Americans for a Clean Energy Grid’s Bill White published an article in The Hill today:
Open up access to our energy resources with new transmission
The Great Plains states – from North Dakota to Texas – have been called the Saudi Arabia of wind. As much electricity could be generated every year from wind in those states as the United States consumes as a whole. The trick is getting that enormous energy potential to market.
The electric power transmission network in this country was not designed to reach deep into the lightly populated regions of the Great Plains, yet that is where the best wind resource exists. Failing to build power lines to bring that energy to market would be like finding a new supergiant oil field in Kansas and not building a pipeline to it.