Dive Brief:

• Great Plains Energy and American Electric Power are bidding on power line projects around the U.S. through their Transource joint venture, Great Plains officials said during an earnings conference call.
• Kansas City Power & Light and GMO Missouri – Great Plains subsidiaries – saw “weather-normalized” residential sales jump 3.1% last year, the strongest increase in five years. Total sales increased 1.4% last year and the company expects annual sales to increase 0.5% to 1% through 2016.
• The utilities plan to spend $3.2 billion on infrastructure through 2018.

Dive Insight:

Transource, 86.5% owned by AEP and 13.5% owned by Great Plains, is moving ahead with two 345-kV projects in Missouri and Nebraska, but the company is now looking farther afield for projects.

“Near-term, Transource is focused on submitting bids to construct transmission projects in several domestic [regional transmission organizations], including PJM, [the Midcontinent Independent System Operator], and [the Southwest Power Pool],” Terry Bassham, Great Plains chairman, president and CEO, said.