Groundbreaking for Sunflower Electric Power Corp.’s largest power line may be two years away, but the generation and transmission co-op already has built a foundation of public engagement and feedback to help advance the project.

The Hays, Kansas-based G&T doubled its number of community meetings and open houses and created a public webpage dedicated to the project with a direct email link and a 24/7 hotline to help address public inquiries.

The hotline “has been a huge part of this project,” said Monica Seib, Sunflower’s transmission coordination and development director. “If a landowner at any point in time has a question or comment, they're able to get feedback or their questions answered.

“We’ve had folks call the hotline and say, ‘I was at the open house, but I forgot to mark that I have a shed not showing up on the map.’ They're able to give us continuous feedback with the systems that we have in place.”

Sunflower is preparing to build a substation and 180 miles of 345-kilovolt transmission from Holcomb, Kansas, north to the Colorado state line as part of a 360-mile power line reliability and grid resiliency project identified by Southwest Power Pool, the regional transmission organization for a 17-state area.

To navigate supply chain kinks, Sunflower started gauging key equipment needs two years ago. The G&T estimates the project will be complete by the end of 2030.

“We have a supply chain issue right now in this country,” said Al Tamimi, Sunflower’s senior vice president and chief operations officer of transmission. “We used to get breakers in two years, now we're talking three and a half to four years. With long lead times for substation equipment, there's an urgency to source and acquire that equipment earlier in the project timeline compared to past projects.”

Sunflower’s member communications plan is playing a big part in establishing transparency.

The G&T worked with its seven member distribution utilities to hold two public meetings instead of the usual one per county along the line’s potential route. These interactive open houses provide booths on various aspects of the project, including geographic information system maps, where members can get specific questions answered or concerns heard.

“As the public engagement process continued, we worked with our member cooperatives to help identify the right people to invite to key stakeholder meetings and open houses, because they know their communities best,” said Seib.

“The open house is a chance to get one-on-one interaction with subject matter experts. Our GIS personnel were actually able to zoom in on their property and landowners were able to make comments on that database.”

SPP called for the high-voltage line from Holcomb to Sidney, Nebraska, after winter storms Uri in 2021 and Elliott in 2022 hit the region hard. Uri forced Sunflower to curtail 70 megawatts, or between 15% to 20% of its load.

“Fortunately, we learned some lessons from Uri that helped us avoid additional curtailments during Elliott, but we’re still in a precarious reliability situation,” said Corey Linville, Sunflower’s senior vice president and chief operations officer of generation and power supply.

As the Holcomb-to-Sidney line progresses, Sunflower expects the project website and hotline to provide updates, answer questions and share information throughout the project. The proposed route will be reviewed through the Kansas Corporation Commission's formal siting process, which includes opportunities for public input before a final route is approved.

“Our plan is to keep the webpage active,” said Anne Long, Sunflower’s vice president of member solutions and communications. “It’s been a good addition for us to direct anybody who has an inquiry to our landing page so that they can get information.”