A controversial proposal for a high-voltage power line to carry renewable energy in the Midwest has notched regulatory wins but faces challenges as it woos landowners in prime farm country.
Grain Belt Express, a merchant transmission project of Invenergy, has been in the works since 2010 to move solar and wind power from Kansas to Indiana. Farmers are frustrated at the ease with which Invenergy got the blessing of state utility commissions and federal regulators.
The line foreshadows the future of infrastructure development driven by the thirst for green power. “Little did we know that the project was the precursor to the Green New Deal,” said Missouri Farm Bureau President Garrett Hawkins. He said state laws did not foresee power lines owned by private companies instead of regulated utilities, possibly claiming eminent domain.
“The entire premise of the line is to make money once the power gets to the PJM grid,” said Laura Harmon, associate counsel for the Illinois Farm Bureau. The PJM Interconnection is a neighboring interstate power network extending from Illinois to New Jersey and as far south as North Carolina, where power prices generally are higher than in the Midwest.
Grain Belt was described as a "pass-through" line when first announced before Invenergy acquired it in 2017 from Clean Line Energy Partners, increased the size of the project and proposed connections to 39 communities in Missouri served by small public utilities.
Half the power on the line will be delivered to Missouri, said Shashank Sane, head of transmission for Grain Belt.
An Energy Department study in 2023 found that significant within-region transmission deployment is needed as soon as 2030 in the Plains states, Midwest and Texas. The study also said that the forecast is dependent on load growth, and the Midwest is a region with the most transmission capacity in the nation, partly based on recent investment.
Sever Walker Padgitt, a law firm that specializes in eminent domain, is negotiating proposed easements with Invenergy on behalf of some landowners who have not agreed to terms.
“It seems like Invenergy has been open to discussion,” said George Padgitt, a partner in the firm.
Other property owners have already signed, he said, adding that Invenergy is probably past the point of willingly changing the path of Grain Belt but some re-routes may be likely after surveys.
A spokesperson for the line said it has voluntarily secured over 97%, or more than 1,500, of the easements needed in Kansas and Missouri, the first phase of the line.
Regulatory, legal hurdles abound
The Missouri Farm Bureau and others in the state tried and failed last year to get that state’s supreme court to reconsider approval of Grain Belt’s certificate of convenience and public necessity granted by the utility commission.

The project got a site certificate from the Kansas Corporation Commission in September on the condition that Kansas electric ratepayers bear no cost.
Landowner and farm groups convinced an Illinois appeals court in October to overturn approval of the Grain Belt certificate by the state commerce commission on the grounds that the line cannot be self-financed. The appeals court declined to rule on the constitutionality of a special purpose state law declaring Grain Belt a utility.
Grain Belt has appealed, saying testimony was presented that it can finance the line and that the court improperly rewrote the state’s 2021 Climate and Equitable Jobs Act, which prioritizes clean energy.
Both sides have asked to present oral arguments to the state supreme court.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved the initial rates for Grain Belt more than 10 years ago. The agency ensures that transmission tariffs are applied equitably, but customers, competitors and affected parties often protest for years.
The Midcontinent Independent System Operator, which runs the grid across 15 states, other transmission owners and utility Ameren contest the costs, benefits and reliability of Grain Belt.
Invenergy said Grain Belt “has received more regulatory scrutiny than any other transmission project under development in the country.”
As a merchant project with uncertain demand, regional transmission coordinators have no obligation to grant Invenergy the same status as utilities.
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Grain Belt missed the deadlines to be included in the long-term transmission planning of MISO and has protested to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission about being excluded. The line also was not part of the transmission planning process of the adjacent Southwest Power Pool.
Construction on the first phase of the line is supposed to start in 2026, with operations beginning in 2029. DOE in December provided a loan guarantee of up $4.9 billion for this segment of the line. The guarantee was expedited by an interagency infrastructure federal government permitting council created by Congress in 2015 known as FAST-41.
A second phase of Grain Belt will run through Illinois into Indiana.

"Missourians have opposed Invenergy's transmission project from the start,” Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., told Agri-Pulse. “The Biden administration is throwing billions of American taxpayer dollars at the project before President Trump takes office. Missouri farmers are completely against the Grain Belt Express and will continue to make sure that their voice is heard."
Grain Belt did not make a recent short list of proposed power lines considered by DOE to be in national interest electric transmission corridors. These are segments of the country designated by the energy secretary to get fast-track federal approval “where consumers are harmed by a lack of transmission and that the development of new transmission would advance important national interests.”
The mechanism for the corridors was created in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 but stayed dormant until last month. The fact that the path for Grain Belt was did not make the cut was welcomed by Hawley and other lawmakers but won’t stop the project.
“Invenergy feels as if they have tailwinds,” said Roger Clark, senior vice president at Associated Electric Cooperative, a generation and transmission cooperative that serves rural electric co-ops across Missouri and parts of Iowa and Oklahoma. Associated takes no position on Grain Belt but will intersect with it. “I anticipate this project will be built," Clark said.
No dirt turned yet for Grain Belt, facilities
The nameplate capacity of the line is 5,000 megawatts, equal to the output of about five large nuclear reactors. The renewable energy projects in Kansas that are expected to feed the line have yet to be built. Invenergy is reluctant to provide details for fear of starting a speculative land rush where wind and solar projects could be built.
“We see historic demand growth in the power pools Grain Belt Express will serve, and generation interest in the project is correspondingly significant,” Sane said.
Invenergy is estimated to need easements from thousands of landowners on the path of the line.
Power lines typically follow property lines with an offset on one owner’s property but not both, according to Harmon of the Illinois Farm Bureau, which does not represent individual landowners in the matter. An easement can be between 150 and 250 feet wide, and farmers need to get permission to plant underneath the power lines.
“You can’t get a 16-row planter on the other side of the line,” she added.
Padgitt said negotiations begin with an option on a perpetual easement, with a small payment early and the bulk of the money as the project advances.
Early offers from a developer are usually low and change over time to accommodate different types of property. Padgitt said land values fall once eminent domain proceedings have begun.
Eminent domain is the power of a public entity to take private property without the owner’s consent but with compensation. The practice is controversial and selectively used in the development of pipelines, power facilities, highways and other projects.
Landowners can take a developer to court to fight eminent domain, Padgitt said, but decisions on property value are very dependent on the facts of the specific case.
Kansas Sens. Roger Marshall and Jerry Moran, both Republicans, filed a bill in the last Congress to prevent the use of eminent domain where federal funds are used to build power lines.
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, also a Republican, urged the DOE “to halt the $4.9 billion loan” to aid Grain Belt, which he said “will unlawfully seize land from Missouri property owners.”
A one-time payment for property that farmers don’t want to sell does not compensate them for its value and the impacts associated with a power line, said Hawkins of the Missouri Farm Bureau.
This report has been corrected to say that an Illinois appeals court declined to rule on whether a special purpose law passed to declare Grain Belt a utility is unconstitutional.
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