US-based electronic transmission company ITC Holdings, which plans to build the world’s largest renewable-energy transmission system in the US believes that a national green-energy standard will help pave the way for construction of the $12-billion project.

ITC’s 4 827-km system, the Green Power Express, will bring electricity from wind farms in the US plains to cities such as Chicago. The company, based in Novi, Michigan, reports that it 
intends to build the project, which will run through North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois and Indiana.

While the project can go forward in segments without a 
national requirement, setting a standard “clears the air”, says CEO Joseph Welch.

“We clearly have to get a picture of where we are going in this country with renewable energy. You need policy changes and policy decisions by our policymakers to direct those of us in the market to where we need to go next,” he says.

The US Senate may take up climate-change or renewable-energy legislation later this year. Welch says he expects a nationwide green-power mandate to be passed next year.

The US may need to invest about $100 billion in a transmission network to transport electricity from wind farms, says Virginia Tech College of Engineering professor Saifur Rahman.

In June, a US Senate energy panel approved legislation that would require utilities to get as much as 15% of their power from renewable sources by 2021. The US House of Representatives passed a proposal in June that would force utilities to meet 20% of electricity demand from renew-
able power and energy efficiency 
by 2020.

Twenty-eight states and the District of Columbia have their own programmes to encourage renewable energy.

Welch says that the Midwest Independent Transmission Sys-tem Operator, a regional power-grid organisation, is reviewing the project and is expected to issue a report by the end of the third quarter.

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