The Midcontinent Independent System Operator, on behalf of American Transmission Co. LLC, on Dec. 27 notified the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that an agreement filed June 15 for engineering design and procurement of material for a portion of the required network upgrades needed to interconnect the 98-MW Quilt Block Wind LLC project to the grid has expired.
Quilt Block plans to own and construct a wind farm in Lafayette County, Wisconsin. It will consist of forty nine (49) Vestas 2- MW wind turbine generators, a collection system, an interconnection substation, and associated facilities, with a total output of 98 MW (gross). The facility is presently expected to interconnect to the 138kV X-14 Darlington Substation and Hillman Line and transmission system owned by ATC.
The engineering agreement expressly contemplated that it would be superseded and terminated by the Generator Interconnection Agreement (GIA) once the GIA was executed and made effective. The parties executed a GIA on Sept. 2, 2016, thus this prior agreement has expired by its own terms and is no longer effective.
Incidentally, Dairyland Power Cooperative announced June 8 at its 75th Annual Meeting a significant expansion of wind resources, with Barbara Nick, Dairyland President and CEO, stating in her address that Dairyland will purchase the renewable energy from a 98-MW wind project in southwestern Wisconsin. Dairyland said it has reached a power purchase agreement with EDP Renewables North America LLC, which will develop, operate and maintain the Quilt Block Wind Farm, located 20 miles southeast of Platteville. Construction is expected to begin in 2017, with commercial operation beginning toward the end of that year.
