Sep 23 2010
TransCanada, a Calgary based energy infrastructure building company, has declared its withdrawal from the $3 billion Chinook transmission project due to the absence of involvement and support from the wind farm developers.
During January 2009 the officials of the company had briefed Brian Schweitzer, the Governor of the state, about the ongoing plans of the project and their plans to declare an anticipated alliance with a wind power generating company. The company was hoping to complete the wind farm erection process by 2011 and produce 3000 MW of clean power for distribution from the end point at Eldorado Valley south of Las Vegas.
John Dunn, Project Manager of TransCanada, said that the project did not evince enough interest to continue it profitably. He added that there was little or no active participation from the Montana wind developers in the project to make them continue with it. He further said that his company is currently engaged in erecting a transmission line named Zephyr between the end south of Las Vegas and southeastern Wyoming. He concluded saying that the Zephyr project drew enough commercial support to make it conducive for the company to focus on it.
Jim Bellessa, D.A. Davidson & Co’s investment analyst said that the shelving of Chinook project by TransCanada will remove the competition faced by NorthWestern Energy a Butte based company which is constructing Mountain States Transmission Intertie known as MSTI. The project costing around $1 billion is designed to carry wind power to southeastern Idaho from southwestern Montana. Bellessa further said that the issues that made TransCanada to withdraw from the project will apply to MSTI too. Meanwhile, Claudia Rapkoch, spokeswoman for NorthWestern, confirmed the continuance of the MSTI project by her company and the intention of the company in linking the system.
Source: http://www.transcanada.com