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Reinventing the electric transmission grid
PART 49
BY MARKUS I. BRYANT, GENERAL MANAGER
T
he Obama administration’s Department of Energy (DOE) firstever Quadrennial (every fourth
year) Energy Review (QER) has an
entire chapter about “Modernizing the
Electric Grid” to develop the “Grid of the
Future.” It notes that investor-owned
utilities spent a record $16.9 billion on
transmission in 2013, up from $5.8 billion in 2001.
This higher level of transmission investment is expected
to continue as the grid is modernized “to replace aging
infrastructure, maintain system reliability, facilitate
competitive wholesale power markets, and aid … in
meeting greenhouse gas reduction and renewable energy goals.”
Figure 1 shows that as the economy continues to
recover from the 2008 recession, U.S. electric sales are
projected to continue growing about .7 percent annually through 2040. This growth is expected among all
sectors of the economy, including residential, commercial and industrial. Electricity use for transportation is
expected to expand at 3.4 percent annual growth rate
because the number of electric vehicles is expected to
grow.
Figure 1
2013
2020
U.S. Electricity Sales by Sector
2025
2030
2035
2040
source: smart lines - transmission for the renewable energy economy 200, chapter 3, page 12.
1750
Commercial
1650
Residential
1450
1350
1250
(kilowatt hours in billions)
1150
Industrial
1050
Transportation
950
20
850
18
16
750
14
650
12
10
550
8
450
6
4
350
2
250
150
Transportation
0
2012
2013
2020
2025
2030
2035
2040
50
-50
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration- Annual Energy Outlook 2015, Appendix A, Table A8.
Some of the industrial electricity growth is to power
the growing U.S. oil and gas industry. Therefore,
transmission lines are being built to meet the large
power needs of new natural gas and oil wells developed
through “fracking” of U.S. shale oil and gas deposits,
such as those in eastern Ohio.
Roughly half of the annual investment in trans24
Figure 2
U.S. Electricity Sales by Sector
2012
1550
mission is needed to maintain reliability for existing,
expanding, or new homes and businesses. The public’s
demand for reliable electric service is increasing along
with the sophistication of the technology used in homes
and businesses, especially with computers and communication services.
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COUNTRY LIVING SEPTEMBER 2015
The shift to competitive wholesale power markets
in much of the U.S. during the 1990s has impacted
the transmission grid. Transmission lines were originally designed to move electricity in one direction from
centrally located power plants to the end consumers.
Transmission lines were interconnected for backup and
limited power exchanges between electric companies.
Today, we see new merchant generators locating along
transmission lines. We sometime see the sales contract
path for electricity delivery does not match the actual
path the electricity is flowing. This has required “beefing up” existing lines or building new transmission lines
to allow the wholesale power market to work properly
without causing grid reliability problems.
Environmental regulations for coal plants are currently impacting the grid. For example, several coal
plants on Lake Erie have shut down or plan to soon.
Utilities in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia are
racing to build new lines or increase existing transmission line capacity to move power north to serve cities
along Lake Erie. The other alternative is to replace
coal generation on Lake Erie with gas, but that means
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North Central Electric Cooperative
building gas pipelines
to supply the gas, which
currently is a contested
issue in our local area.
The push for windand solar-generated
electricity by the federal
government and many
states has significantly
impacted transmission investment plans.
Slightly less than half
of U.S. transmission investment is for building
new transmission lines
to service the best wind
and solar areas of the
country, which are not
located close to populated areas where the
electricity is needed.
Figure 2 shows the
western half of the
U.S. Note that the best
areas for solar power
are colored red and the
next best are in orange.
This is the sunny southwest desert of our country. Note
the large number of transmission lines that would be
needed to fully develop the solar power potential of the
region and connect it with its major urban areas. Keep
in mind that this assumes the continuation of generous
federal solar tax credits into the future.
Figure 3 is from another U.S. DOE report, “Wind Vision: A New Era for Wind Power in the United States.”
This report looks at a “what-if” scenario of 10 percent
of the nation’s end-use electricity demand served by
Figure 3
wind by 2020, 20 percent by 2030 and 35 percent by
2050.Figure 3 shows extensive new transmission line
additions of 11,000 miles by 2030 and 33,000 miles
by 2050 to accommodate the DOE study scenario. I’m
not sure I’m convinced, but the study contends that this
scenario is “an ambitious but credible scenario.” My
skepticism arises from the study’s assumptions that the
federal government will continue with Wind Production
Tax Credits in the face of an $18-plus trillion and rising
national debt and with state governments continuing to
mandate wind and solar power generation purchases by
utilities, when plentiful natural gas has made gas generation cheaper in many cases than wind and solar.
Folks, we’ll eventually see what transmission is actually built. It is positive that our government is looking at
how everything needs to be “tied together” through our
national electric grid, whether it is to maintain or improve reliability, add new electric generation resources,
accommodate growing electric demand, or to operate
wholesale power markets.
Our nation’s electric utilities are focused on rapidly
removing the strains on our transmission grid. However,
the price tag won’t be cheap. Depending on the wire size
and the terrain, construction costs can range from
$1 million to $2 million per mile. As with everything
worth having, you get what you pay for.
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration- Wind Vision: A New Era for Wind
Power in the United States 2015, Chapter 3, Figure 3-28.
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