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Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-From: Yahoo! Finance <refertofriend@reply.yahoo.com< X-To: mcurry@enron.com, Clint.Dean@enron.com, jmwatson@tecoenergy.com X-cc: X-bcc: X-Folder: \Clint_Dean_Jun2001\Notes Folders\Notes inbox X-Origin: Dean-C X-FileName: cdean.nsf Frank L. Busot (flbusot@tecoenergy.com) has sent you a news article Personal message: In case you hadn't heard (doubtful... but thought I'd forward anyway). Yahoo - AEP, LCRA plan $500 mln Texas power grid expansion http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/010523/n23183125.html Yahoo - AEP, LCRA plan $500 mln Texas power grid expansion Finance Home Yahoo! - Help [ Latest Headlines | Market Overview | News Alerts ] Related Quotes AEP 50.80 -0.12 delayed 20 mins - disclaimer Wednesday May 23, 6:30 pm Eastern Time AEP, LCRA plan $500 mln Texas power grid expansion SAN FRANCISCO, May 23 (Reuters) - A public power company and investor-owned American Electric Power (NYSE:AEP - news) plan to pump $500 million over the next five years into a program designed to upgrade the power grid serving southern and western Texas. The joint venture between AEP and the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA), approved on Wednesday by LCRA's board of directors, aims to reach a final agreement on financing and implementing the plan in June. ``We expect to have a final negotiated contract in June and hope to start construction on specific projects by the end of the summer,'' LCRA spokesman Robert Cullick said. Projects in the program, which require approval by the Texas Public Utilities Commission (PUC), include boosting the voltage on existing transmission lines, building new lines, upgrading substations, and hooking up new power plants. According to the PUC, Texas currently has 27 new power plants under construction that will put nearly 14,000 megawatts on the grid when completed over the next few years, roughly enough electricity to supply 14 million homes. The boom in power plant construction responds to a surge in energy demand from rapidly growing cities in the region like Corpus Christie and Larado in southern Texas, which have seen their populations grow by 40 percent over the past decade. While the generation side of the industry has been aggressively expanding, the Texas grid needed to carry that electricity to consumers has been cited in the power industry as cause for concern. Earlier this month the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) warned the Texas transmission network -- though in far better shape than California's struggling system -- was nevertheless in dire need of upgrades, and lumped it together with other potential hot spots like New England and New York City. ``There are some bottlenecks. By expanding existing lines and building new ones we hope to relieve some of these bottlenecks,'' Cullick said. Under the agreement with Columbus, Ohio-based AEP, LCRA will own the new lines and AEP will maintain them. This will effectively lower the program's cost since LCRA is a public, not-for-profit power company exempt from federal income tax. Email this story - Most-emailed articles - Most-viewed articles More Quotes and News: American Electric Power Co Inc (NYSE:AEP - news) Related News Categories: oil/energy, US Market News, utilities Help Copyright , 2001 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy - Terms of Service Copyright , 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. Questions or Comments?
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