Giving the Power Grid Some Backbone

[one...two...tree 2,762]

The U.S. needs a high-voltage transmission system to deliver plentiful energy from wind and sunshine to power-hungry cities. At least one plan has emerged

By Matthew L. Wald, Scientific American

A stiff wind blows year-round in North Dakota. In Arizona the sun beats down virtually every day. The U.S. has vast quantities of renewable electricity sources waiting to be tapped in these regions, but what it does not have there are power lines—big power lines that can carry the bountiful energy to distant cities and industries where it is needed.

The same is true beyond the windswept high plains and the sun-baked Mojave Desert: renewable supply and electricity demand are seldom in the same place, and too often the transmission lines needed to connect them are missing. The disparity exists even in New England, where hundreds of miles of high-tension wires supported by thousands of steel towers run neatly through dense areas of settlement. When Gordon Van Wiele, chief executive of ISO New England—in charge of transmission in the six-state region—unfurls a map of the land there, large ovals show the location of the best wind sites: Vermont near the Quebec border and eastern Maine spilling over into New Brunswick. But sure enough, no transmission lines tran­sect them.

The U.S. has the natural resources, the technology and the capital to make a massive shift to renewable energy, a step that would lower emissions of greenhouse gases and smog-forming pollutants from coal-fired power plants while also freeing up natural gas for better uses. Missing is a high-voltage transmission backbone to make that future a reality. In some places, wind power, still in its infancy, is already running up against the grid's limits. "Most of the potential for renewable resources tends to be in places where we don't have robust existing transmission infrastructure," Van Wiele says. Instead, for decades electric companies have built coal, nuclear, natural gas and oil-fired generators close to customers.

That strategy worked reasonably well until recently, when 28 state governments set "renewable portfolio standards" requiring their utilities to supply a certain portion of their electricity using renewables, such as 20 percent by 2020 or even sooner. But as Kurt E. Yeager, former president of the Electric Power Research Institute in Palo Alto, Calif., points out, such standards "aren't worth the paper they're written on until we have a power system, a grid, that is capable of assimilating that intermittent energy without having to build large quantities of backup power, fossil-fueled, to enable it."

In Colorado the utility that serves most of the state, Xcel Energy, is now building a megawatt of natural gas capacity for every megawatt of wind so that it is ready to come online quickly to provide power when the wind tails off. That plan is a carbon improvement but not really a carbon solution. The U.S. needs a new transmission backbone that crisscrosses the country, knitting together many large wind farms, solar-energy fields, geothermal pools, hydroelectric generators and other alternative sources.

One utility company has already unveiled a grand plan for the U.S., and other experts are charting their own backbone schemes. But whichever one might prevail will require a lot of money and a lot of coordination across what are now independent areas of technological and political control.

Bottlenecks Would Benefit, Too

Even before the emphasis on climate change, reasons were mounting to remake the grid. Chief among them are bottlenecks that stifle the flow of power.

North America is actually covered by four regional grids (three of which serve the U.S.). The largest is the Eastern Interconnection, an extensive complex of transmission lines that stretches from Halifax to New Orleans, with substations that step down the high-voltage electricity to lower levels so that it can be distributed locally along smaller wires. West of the Rockies is the Western Interconnection, from British Columbia to San Diego and a small slice of Mexico. Texas, in an echo of its history as an independent republic, comprises its own grid, now called the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. And Quebec, with its separatist undercurrent, also has its own grid. The high-voltage transmission systems in the four regions comprise about 200,000 miles of power lines, divided among a staggering 500 owners, that carry current from more than 10,000 power plants run by about 6,000 investor-owned utilities, public power systems and co-ops.

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A Grand Plan

The electric system undergirds nearly every aspect of modern life, from water supplies and steel mills to traffic lights and the Internet. Although we think of it as a national institution, it is virtually a feudal system among those 500 owners. Control of the power flow is also balkanized among dozens of jurisdictions, an artifact of the grid's history; it grew together from many small systems and local regulators that to this day are not melded.

Frustrated by internal complications such as the Kanawha–Matt Funk line, AEP last year teamed up with the DOE to rethink the grid for the whole country. The result—part of the DOE's exploration of how to get 20 percent of U.S. electricity from wind by 2030—was a plan for a national, high-voltage transmission backbone. The 22,000-mile system would be to electricity what the interstate highway system is to transportation, enabling a different kind of energy economy suited for a carbon-conscious era.

The plan would not extend today's transmission system, which often operates at no higher than 345 kilovolts. Rather it would be superimposed over it, with various on- and off-ramps. The backbone would move power across the continent at the extreme high-voltage rating: 765 kilovolts, which would reduce typical system losses of 3 to 8 percent to around 1 percent. The higher voltage would also require fewer lines than any lower-voltage option, meaning less real estate for rights-of-way.

To further decrease losses, some long stretches would use direct current, instead of the usual alternating current that most of the system—and virtually all households and businesses—run on. Although direct-current lines are highly efficient, the equipment that converts alternating current into direct current and back again is not, so the advantage accrues on long spans—such as those from the windy high plains and the sunny Southwest. Those spans only make sense if they traverse sparsely populated areas, however. If the line was going from Wyoming to Chicago, notes Michael Heyeck, senior vice president of transmission at AEP, "I'm sure Iowa or other states would want to tap into it." Otherwise the line becomes like an interstate without an interchange, hardly welcome anyplace.

High-voltage lines of both varieties have long proved reliable. And there is now reason to believe that a national backbone could be effectively controlled. AEP recently opened a state-of-the-art transmission control center in New Albany, Ohio, near Columbus, that could serve as a model for nationwide operation. The center sits far back from a local highway, surrounded by a moat, with an unmarked gatehouse in front. Inside, giant floor-to-ceiling computer-driven displays show all the power lines and electricity flows across AEP's entire system. The displays can show details down to the level of transformers at individual substations and circuit breakers across thousands of square miles. The wall-size monitors also generate foglike clouds over large parts of the maps of entire states to indicate general voltage trends: white is good, orange is not, and red is worse.

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full story

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

The U.S. has the natural resources, the technology and the capital to make a massive shift to renewable energy

We have capital???????

[one...two...tree 2,762]

The U.S. has the natural resources, the technology and the capital to make a massive shift to renewable energy

We have capital???????

Sure. Less money spent on going to war over oil.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

The U.S. has the natural resources, the technology and the capital to make a massive shift to renewable energy

We have capital???????

Sure. Less money spent on going to war over oil.

That war isn't being funded by capital.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

The U.S. has the natural resources, the technology and the capital to make a massive shift to renewable energy

We have capital???????

Sure. Less money spent on going to war over oil.

That war isn't being funded by capital.

Sure it is...future capital.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

future capital <-- no such thing.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

future capital <-- no such thing.

Aye...I think we're in a semantics battle. The author was accurate, IMO - whether you want to call it financial resources or capital, we have the means to modernize our electric grid system.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

We don't have the means if the 'means' you have in mind comes from ending the war in iraq.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

AJ - when a someone starts up a business, most often they borrow money on the premise that they'll be able to pay that money back from future capital.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Good answer. Who gives them the money? Institutions that believe they'll have a positive ROI on the investment.

Are you sure this backbone project will qualify for monies from private institutional investors? If not, why not?

[one...two...tree 2,762]

We don't have the means if the 'means' you have in mind comes from ending the war in iraq.

I was being rhetorical.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Good answer. Who gives them the money? Institutions that believe they'll have a positive ROI on the investment.

Are you sure this backbone project will qualify for monies from private institutional investors? If not, why not?

I can imagine there'd be a tremendous amount of incentives. During blackouts, businesses lose a tremendous amount of money. Just think of the potential lost revenue from people temporarily unable to access the internet?

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

I think it's a great idea, I'm just not convinced we have the capital for it right now.

[peejay 327]

The U.S. needs a high-voltage transmission system to deliver plentiful energy from wind and sunshine to power-hungry cities.

The USA needs to do a lot of things in regards to future energy requirements and transitioning away from diminishing fossil fuels. Nobody doubts that wind and solar technology exists. The bigger question is whether the money, resources, practicality, and consensus exists to implement any realistic transition on a massive scale in relation to our current consumption. It is a very complex and complicated issue. There needs to be a consensus that transcends politics and political parties or any long termed solution will be fleeting and ineffective. The private sector will not buy into anything that is as fleeting as the whims of politics and the instant gratification mindset of the unwashed masses.

A recent book written by a noted economist that I read has some insights worth noting on the subject of alternative energy transition. I just checked it out from my local library. It is well worth the read for another perspective. It touches on this subject and how it relates to the "Big Picture".

Game Over: How You Can Prosper in a Shattered Economy by Stephen Leeb, PhD.

[dalegg 143]

The U.S. has the natural resources, the technology and the capital to make a massive shift to renewable energy

We have capital???????

We have checks.