TOLEDO – A $221 million ITC Midwest electrical transmission line will be constructed running between the Morgan Valley substation in Linn County southwest of Fairfax and the currently under construction Twinkle substation on the east edge of Marshalltown after the Iowa Utilities Commission (IUC) formally approved the permit application on Dec. 1.

According to information posted on the IUC website, the franchise “allows ITC Midwest to construct, erect, operate, and maintain 345 kV and 161 kV electric transmission line segments, which consist of approximately 60.58 miles in Marshall, Tama, Benton, and Linn counties and 33.76 miles in Marshall, Tama, and Benton counties.”

ITC Midwest has two years to construct the electric transmission line. The company filed its application in July 2024, and a hearing was held in Toledo in July of 2025 to gather and hear evidence regarding the project.

“The company requested eminent domain over one parcel of land, and the IUC found that granting eminent domain over the requested property is necessary for public use, and that the estimated $221 million electric transmission line project is necessary to serve a public use and represents a reasonable relationship to an overall plan of transmitting electricity in the public interest consistent with Iowa Code chapter 478,” the website said.

Rod Pritchard, the marketing and communications manager for ITC Midwest and a native of Tama County, explained that his company is responsible for providing transmission service and taking power from generation stations like the one Alliant owns and operates on the east side of Marshalltown to end use energy consumers. The Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) is tasked with planning the future of the energy grid and identified the aforementioned area as a target in its research.

“We know that we have a really reliable transmission grid in the upper Midwest today. How do we maintain that reliability looking 20, 30, 40 years into the future? The reason the system is so reliable today is because of the planning work that was done by MISO in collaboration with the planning engineers from the utilities 10 to 20 years ago that led to construction of projects that gives us a reliable transmission grid today,” Pritchard said. “In July 2022, MISO approved what is called the Long Range Transmission Plan, or we refer to it as the LRTP, to build the high voltage transmission infrastructure over the next few years. And within the LRTP portfolio are several different tranches or several different groups of lines that will be built.”

Altogether, there are about 2,000 miles of high voltage transmission lines in Tranche One, including about 200 miles in Iowa and 61 miles between Linn and Marshall counties. Pritchard said the increased infrastructure will improve system reliability for customers, withstand extreme weather events in light of recent natural disasters in central and east central Iowa and expand access to generation resources for consumers by reducing the transmission system congestion.

“The biggest bottleneck that prevents the lowest cost energy from getting to market is the lack of transmission infrastructure, so the more the transmission infrastructure is built out, the better access energy consumers have to lowest cost energy, which is often renewable energy,” he said.

Additionally, he feels that the line will improve access to the lowest cost energy resources for consumers. Pritchard said that according to MISO’s projections, every dollar invested in the Tranche One projects will result in $3.20 to $4.40 in benefits largely in the form of lower cost energy. He does not expect any permanent jobs to be created at the new substation in Marshall County, but obviously, the expansive project will mean construction jobs for those building the line, and a 161 kV line running from Marshalltown east through Tama County and into western Benton County will also be removed and rebuilt in addition to the new 345 kV line.

“That reduces impact on landowners in two ways. The first way is that we are building the line in Marshall and Tama counties on the existing line route, and also, by putting two lines on one set of structures, we minimize landowner impact,” Pritchard said. “So instead of having two sets of structures with parallel 345 and 161 kV lines, we have one set of structures that have both the 345 kV line and the 161 kV line on the segment from Marshalltown eastward into western Benton County.”

Alliant Energy is ITC’s largest customer, and Pritchard said the line will serve Alliant by helping to connect to the company’s generation and distribution infrastructure. Pre-construction activities began on Monday, Dec. 8, 2025, including the removal of some existing lines, and the construction of the new Morgan Valley-Twinkle line is scheduled to begin in early January 2026.

“The construction crews will begin work in the area of the Tama and Benton County line and will simultaneously build going eastward to the Morgan Valley Substation and westward to the new Twinkle Substation,” Pritchard said.