Pattern Energy Group LP announced completion of the Trans Bay Cable project in San Francisco, California, which is owned and operated by SteelRiver Transmission Co. LLC, an affiliate of SteelRiver Infrastructure Partners. Pattern Energy’s transmission team conceived, developed and managed for SteelRiver the construction of the Trans Bay Cable, an innovative 53-mi, 400 MW High Voltage Direct Current submarine transmission line that can transmit up to 40% of the peak power needs for the city of San Francisco.

“The Trans Bay Cable was developed by Pattern’s transmission experts from the napkin stage, so it takes on special meaning to see the project completed just five years after the mandate was received in 2005 from the California Independent System Operator here in our hometown of San Francisco,” said Mike Garland, CEO of Pattern Energy. “Our goal was to create an innovative and environmentally-sensitive solution to a complex energy problem. The need for expanded transmission is a growing issue around the country and Pattern’s team is now focusing on developing innovative solutions, such as our proposed Southern Cross project to carry renewable energy from Texas to its neighboring states in the Southeast.”

"Pattern created history with the Trans Bay Cable by successfully developing the country’s first purely privately-proposed and financed solution for meeting the reliability needs of a regional utility grid,” said Michael Cyrus, COO of SteelRiver Infrastructure Partners. “Pattern’s highly-experienced transmission team, along with SteelRiver, Prysmian, Siemens and the Trans Bay Cable team, has developed a world-class transmission asset that will help ensure the reliability of the San Francisco Bay Area’s current and future power needs.”

"The Trans Bay Cable provides a new source of power for the City of San Francisco, helping to lower long-term energy costs, relieve congestion and provide transmission reliability for the entire Bay Area, while shutting down the last remaining old power plant in San Francisco,” added Garland. “Laying a transmission cable of this kind under the San Francisco Bay was a complex process and I am proud of the environmentally conscious method of development that the Pattern team employed. The Trans Bay Cable project will be a significant asset to San Francisco and the entire Bay area for many years to come and we are honored to have played a role in bringing it to fruition. In addition, we look forward to continuing our relationship with the City of Pittsburg, which has been our partner in this and other major California transmission development projects.”

In September 2005, the Board of Governors of the California ISO chose the Trans Bay Cable project over several other alternatives as the most feasible and fundamentally-sound energy transmission project to address the load capacity issues of San Francisco and northern San Mateo County, while also creating access for these areas to the abundant renewable energy sources of Northern California.