Great River Energy and Minnesota Power are talking to landowners and navigating the regulatory process as they prepare for construction of the Northern Reliability project, a roughly $1 billion transmission line that will support the electrical power needs of people in Minnesota and beyond.
The power companies have identified a preferred route from the Grand Rapids area to just north of the Mississippi River in Monticello for the 180-mile, double-circuit 345-kV transmission line, which is scheduled for construction between 2025 and 2030.
The route “generally follows” existing transmission corridors in Itasca, Aitkin, Crow Wing, Morrison, Benton and Sherburne counties, according to Minnesota Power and Great River Energy.
Though the preferred route is pending regulatory approvals, the project team has been “actively working with landowners” as part of the right-of-way acquisition process, said Dan Lesher, manager of transmission permitting and land rights for Great River Energy.
“We have staff out in the field, gathering data on all the environmental aspects of the project where the wetlands are, cultural sites, rare plants and those sorts of things,” Lesher said in an interview. “In order to facilitate that, we needed to undertake a right-of-entry process, which is what we’ve been working on.”
Lesher added that the project team is transitioning from right-of-entry to easement options for landowners.
“We wouldn't exercise the option until a route is determined by the PUC later this year, but we want to get easement documents in front of folks and work with them as much as we can. Then we're that much more prepared to have construction start after the permit issuance,” he said.
Estimated to cost between $970 million and $1.3 billion, the Northland Reliability project is designed to “bolster the reliability” of the electric transmission grid at a time of transition, Lesher said.
“As we’re moving away from fossil fuel baseload power to a more distributed renewable generation fleet, we want to make sure that we have the transmission to support moving electricity from one area of the state to the other,” he added.
Citing a newly released study , Minnesota Power and Great River Energy say the project will be a big boost to Minnesota’s economy.
The study from the Bureau of Business and Economic Research at the University of Minnesota, Duluth’s Labovitz School of Business and Economics estimates project will have a combined $2 billion economic impact while directly supporting 246 jobs per year over the life of the project, among other benefits.
“This joint project to ensure the continued reliability and resiliency of the regional grid reflects our commitment to the communities and customers we serve,” Dan Gunderson, vice president of transmission and distribution at Minnesota Power, said in a statement. “The study makes clear how this investment in transmission infrastructure to meet evolving energy needs also delivers economic benefits to local employers, contractors and suppliers.”
The project comes at a time of change for permitting.
A recent report from the North Star Policy Action concluded that slow and inefficient permitting is creating headwinds for the development of new wind, solar and transmission projects in Minnesota and making it harder to achieve clean energy goals.
Minnesota’s permitting process hadn’t been updated in more than 50 years, the March 2024 report noted, adding that average wait times from application to approval range from 358 days for wind farms to 673 days for large transmission lines.
Late in the 2024 legislative session, Gov. Tim Walz signed a permitting reform bill that addresses some of the concerns.
Lesher, who has been involved in the permitting reform process, said the idea is to streamline the permitting process without compromising public review. One of the changes, he said, is to allow two separate processes a major review and a standard review for permitting transmission lines.
“I think having these two different processes, and having a cleaner delineation between the two, will help speed up some of the more standard transmission projects,” he said.
The permitting changes won’t have a big impact on the Northland Reliability project, he said, but future projects stand to benefit.
“This is one of many projects that will be proposed in the state of Minnesota and the Upper Midwest,” he said. “I think having permanent reform at this time makes sense, and I look forward to using the new statutes and the permanent reform changes and applying those to the future projects.”
RELATED: Report: Inefficient permitting delays clean energy projects
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