Ameren Illinois announced on August 5 that the Illinois Commerce Commission granted a certificate of public comfort and need for its program of transformation of the central Illinois Central Network. The approval erases the road for construction by the end of this year at 380 kilometers of 345 kilovolt transmission lines, three new substations and updates to five substations existing at 13 counties as part of a $ 1.6 million update.
The project comes from Midcontinent Independent Systems Operator (MISO) 2024 Transmission Transmission Plan Tranche, which identified the critical bottlenecks on the Midwest network.
The new lines will be co-bound next to the Amere corridors existing at 13 central counties of Illinois, from the Mississippi River to Quincy to the Peia metro area to Tazewell County.
Eight substations: Three new facilities in Camp Point, Kenney and Piper City and five stations rebuilt or expanded to Brown County, Pontiac, Gibson City, Iroquois County and Peoria, will be linked to the network, with updated communication control systems and supervision to control and control teams remotely.
“At a time when the Midwest faces a persistent shortage of electricity needed to meet the increasing demand, this life project will provide energy access and certainty for companies and residential growth,” said Shawn Schukar, president and president of Ameren Transmission Co., in Illinois, in a statement.
Ameren submitted his joint request in January 2024 (ICC Docket 24-0088), sending detailed routing maps, a preliminary cost-benefit analysis and wetland evaluation summaries. The Commission’s staff issued 25 data applications, testing plans for the acquisition of passage of passage, load flow modeling, environmental mitigation and coordination with third -party infrastructure owners.
Map courtesy of Ameren Illinois
Public audiences in Springfield in May 2024 resulted in witnesses from private groups and individual witnesses who suggested alignment adjustments. However, the Commission’s staff, together with engineers Ameren, said that these deviations would increase the costs of 2% -4% or would require new substation work and that they approved the original alignment as “necessary to maintain reliability and support the growth of future load”.
Several commentators raised health and health problems: James Williams, which the Iroquois County Farm borders with a 138 kV line, urged the commission to “use existing passage rights” instead of taking new cultivated land. Matthew Hadsall of Peoria County warned: “My greatest concern as the father of seven children is his health that he lives near the high -voltage power lines,” and called for a quarter -mile residential setback.
Ameren replied that “existing environmental controls and species-protection measures meet all state and federal requirements” and that package deviations could increase costs or complicate the substation design.
Grouped analyzes have found that children in houses with low -frequency magnetic fields above 0.3–0.4 µT, the usual levels within 100 m of main transmission lines, are about double the risk of child leukemia and the International Cancer Research Agency classifies these fields as carcinogenic in humans (group 2B).
However, the main health agencies maintain that routine residential exhibitions are a poorly demonstrated risk: the World Health Organization reports that “there are no substantial health problems” at environmental field levels and the United States environmental protection agency states that studies have not constantly shown adverse effects at typical levels of exposure.
The detailed plans that accompany the request that the new and updated circuits were reviewing will cross or parallel 42 railway segments, 16 main pipe runners and 78 existing high voltage circuits within half mile buffers, which require coordination with more than 100 infrastructure owners. The notice was sent to the Rule 305.60 of the ICC to all railways and services affected.
In its final order of July 2, the commission imposed two conditions: Ameren must submit quarterly updates to right -wing negotiations and present a final plan for mitigation of wetlands at least 90 days before starting work in any county.
The utility must also ensure local zoning and construction permits, endangered species and cultural resources reviews, and finish miso interconnection studies before mobilizing in the middle of 2016.
The project management will be managed by an internal Ameren Services team, which uses union contractors and local subcontractors for line work, substation assembly, polls and road control. The easement negotiations are led by Emerald Energy & Exploration, Volkert and Contract Land Services.
The assignment of costs is divided by approximately $ 1.29 billion in transmission plant costs by $ 1.225 million by Ameren Transmission Co. and $ 66 million for Ameren Illinois, with 91% loaded in the broadest miso subregion and 8.87% for low customers.
“When we increase the capacity of the system, everyone wins,” said Thomas Pauk, head of the program project. “The opening of new energy avenues promotes the lowest costs in the future and helps keep customer rates affordable.”
Key milestones include the first State report on the right of October 1; Preliminary mobilization in November; Mitigation plan for the wetlands of Adams County, on December 3; Main line stringing and tower erection in mid -2016; and energization by phase until the end of 2029.
Hell Ameren was contacted for more information on the awarded contractors, the technical specifications of the substation, the performance objectives and the projections of the workforce. Brad Brown, Ameren’s spokesman, said that the company could not provide this data before the press time, but added: “I will clarify the estimate of $ 1.6 billion costs, including a segment that goes to Missouri; the Estimate of Cost of the Illinois Commera Commission is by less than $ 1.3 billion.”
