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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: 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.