"Southern Cross is an innovative transmission project that will allow Texas to share its abundant low-cost wind energy resources with its neighbor states to the southeast," said Mike Garland, CEO of Pattern Development. "We appreciate the assistance we’ve received from the many parties in Texas who worked with us on securing this order and are excited to now be able to move forward with this unique project which will create jobs and economic development in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. The project will share renewable energy resources between states and also provide significant reliability and economic benefits by connecting two robust systems."
The orders issued by FERC on May 15, 2014 followed a compliance filing earlier this year and are in response to applications initially filed by Pattern Development in September, 2011. The Commission announced four orders: 1) directing the City of Garland, Texas (Garland) to interconnect with Southern Cross; 2) directing Oncor Electric Delivery Company LLC (Oncor) and CenterPoint Energy Houston Electric, LLC (CenterPoint) to provide transmission service for power flows into and out of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT); 3) approving an associated Offer of Settlement among the parties; and 4) affirming that neither the order nor the Offer of Settlement would cause ERCOT, Oncor, CenterPoint, or any other ERCOT utility or other entity that is not already a public utility to become a "public utility" as that term is defined by section 201 of the Federal Power Act (FPA) and subject to the jurisdiction of the Commission for any purpose other than for the purpose of carrying out the provisions of sections 210 and 211 of the FPA.
Pattern Development’s team of transmission experts has developed other transmission projects, including the Trans Bay Cable project under San Francisco Bay. The Trans Bay Cable project is a groundbreaking submarine HVDC transmission line that was completed in 2010 and is presently serving up to 40% of San Francisco’s and the northern peninsula’s peak energy needs.
