By Amanda Durish Cook

ITC Holdings on Tuesday offered a rare look into its Michigan control room as part of a company update that included an appeal for increased investment in transmission.

During the online “virtual tour” and accompanying web seminar, CEO Linda Blair called for a sense of “urgency” for the industry to develop new electric infrastructure.

“Now is a critical time to support investment for the years ahead,” Blair said, adding that “no meaningful interregional planning process” exists to address extra demands being placed on the grid, particularly from the growth of wind generation.

“We have to have a requirement that transmission lines have a way to come to fruition. … I think it requires action from FERC,” she said.

ITC was acquired by Canadian utility Fortis last October. Immediately following the $11.3 billion sale, Blair took over as president and CEO of the Michigan-based company.

Blair said ITC has not changed its company vision since the acquisition. “We’re a transmission-only company. We breathe, sleep and eat transmission. That’s what we do, and we do it well,” she said.

“A strong grid promotes economic development,” Chief Operating Officer Jon Jipping added.

Jipping said ITC is awaiting approval by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on the Lake Erie Connector project, a 1,000-MW, bidirectional, underwater HVDC transmission line that will ship electricity between Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator and PJM territory in Erie, Pa. He expects the company to wrap up the permitting process for the $1 billion project in late summer.

ITC executives also touted the reliability of the current ITC system that spans Michigan, Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois, Missouri and Oklahoma.

Vice President of Operations Brian Slocum said ITC’s system remained operational during Michigan’s historic March 8 wind storm and weather-related outages that affected more than 1 million people.

“Over the years, we’ve seen less unplanned outages on this wall,” Slocum said from a virtual ITC control room. But more needs to be done to improve the country’s transmission grid, which was not designed to handle so many renewable sources of generation, he said.

“Fortunately, there’s a dialogue underway” on infrastructure improvements in this country, Slocum added.