“If You Like Wind, You Need to Love Transmission.” Xcel Energy makes this statement in its presentations to the public, to point out that wind generation can't happen without transmission to bring it home to the customers. Xcel Energy (Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.) is currently the No. 1 wind energy provider in the United States, according to the American Wind Energy Association, with about 2700 MW on-line at the end of 2007 and with plans to deliver about 7400 MW by 2020. We are fortunate that our service territory — from Minnesota and the Dakotas in the north to Colorado and the Texas panhandle in the South — sits on or adjacent to some of America's richest wind resources.

One such area is a windy prairie on the South Dakota-Minnesota border called Buffalo Ridge. With encouragement from the Minnesota Legislature, Xcel Energy has just completed a project that brings 825 MW of wind to homes and businesses in the state — with much of it going to the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, located about 150 miles (241 km) from Buffalo Ridge.

BIG JOB, BIG CHALLENGES

This US$300 million project, one of the largest electric transmission infrastructure projects ever constructed in Minnesota, began in 1999 and affected 501 miles (806 km) of transmission lines — both new and upgraded lines — and 29 substations, from simple modifications to significant reconstruction to adding completely new ones. It included 210 miles (338 km) of new rights-of-way and 291 miles (468 km) of existing corridor.

The challenge for transmission, of course, is staying ahead of the demand curve. While it takes about one year to construct a wind farm, it takes more than four years to build the transmission lines to deliver that wind energy to market. This is due in large part to the permitting process associated with lines and the large number of landowners who are involved.

One part of Xcel Energy's project, which modernized and increased the capacity of a small system, was equivalent to replacing a dirt road with a 150-mile-long freeway. The higher voltage and more sophisticated controls allow us to better use the rights-of-way and integrate with the rest of the electrical system. This is analogous to the improvements a freeway brings, including ramps, the capacity for more vehicles and overall better maintenance and longevity.

Xcel Energy also faced legislative mandates, curtailment penalties and penalties associated with potential loss of wind developers' production tax credits if we did not finish the project and place it in service by the end of 2007.

PUBLIC SUPPORT

The 825-MW wind project was relatively well received by the public, which was partly because of the general acceptance of the need to connect a growing number of wind turbines — Minnesota's next cash crop. But just as important was our effort to proactively involve the public in the process.

For example, we didn't prejudge the outcome or insist on a particular route the line had to be built. We didn't try to force the lowest-cost design. In fact, we offered to use agricultural-friendly single-shaft steel poles instead of H-frames, even though the single poles were more expensive. We held public open houses well before we filed permit applications, which gave us a chance to introduce the project to the public and get their input to help guide the selection of proposed routes. Then, we held public meetings introducing the route alternatives we had selected, before filing them with the state.

In addition, we always strived to give honest, straightforward answers to the public's questions and concerns, and the route generally followed roads or rebuilt portions of existing lines as double circuit to minimize land impacts.

We also discovered that building personal relationships greatly contributed to winning public support. For example, in one case we took the public meeting to a farmer who could not attend the scheduled open house because of field work. We took the maps and handouts to the field where he was planting, spread the maps out on the hood of his pickup and addressed his questions and concerns.

In Lincoln County, which was highly supportive of transmission because it is home to a portion of Buffalo Ridge and a great number of wind turbines, one local landowner, a former state agency official, waited to be one of the last to testify at the formal routing proceeding, and asked, “What would it take to send these nice people from Xcel Energy home tonight with a permit for this line?”

In Murray County, a farmer and farm advocate became an unofficial go-to guy for several landowners who preferred not to contact the utility directly with their concerns.

UTILITY AGREEMENTS

Another challenging aspect of the project was obtaining agreements with 14 other utilities. Sometimes upgrades to their transmission systems were required, or we needed interconnection of our new lines, or distribution relocations were necessary. In some instances, we had to combine new circuits with existing circuits owned by the other utilities.

For the 210 miles of new lines, we were required to obtain several major state permits, including a certificate of need and three route permits from Minnesota and two route permits from South Dakota.

Interconnecting with Western Area Power Administration required us to acquire a federal permit. This presented several other unique compliance issues:

• We were required to hire a consultant to identify nesting bird sites so our equipment would not run over the nests.

• We were denied access to certain parcels of land until the Dakota Skipper butterfly flight period had ended.

• We were required to stay away from certain streams due to a species of fish called the Topeka shiner.

• We decided to relocate a structure to avoid an archeological site.

• We became concerned about the Blanding's turtles, as we were required to rescue them from imminent danger if, for instance, we found them on a road.

DESIGN AND DELIVERY

Unique geographic and high-wind conditions near Lake Benton, Minnesota, produced a significant “galloping” transmission line issue requiring a change in the project. We had already completed the majority of our 115-kV transmission line work near Lake Benton when one of our transmission construction foremen discovered the issue.

We had erected the line with horizontally bundled conductor, our standard for this type of construction. To remedy the situation, we had to go back and “roll” 25 miles (40 km) of line to a vertically bundled configuration, which is our standard application in our Colorado territory. Up until now, we didn't have a lot of transmission in southwest Minnesota, so horizontally bundled conductor was not a significant problem.

Two of our transformer deliveries were nearly six months late. That resulted in having to redirect our rail deliveries and requiring our heavy-hauling contractors to mobilize in order to pick up and deliver transformers. We were essentially playing musical chairs with transformers to ensure we met in-service date commitments.

PROJECT RESOURCES

A lack of resources was one of our biggest concerns early in the project. Much of the work was designed and constructed using traditional approaches, involving the use of in-house personnel augmented by our usual slate of consultants. As time went on, we began to leverage our people more by increased use of consultants and construction contractors, and the use of Xcel Energy personnel from Denver, Colorado. More than 1000 concrete foundations were installed using our own civil construction crews, while the majority of line construction was performed by a contract workforce.

To complete the final, largest phase of the work, we chose to leverage our existing resources by using an engineer-procure-construct contracting strategy. To maximize our bang for the buck on administrative expenses, Xcel bundled up 90 miles (145 km) of 345-kV and 40 miles (64 km) of 115-kV line work with two new substations and modifications to three other substations into a single bid package.

We spent nearly four months preparing the bid package and meeting with potential bidders to get feedback. We issued the request for proposal in June 2006, with responses due in eight weeks. After evaluating the bids, we were concerned about a rather large spread in pricing and bid commodities. We met with bidders, made some clarifications and issued a request for best and final bids shortly thereafter.

We were relieved to see that subsequent bids were much closer in price. Eventually — although it probably seemed like an eternity to the bidders — we selected Burns & McDonnell (Kansas City, Missouri, U.S.) to proceed with final contract negotiations and issued a limited notice to proceed. This enabled us to start work on the project and drive a stake into the ground for completion, while we finalized the contract over the next six months. If we had decided to complete contract negotiations and then proceed with the work, we would not have made our critical 2007 completion date.

With cooperation from Burns & McDonnell's subcontractor, LE Myers Co., as the line constructor and our internal civil construction crew on foundations, we compiled an enviable safety record of no lost-time incidents in more than 400,000 hours worked.

NOT EXACTLY A BREEZE

The process Xcel Energy used to build this project was valuable. No doubt, we will incorporate many of the lessons learned in our next series of large projects: CapX 2020, a regional multi-utility transmission development effort in Minnesota and surrounding states that will dwarf this one.

In the end, the planets seemed to become aligned and we overcame late permits and significant opportunities for fines and penalties to meet our mandate and bring the project in on time and on budget. This took hard work, creativity and cooperation with the state of Minnesota.

Today, we have enough wind-generated electricity to power about 900,000 homes, happy landowners, satisfied regulators and a treasure trove of lessons learned. It doesn't get much better than this.

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Grant Stevenson is a senior project manager at Xcel Energy. Stevenson is a Project Management Institute-certified project management professional with 25 years of experience with Xcel Energy. Grant.Stevenson@xcelenergy.com

Mike Dunham is a project manager in the Transmission organization at Xcel Energy. Dunham is a certified project management professional with more than 22 years of experience. Michael.P.Dunham@xcelenergy.com

Mark Anderson is a senior project manager at Xcel Energy with over 30 years of experience in generation and transmission. Anderson is a Project Management Institute-certified project management professional. Mark.D.Anderson@xcelenergy.com

XCEL ENERGY'S ENVIRONMENTAL COMMITMENT

At Xcel Energy, we're proud of our environmental leadership. Caring for the environment is fundamental to our everyday operations and part of our long-term resource plans. We can point to significant investments and solid environmental accomplishments:

• We are the No. 1 wind provider in the United States for the third year in a row, according to the American Wind Energy Association.
• Our Windsource program remains the No. 1 customer-driven, green-pricing program in the nation, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
• We've made significant investments to reduce power plant emissions, especially in Minnesota where we've completely refurbished one coal-fired plant and are converting two others to natural gas.
• We plan to break ground soon on the Grand Meadow wind farm, a 100-MW facility in southeast Minnesota.
• We're buying all the power from an 8.2-MW solar facility in Colorado that is the largest installation of its kind.
• We partnered with the Colorado Rockies to install a 9.9-kW solar array at Coors Field.
• We announced that, beginning this year, all new transformers will use 100 % renewable soy oil.

Finally, we are laying the foundation for exploration of new technologies. For example, we worked with on a project to test the viability of using wind power to create hydrogen, which could be used to generate power when the wind isn't blowing. We launched a demonstration project to test the viability of plug-in hybrid vehicles in reducing greenhouse gases. And, we continue to work with technology companies to bring our Smart Grid vision to life, and recently chose Boulder, Colorado, as our first Smart Grid City.