The US Department of Energy approved a project last week that would ship renewable energy directly from Oklahoma’s panhandle to cities in the southeastern United States.The Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise reportsthat the 700-mile Plains and Eastern Clean Line project was okayed by the feds last Friday. The electricity transmission line will cross 14 Oklahoma counties before passing through Arkansas and ending north of Memphis, Tennessee.
The $2.5 billion clean line project is privately funded, and no taxpayer dollars will go toward the endeavor. The transmission line will take energy produced by Western Oklahoma’s wind farms and deliver about 4,000 megawatts of renewable energy to the South.
That’s enough energy to power more than 1 million homes and represents four times the electricity produced by the Hoover Dam. Construction will start late next year, with completion by expected by 2020.