October 29, 2013 – AltaLink says the Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC) has approved (with conditions) five projects that fall under the Foothills Area Transmission Development (FATD) and Southern Alberta Transmission Reinforcement (SATR).

“Since 2009 we’ve had more than 2000 conversations with stakeholders, and over 40 open houses and information centres that allowed us to hear stakeholder views that assisted us in our project siting and planning,” said Eoin Cooke, AltaLink vice-president, major projects, South.

The five projects approved in the AUC decision include:

• FATD: North Foothills Transmission Project (NFTP)
• FATD: Foothills 138kV Project (a.k.a. High River to Okotoks and Okotoks to Janet)
• FATD: Langdon to Janet
• SATR: South Foothills Transmission Project (SFTP)
• SATR: Windy Flats 138 kV Line Reconfiguration

These five projects will help bring new power generated in southern Alberta to Calgary and the growing communities south and east of the city, says AltaLink. They involve building new transmission lines, rebuilding and modifying existing lines and building two new substations (west of Fort Macleod and east of High River).

“We anticipate about 350 people working on these projects during peak construction times,” said Cooke. “We are proud to support the communities in which we live and work, and we encourage all of our contractors to hire locally.”

Construction planning and preparation is expected to get underway in the coming weeks, with construction anticipated to begin in early 2014. All five projects are expected to be complete in the spring or summer of 2015.