The Southwest Power Pool Board of Directors recently approved a $7.7 billion plan to expand and upgrade the region’s transmission capacity.
SPP’s 2024 Integrated Transmission Plan is the single largest portfolio, in terms of size and value, that SPP has proposed for construction in its 20-year history as a transmission planning coordinator.
The approved plan includes 89 transmission upgrades needed to address increasing electricity consumption and changes in the region’s generating fleet. "These projects are expected to quickly pay for themselves and provide benefits exceeding costs by a rate of at least 8-to-1 while improving grid resilience in the face of extreme weather events," SPP said.
Prior to the board’s approval of the ITP portfolio, SPP’s Markets and Operations Policy Committee -- a group comprising representatives of every member of the SPP RTO – voted in support of the plan with 95% approval.
The 2024 ITP portfolio is the product of 27 months of study and approximately 150 meetings of 11 working groups and committees comprising representatives of SPP’s member organizations. SPP evaluated more than 2,000 potential solutions to anticipated system needs, arriving at 89 projects that represent 2,333 miles of new transmission and 495 miles of transmission rebuilds.
Read the full ITP report on SPP.org for a list of all projects.