Plannershave selected preliminary corridors for what will be a roughly 125-mile, 345-kVtransmission line in northeastern Iowa and southern Wisconsin and have scheduledseveral open houses during the week of May 16 to show the corridors to area residents.

The Cardinal-HickoryCreek line is to run between the Cardinal substation in Middleton, Wis., in DaneCounty, and the Hickory Creek substation in Dubuque County, Iowa, with a new substationto be added around Montfort, Wis. It was designated by the Midcontinent Independent System Operator Inc. as a multivalueproject, part of project No. 5, which also includes the Badger-Coulee project inWisconsin. According to MISO, the two projects together have a current estimatedcost of a little more than $1 billion.

Developersof the Cardinal-Hickory Creek line are AmericanTransmission Co. LLC, ITCHoldings Corp. subsidiary ITCMidwest LLC and DairylandPower Cooperative. Like the other MVPs, the line is intended to bothimprove regional reliability and provide for the development of renewable energyresources, particularly wind.

Accordingto the developers, applications to state regulators are to be submitted in 2018and 2019. Some federal approvals will be needed as well. The line is expected tobe in service in 2023.

ATC andITC are transmission utilities and do not own any generation resources. Dairylandis a generation and transmission cooperative serving 25 member-cooperatives in westernWisconsin plus bordering parts of Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota, and it purchaseswind-generated power as part of its supply mix.

The 345-kVBadger-Coulee line will run about 180 miles between the Cardinal substation andthe Briggs Road substation in Onalaska, Wis., in La Crosse County. Wisconsin regulatorsapproved it in early 2015,with an estimated cost of $581.4 million. Its targeted in-service date is 2018.ATC and Xcel Energy Inc.subsidiary Northern States Power Co.- Wisconsin are the developers,and three other regional utilities, including Dairyland, are passive investors.