Oct 19 - Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News - Charles S. Johnson The Montana Standard, Butte

If Montana begins generating more electricity, there may be no shortage of power lines crisscrossing the state to ship it to the booming Northwest and southern California, transmission line executives said Wednesday at the governor's energy summit here.

If the lines come to fruition, they would provide a way to move future power generated in Montana from coal, wind and other sources to other states, speakers said.

Additional transmission lines, speakers said, also could create more competition for PPL Montana, which provides 70 percent of the electricity purchased by NorthWestern for its more than 310,000 Montana customers.

"Montana has huge generation potential," said Brad Thompson, president of Northern Lights Transmission. "Unfortunately, it is very difficult to get that to the marketplace."

Brian Silverstein, vice president for operations and planning for the Bonneville Power Administration, discussed ways to increase access to its power grid. He said the federal power marketing agency had invested in the first major power line construction in the region since 1987 and spent more than $1 billion over the past four years on transmission projects to deliver new power to the Northwest.

"Transmission issues are not going to get resolved unless we work together," Silverstein said.