The TransWest Express Transmission Project, a new high-voltage interregional transmission line that will extend from south-central Wyoming through northwestern Colorado and central Utah, ending in southern Nevada, advanced on June 20 with project groundbreaking.
Once complete, the transmission line will provide 3,000 megawatts of new transmission capacity.
The Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management authorized construction of the project in April 2023.
The TransWest Express Project will carry electricity generated by the largest onshore wind generation project in North America: the over 3-gigawatt Chokecherry and Sierra Madre Wind Energy Project, located in Carbon County, Wyoming.
Like the TransWest Express Project, the 600-turbine Chokecherry and Sierra Madre wind project is partially located on public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management.
The Obama-Biden administration identified the TransWest Express Project as a priority project in 2011.
Since then, BLM’s Wyoming office has worked closely with a variety of stakeholders as the lead federal permitting agency to develop the best possible route.
The project will consist of an approximately 730-mile-long, 600-kilovolt, direct current transmission line, a northern terminal located near Sinclair, Wyoming, and a southern terminal approximately 25 miles south of Las Vegas, Nevada.
A ground electrode system (required for transmission line emergency shutdown) would be installed within 100 miles of each terminal.
