TransWest Express Transmission — Wyoming to Nevada

Two decades from concept to notice to proceed. Then 730 miles of line.

TransWest Express is one of very few multi-state HVDC projects in the West to clear federal permitting and reach heavy construction instead of dying in review. BLM issued the notice to proceed in April 2023, on a right-of-way grant first granted in 2017, and the Barnard Wilson Joint Venture started work in Wyoming that September.

The line is sized to move 3,000 MW from wind country to the desert Southwest.

Project Scope

The route runs roughly 730 miles from a northern terminal south of Rawlins, Wyoming to the Marketplace substation area near Boulder City, Nevada, crossing Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and Nevada, mostly over federal multiple-use land. The architecture is hybrid rather than pure DC: a 405-mile plus-or-minus 525-kV HVDC segment paired with 278 miles of 500-kV HVAC and a further 49-mile 500-kV AC segment. Rated capacity is 3,000 MW, or at least 20,000 GWh a year of low-cost wind energy.

Siemens Energy took the HVDC converter station package in December 2022. Barnard Construction Company and Wilson Construction Company formed the Barnard Wilson Joint Venture in June 2023 as line construction partner, pairing a heavy-civil contractor with a dedicated powerline specialist. Estimated project cost is about $3 billion.

Between Delta, Utah and Las Vegas the corridor parallels the existing Path 27 and IPP DC intertie, which simplifies siting through some of the harder ground on the route.

Developer TransWest Express LLC is an Anschutz Corporation company, and Anschutz also owns the Chokecherry and Sierra Madre wind project in Carbon County, Wyoming that anchors supply at the north end. The Western Area Power Administration joined as a federal partner in 2010 under its Transmission Infrastructure Program. Sponsors project hundreds of millions of dollars in state and local tax revenue across the four-state corridor, a projection from the project rather than an independent assessment.

Why It Matters

Long-haul interregional transmission is the binding constraint on western renewable buildout, and almost nothing at this scale actually gets built. TransWest reaching steel in the ground makes it a working reference for the North Plains Connector and the SunZia generation of lines, particularly the decision to mix HVDC and AC rather than commit to one architecture end to end.

For transmission-line contractors it’s a rare opportunity at real scale: four states of mostly federal right-of-way, converter stations at both terminals, and a specialist scope deep enough to justify a dedicated joint venture.

And the permitting record has become a standard citation in the fight over federal siting reform. Roughly twenty years from concept to construction is the number people reach for when they argue the process is broken, whichever side of it they’re arguing.

Project Team & Details