High Country Energy and Wisconsin Public Service (WPS) have been closely watching the requirements of our Acquisition and Sale Agreement (ASA) in light of the acceleration of our G852 interconnection request into MISO’s Definitive Planning Phase (DPP).

The original letter of intent, signed in March 2008, was negotiated between WPS and High Country Energy prior to MISO’s queue reform, and the ASA was signed during MISO’s post-reform transition period. To take advantage of a “first ready, first served” MISO approach, High Country moved G852 into the DPP. After High Country Energy’s G852 interconnection request moved into DPP, the siting and interconnect issues associated with moving to the DPP began to be more evident. The result was it became more difficult to keep High County’s and WPS objectives aligned. We came to the conclusion that the siting and interconnect issues could not be resolved in time to meet the ASA schedule requirements, and effective July 2, 2009, WPS exercised a milestone option and terminated the ASA.

HCE and WPS had held preliminary discussions about modifying the ASA, but the contract terms were too closely tied to the South Footprint, where a near-term MISO Interconnection Agreement would likely not meet WPS requirements. HCE does have two interconnection requests, and our second interconnection request, G796, may be managed to better suit WPS objectives. High Country Energy has submitted a new proposal to WPS, for development around the G796 interconnect.

We are disappointed that the ASA will not continue, but the ASA termination will give High Country Energy more flexibility to utilize the full 300 MW capacity of our advanced G852 interconnection request. We have been pleased with WPS’s involvement with the High Country project and the value their participation added to the project. We will continue to work to maintain a good working relationship with WPS and High Country is seeking to restructure the relationship with WPS in a manner that works for both organizations.

Read more stories from the Summer 2009 newsletter