Upgrading the grid: utilities prepping lines for renewables.

Utility firms in several Western states plan to upgrade their electric grids to meet reliability, growing loads and new resource needs, including supporting growth in renewable energy resource development.

Some companies want to build new power transmission lines. Other firms are using technology to better monitor transmission needs or are developing new materials enabling existing lines 10 carry higher electric loads. The new strategies accommodate a rising tide of "green energy" derived from the sun, water and wind.

The stakes are high in California, Washington, Oregon and Colorado, states that are already major green power producers. To meet the new 2020 renewable portfolio standard targets, utilities there must substantially boost the amount of green power they produce.

Renewables Portfolio Standards legislation in the region is "really driving the demand for renewable generation," said Doug Larson, executive director of the Western Interstate Energy Board, an organization of energy groups in 11 Western U.S. states and three provinces in Western Canada. He said power firms in nine states--Colorado, Washington. California, Oregon. Nevada, Arizona, Montana, New Mexico and Utah--face Renewables Portfolio Standards in the years ahead.

Meeting the new goals means utility firms in California--which Larson said already produces the largest amount of green energy of any state--will have to boost the amount of electricity from renewable sources from the current 20 percent to 33 percent by 2020.

Colorado companies must raise energy produced from renewables to 30 percent; by 2020. That means adding an additional 8,700 gigawatt hours of sustainably generated power, an increase that would nearly triple the current production of 3,000 gigawatt hours, Larson said. Utilities can meet the goal either by generating more renewable power themselves or purchasing it, according to the environmental sustainability nonprofit RAP.

More alternative power means more work for power lines, some of which are old or straining near capacity.

In Colorado, for example, the electrical load for wholesale electric cooperative Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association rose three times the national average for utility growth last year, said Lee Boughey, the group's senior manager for communications and public affairs. Much of the increase came from rising power needs at the region's growing oil and gas industry, he said.

Westminster-based Tri-State already serves...