW in 2011.

There also have been about 810 MW of new solar request interconnections in 2014. “This could be the result of recent federal energy legislation and the economic stimulus package, and the lower price of solar photovoltaic modules,” the MISO plan states.

MTEP 14 was the first planning cycle that included full participation of MISO’s south region in economic and reliability planning.

The south region is targeted to receive about $359 million in transmission investments, including two of the largest projects in MTEP 14: a $60 million, 115-kV line by Entergy in Mississippi, and a $56.3 million, 230-kV line in Louisiana.

Since MTEP ‘03 about $19 billion of transmission project investment has been identified, with roughly 40% of it completed. MTEP 14 covers projects expected to be completed by 2023.