Plains & Eastern Clean Line was a proposed 720-mile (1,160 km), 4,000 MW long-distance HVDC transmission line to bring wind power in Oklahoma to consumers in the Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic United States via the existing Tennessee Valley Authority grid. [1] [2] [3] It would have termini at Guymon, Oklahoma and northeast of Memphis, Tennessee and an intermediate converter station in Pope County, Arkansas. [3] The U.S. Department of Energy is a partner in the development, its first exercise of section 1222 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, under which Congress authorized the department to promote electric transmission for clean energy. [4] The project has been credited with bringing renewable energy to part of the country that previously had not had access. [5]
The HVDC line to be built by a division of General Electric has been called the beginning of a North American super grid. [1]
In late December 2017, Clean Line announced the sale of the Oklahoma portion of the Plains and Eastern to NextEra. The sale consisted of a transfer of right-of-way easements to NextEra. The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy assailed TVA for killing the project. [6]