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The Grid
August 2010

The future of transmission

America’s electric utility industry today universally agrees there’s a need for new transmission infrastructure.

“For the last decade or so, new transmission construction has not kept pace with the development of new power supply,” says Barry Lawson, manager of power delivery for the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. “There hasn’t been any significant, backbone transmission added to the grid in quite some time.”

Planning and coordinating efficient bulk power transmission is one thing, building it is another. Government regulations affecting who owns and controls transmission can change. Environmental considerations about where to build transmission are always in the forefront. Acquiring the right-of-way and real estate to site transmission requires major effort. And in general people just don’t want to see high-voltage transmission lines nearby.

“We’ve all heard of NIMBY, not in my back yard,” says W. Terry Boston, CEO of the grid operator PJM Interconnection. “Now we’re facing NOPE, not on planet earth.”

In spite of these constraints, the electricity industry today is seeing stepped up activity toward improving the transmission grid and building new transmission infrastructure.

“The regulatory uncertainty in the middle 1990s brought on a decline big time,” says Boston. “But now we have a new line across the Appalachians, another under construction, and another approved.”

At the same time, federal officials are planning and implementing security systems intended to protect the grid against hackers and terrorist attacks via the Internet.

To help in future planning, transmission technology has improved. NCEMC’s Bob Beadle points to several advances. New conductors used for transmission lines permit more power to move with less of the natural “loss” that occurs over long distance. The ability of new “smart grid” systems to manage distribution and usage lends to a more effective delivery. Advanced battery technology can increase how much power can be stored in reserve. “Distributed” power generation close to the point where it’s used—such as fuel cells or solar electric systems on buildings, or individuals and businesses themselves producing power that can feed into the grid—is part of the coming mix of power supply. “All of this progress will help us to plan and manage transmission and distribution more efficiently,” Beadle says.

Developing more renewable energy resources to generate electricity in the U.S. figures largely into the future of transmission. Wind resources, for example, are abundant in the Midwest, but the transmission grid does not yet extend to all those areas.

“If you like wind because of its low fuel cost,” says PJM’s Terry Boston. “If you like nuclear power because it can reliably serve your base load, if you like plug-in hybrid electric vehicles because they can get us off foreign oil, you have to love transmission. You have to build transmission.”

Boston concludes, “There are consequences if we don’t build. If you think the cost of electricity is high, you should see the cost of not having it.”

Sources: U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, National Council on Electricity Policy, U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.

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