The Commerce Commission of the US state of Illinois (ICC) has granted a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity (CPCN) to the 5 GW high-voltage direct current (HVDC) Grain Belt Express transmission line project, which will run for 1,287 km through Illinois, Missouri and Kansas.
The approval, which was granted after a a yearlong public input and review process, is expected to enable US$4.3bn in energy cost savings for Illinois energy consumers, while improving the regional power grid reliability in the agriculture rich center of the US. The project’s construction start has not yet been determined. The total investment for the project is estimated at US$7bn.
In July 2022, the Chicago-based company Invenergy, which is developing the project, decided to increase the overall power transmission capacity of the Grain Belt Express project from 4 GW to 5 GW. The project will notably increase by fivefold the delivery capacity to the state of Missouri, with an increase in the sizing of the line’s mid-point delivery converter station from 500 MW to 2.5 GW.