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Macrogrid study: Big value in connecting America's eastern and western power grids:
Those seven threads (technically, they're back-to-back, high-voltage, direct-current connections) join America's Eastern and Western interconnections and have 1,320 megawatts of electric-power handling capacity. (The seam separating the grids runs, roughly, from eastern Montana, down the western borders of South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas and along the western edges of the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles. Texas, with its own grid, is mostly outside the two big grids.)
And they are big grids -- the eastern grid has a generating capacity of 700,000 megawatts and the western 250,000 megawatts. So, up to 1,320 megawatts isn't much electricity moving between the two.
But what if there were bigger connections between the two grids? What if more power moved back and forth? Could that move Iowa wind power, Southwest solar power and Eastern off-shore wind power from coast to coast? Could the West help the East meet its peak demand, and vice versa? Would bigger connections boost grid reliability, resilience and adaptability? Would the benefits exceed the costs?
The short answer: Yes.
That's according to the Interconnections Seam Study, a two-year, $1.5 million study launched as part of a $220 million Grid Modernization Initiative announced in January 2016 by the U.S. Department of Energy.
[...] "The results show benefit-to-cost ratios that reach as high as 2.5, indicating significant value to increasing the transmission capacity between the interconnections under the cases considered, realized through sharing generation resources and flexibility across regions," says a summary of the latest paper.
"So, for every dollar invested, you get up to $2.50 back," said James McCalley, an Iowa State Anson Marston Distinguished Professor in Engineering, the Jack London Chair in Power Systems Engineering and a co-author of the papers.
How much would you have to invest? McCalley said it would take an estimated $50 billion to build what researchers are calling a "macrogrid" of major transmission lines that loop around the Midwest and West, with branches filling in the middle and connecting to Texas and the Southeast.
Journal References:
1.) Aaron Bloom, Josh Novacheck, Gregory L. Brinkman, et al. The Value of Increased HVDC Capacity Between Eastern and Western U.S. Grids: The Interconnections Seam Study, (DOI: 10.1109/TPWRS.2021.3115092)
2.) Armando L. Figueroa Acevedo, Ali Jahanbani-Ardakani, Hussam Nosair, et al. Design and Valuation of High-Capacity HVDC Macrogrid Transmission for the Continental US, (DOI: 10.1109/TPWRS.2020.2970865)
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 23 2021, @12:36PM (12 children)
It would be ironic if these grids are interconnected (and they are connected already up with Canada and down to Mexico), and then we'll read again how the poor freedums of Texas grid collapsed again because local generation issues. But hey, at least don't have to be subject to these regulations from the Feds, right?
It's kind of like living off the grid because you don't want the power company and regulators from imposing safety standards on your fancy wires. But I guess to each their own.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Thexalon on Tuesday November 23 2021, @01:32PM (7 children)
The Texans who are behind the "we avoid federal regulations" policy are quite happy with that arrangement. A handful of politically-connected energy companies increase their profit margins by not dealing with winterization or backup systems or all those other efforts to keep things running smoothly, get to charge whatever they want, and fool most of their customers with variable pricing schemes that look cheaper but aren't the moment anything goes wrong. And the politicians who make sure this system remains in place get stock in those companies or other forms of totally-not-illegal kickbacks. And if anybody who really matters doesn't want to live through this sort of thing they can always just jet off to Cancun.
My recommendation for Texans:
1. If you can, invest in off-grid power for you and yours. Texas is an excellent place for windmills and solar arrays, and you can set those up in a way that keeps working while the grid is kaput.
2. Have some conversations with your neighbors. Make a plan, in advance, about who is doing what in a crisis to ensure everybody is OK. Talk through what people have that is useful and can be shared, who has useful training (e.g. who has a background in medicine), who has special needs (e.g. elders who can't climb stairs), that sort of thing.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Tuesday November 23 2021, @02:54PM (6 children)
Problem: those two steps you describe sound . . . OMG!!! . . . like the beginning of some form of government! Just like how all human societies throughout history have worked together to govern themselves. But just don't use those evil words like 'govern' and 'government'.
Communism and Socialism!!!
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(Score: 4, Interesting) by Thexalon on Tuesday November 23 2021, @03:13PM (5 children)
They're the sort of thing a functional government would do, yes. The thing is, Texas plainly doesn't have one of those, so I'm encouraging ordinary Texans to be more responsible than their so-called leaders on the grounds that it will help keep them alive.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Wednesday November 24 2021, @05:02AM (4 children)
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday November 24 2021, @01:23PM (3 children)
That claim is easily disproven: Texas keeps a separate electric grid precisely because they don't want to follow US federal regulations throughout most of the state. Places that did follow US federal regulations didn't have the same problems Texas did. Ergo, what happened in Texas is very much Texas' problem.
But even if it were true, and Texas was the finest state government that has ever existed, then I'm encouraging ordinary citizens in Texas to do the work that the US federal government is failing to do. Because no matter who is responsible, there's plainly a job that needs doing (keeping Texans alive when the power is out), and relying on a government to do it demonstrably doesn't work.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday November 24 2021, @02:00PM (2 children)
You just proved my point. As you note above, it is federal regulation that incentivizes Texas to keep a separate grid.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Saturday November 27 2021, @12:30PM (1 child)
So if I'm understanding your logic correctly: If a drunk driver slammed into a tree Thursday night and died, that's the fault of the legislators who passed laws against drunk driving, and maybe Mothers Against Drunk Driving who advocated for those laws, and definitely not the fault of the idiot who drank too much wine at Thanksgiving dinner and drove home rather than crashing on a couch.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday November 28 2021, @01:11AM
No, you're not understanding my logic correctly.
No, it's more like passing laws that someone can't store alcohol at home nor transport someone who is drunk, but you can still load up at the bar. Hence people get drunk and drive home, because otherwise how are they going to get home? You know, traditional bad law that has unintended consequences. I'm sure that Texas electricity providers would love to be connected better to the rest of the US's grid, but that preference is less than their preference that they not be subject to federal level regulations on such. I can't say I blame them.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday November 23 2021, @02:57PM (3 children)
Texas got all of the energy independence and deregulation that it wanted. I hope they like it.
Texas regulators approve higher gas bills to pay out companies’ winter storm-related profits [kut.org]
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(Score: 3, Informative) by number11 on Tuesday November 23 2021, @05:40PM (1 child)
Unfortunately, not just Texas. People as far away as Minnesota are getting gouged to pay for the Texas fuckups.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Tuesday November 23 2021, @05:52PM
Why should Texans be the only ones to pay for Texas not having some commonsense regulations?
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(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Wednesday November 24 2021, @02:09PM
Your quote says
So the problem is rather that these companies incurred massive debts rather than profits. It sounds to me like there may be a California-style obligation where gas utilities are forced to buy natural gas at any price. Remove the obligation and we'd probably never see this particular problem again.
As for the suppliers, I've never had problems with price gouging due to emergency scarcity rather than state enforced scarcity. This seems a legitimate incentive to encourage more such suppliers to produce during the next such ice storm or other grid failure.
As for the 30 year time frame, should companies not account for long term risks like this? My take is that electricity prices should have a slight increase permanently to pay for this sort of grid risk. I'm not saying that electricity providers would appropriately use such money - Texas will have to regulate that, but there's a good reason for it.