Aug. 12--That's one more tower up, a few thousand more to go.

On Tuesday, near the Denton County community of Krum, workers erected a 100-foot-tall steel tower, part of an 800-mile, 3,800-tower chain of high-voltage transmission lines designed to carry wind-generated electricity from West Texas to the Metroplex. The towers and lines make up a $1.3 billion award won by Oncor Electric Delivery, which serves most of North Texas.

It's one leg of a $4.9 billion plan to link the state's more than 8,000 megawatts of capacity at wind farms, mostly west of Abilene and in the Panhandle, with the state's population centers. That plan, approved by the Public Utility Commission of Texas in January, envisions about 2,400 miles of new power lines that could carry up to about 18,000 megawatts of power in what the PUC calls competitive renewable energy zones, or CREZ.

"It's a green project," Oncor spokeswoman Carol Peters said. "It's a totally Texas-based project."

Steel components for the towers are cut and shaped by employees of Haltom City-based Falcon Steel Co. The steel is made from recycled scrap at a Nucor Corp. mill in Jewett, about 100 miles south of Dallas in Leon County. The towers are assembled in the field by Chapman Construction of McKinney.

Construction time is about seven to 10 days per tower. The first 14 towers will be completed by mid-September.

The entire CREZ project is expected to take about five years, Peters said.

The Energy Department estimated last year that up to 20 percent of U.S. electricity could be supplied by wind power by 2030. Texas is the No. 1 state for wind power, which accounts for about 10 percent of the state's total generating capacity and met about 5 percent of the state's electricity demand last year, according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which operates the state's largest electricity grid.

Area residents aren't likely to see much of the new towers close to home. Most will only approach the outskirts of the urban area, where they will tie into existing transmission wires.

The closest tower in this part of the project will be about 15 miles from Fort Worth, Peters said. The tower raised Tuesday will link a substation in Krum to west Denton, she said.

Towers of power Some facts about the 3,800 high-voltage transmission towers being installed by Oncor Electric Delivery to carry more wind power to the Metroplex.

Height: 100 feet in three sections: 30-foot leg extension, 50-foot body,

20-foot top

Weight: 19 tons

Foundation: 36-inch-diameter concrete footings, 14 feet deep

Source: Oncor Electric Delivery

JOHN AUSTIN, 817-390-7874

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