Today, direct testimony was filed with the Wisconsin Public Service Commission in the Cardinal-Hickory Creek transmission line case. A group of clean energy organizations, including Fresh Energy, strongly support the transmission project.
The Cardinal-Hickory Creek transmission line is a needed addition to the Midwest electric grid that will deliver multiple benefits. The new transmission line will help facilitate the Midwest’s transition to clean, renewable energy while offering reliability, energy security, and enabling an economic wholesale power market. The project will reduce congestion, improve access to new, economic wind and solar projects, and reduce curtailment from operating wind farms. In addition, the line will deliver approximately $22 million to $349 million in economic benefits.
Fresh Energy’s senior director of energy markets and regulatory affairs, Allen Gleckner, released the following in support of the line:
“The clean energy economy we are moving towards requires next-generation transmission lines, like the Cardinal-Hickory Creek project. Energy efficiency and distributed generation alone will not get us to the carbon-free economy our region needs and which a changing climate demands. In addition to rooftop solar and energy efficiency measures, we will also need a significant portion of our electricity from large-scale wind and solar. Clean energy transmission, like Cardinal-Hickory Creek, is critical to connecting the thousands of megawatts of large-scale wind and solar in the development pipeline in Wisconsin and throughout the Upper Midwest.”
Below is our joint press release, issued in partnership with Clean Grid Alliance, Operating Engineers Local 139, and Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy.
