Renewable Energy Zone Planning Webinar Series
Electric transmission improvement and expansion currently ranks high on the national energy agenda, highlighting an opportunity to review current state and regional transmission planning processes. Building new transmission requires planning, paying for, permitting, and siting lines. In addition to traditional transmission planning, that focuses on reli¬ability and economics, new landscape-level, collaborative planning approaches have emerged to bring wildlife and other land use interests to the table early in the transmission planning process. This series of webcasts addressed the state of the art landscape planning activities performed at state and regional levels.
Western Renewable Energy Zone initiative and Renewable Energy Transmission Access Advisory Committee
September 28, 2009
The third webinar featured the recently completed Phase 1 of the Western Governor’s Association (WGA) Western Renewable Energy Zone (WREZ) planning process-a significant multistage and stakeholder initiative. Leaders from the WGA, WREZ’s Technical Committee and work groups discussed the process and lessons learned. The recently released Phase II report of Nevada’s Renewable Energy Transmission Access Advisory Committee (RETAAC) was also featured.
California Renewable Energy Transmission Initiative
August 24, 2009
RETI is is a statewide initiative to help identify the transmission projects needed to accommodate these renewable energy goals, support future energy policy, and facilitate transmission corridor designation and transmission and generation siting and permitting. Presenters provided detailed overviews of RETI, wildlife and habitat data incorporated into the zone identification process, and wind industry perspectives on the process.
State Renewable Energy Zone Planning: Arizona & Colorado
July 27, 2009
In the first webinar, participants sought to understand the purpose and goals of planning processes in Arizona and Colorado, as well as the challenges associated with data collection and the technical tools used to identify and classify zones.