JAMESTOWN — An application for a certificate of public convenience and necessity for a planned 345-kilovolt electric transmission line has been submitted to the North Dakota Public Service Commission, according to Rebecca Michael, communications manager for Otter Tail Power Co.
The 95-mile project is known as JETx and connects an Otter Tail Power Co. substation north of Jamestown to a Montana-Dakota Utilities Co. substation near Ellendale. Power could flow in either direction on the line and would offer enhanced reliability on the regional power grid and increase the system’s resilience to damaging weather, according to www.JamestowntoEllendale.com , a website prepared by the project’s sponsors.
The planned $440 million construction project is a joint venture between Otter Tail Power and Montana-Dakota Utilities. The ultimate costs will be allocated to the members of the Midcontinent Independent System Operators, a regional power-grid operator that has requested the line.
“We are hoping to file for a route request later this fall,” Michael said. “We don’t have the whole route worked out. We will send a preferred route to the PSC.”
The PSC will hold public hearings on the route usually at locations near the project. Those have not been scheduled at this time.
The PSC has the final authority over the route of the transmission line. It will use its standard 500-foot setback from any inhabited buildings, said Tyler Perleberg, Stutsman County tax director and planning administrator.
The current Stutsman County zoning ordinance does not address setbacks for electrical transmission lines or pipelines.
A change to the ordinance mandating a different setback is under consideration, Perleberg said. The discussion includes regulating locations of transmission power lines of more than 115 kilovolts and pipelines greater than 4 1/2 inches in diameter that are more than 1 mile in length. It would only affect the placement of those lines in relation to inhabited homes.
Perleberg said the goal of the proposed ordinance is to regulate large electric transmission lines and gas pipelines and not affect power or gas distribution lines running to homes or farms.
“We have nothing in our ordinance now,” Perleberg said. “We are trying to determine the proper setback. The proposal now is 2,600 feet or just under a half mile.”
That proposal was tabled for additional research at the Sept. 3 Stutsman County Commission meeting.
“Some landowners have been asking for up to a mile,” Perleberg said, “but the proposal now is 2,600 feet.”
A change such as this setback proposal does not affect all of Stutsman County, he said.
“Only the portions of the county where the townships don’t have their own zoning ordinance,” Perleberg said. “There are 16 townships, most around Jamestown that have their own zoning ordinances.”
Those townships can pass their own setback rules for transmission lines and pipelines. If they do not, the standard in those townships would be the 500 feet set by the PSC.
Perleberg said if the Stutsman County Commission passes the zoning ordinance increasing the setback, it would go into effect 30 days after the ordinance is published.
Michael said if the PSC approves the route permit yet this fall or winter, construction on the transmission line could begin in the second half of 2025. Project completion is planned for the second half of 2028.
“It (a change to the Stutsman County zoning ordinance) would impact us,” Michael said, “but we are in a holding pattern until we know what it is.”
More information about the project, including a map of the proposed route, is available at www.JamestowntoEllendale.com .