Tulsa a part of new National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor

[patric]

A new rule by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which oversees interstate electricity transmission, is the most significant attempt in years to upgrade and expand the country's creaking electricity network. Experts have warned that there aren't nearly enough high-voltage power lines being built today, putting the country at greater risk of blackouts from extreme weather while making it harder to shift to renewable sources of energy and cope with rising electricity demand.

A big reason for the slow pace of grid expansion is that operators rarely plan for the long term, the commission said.
A 2011 attempt by the commission to encourage transmission planning largely faltered, in part because many utilities were opposed to new long-distance lines that might undercut their monopolies.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/13/climate/electric-grid-overhaul-ferc.html


The Federal Power Act authorizes the Secretary of Energy to designate any geographic area as a National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor (NIETC) if the Secretary finds that consumers are harmed by a lack of transmission in the area and that the development of new transmission would advance important national interests in that area, such as increased reliability and reduced consumer costs.




Based on preliminary findings, transmission development in potential Delta-Plains NIETC could...
Maintain and improve reliability and resilience. Potential electricity shortfalls leave the regions vulnerable during extreme weather.
Alleviate congestion. Congestion in the area prevents cost-effective generation from being delivered to where it is needed, when it is needed.
Meet future generation and demand growth. There is a significant need for additional transfer capacity between the Delta and Plains regions to meet various future power sector scenarios. Analysis finds a 414% increase is needed by 2035 under moderate load and high clean energy growth scenarios.
Increase clean energy integration. Increased access to more diverse, clean energy generation is necessary to lower power sector greenhouse gas emissions.
https://www.energy.gov/gdo/national-interest-electric-transmission-corridor-designation-process

[Red Arrow]

A big reason for the slow pace of grid expansion is that operators rarely plan for the long term, the commission said.

That's been a problem with businesses in the USA for quite a while.  My dad always blamed the Harvard Business School.  I have no proof either way.

Maximize the 5 year plan (think USSR?) and don't worry if there is no business in 5-1/2 years.  Take the money and run.....

[AdamsHall]

There are better high-voltage line replacement options too.  This allows improvements upwards of 40% without impacting the existing towers and easements.  There are better use monitoring devices available now that also allow for increased throughput.  FERC recently recognized those items as well.

[Jeff P]

That's been a problem with businesses in the USA for quite a while.  My dad always blamed the Harvard Business School.  I have no proof either way.

Well - to be fair, there's a little bit of nuance here.

Individual public utilities DO plan for the future. They all file 10-year Integrated Resource Plans (IRPs) that lay out their estimates for electricity demand in their area and how they plan to supply it (fuel mix) as well as their maintenance plans, expansion plans, etc.

What they are talking about here are high voltage long-range transmission lines that interconnect between individual utilities within a given grid (e.g. PJM or SPP) or how the grids interconnect.

There is less long-term planning on those because it's a lot more complicated, in terms who is footing the bill for it since it may have asymmetrical benefits to individual utilities.

So this new initiative is a good thing because the ability to quickly import and export power from utility to utility or grid to grid is going to be more and more important as more renewables are added and also behind-the-meter solar, which will change grid loads substantially over the next 10-15 years.

[AdamsHall]

Well - to be fair, there's a little bit of nuance here.

Individual public utilities DO plan for the future. They all file 10-year Integrated Resource Plans (IRPs) that lay out their estimates for electricity demand in their area and how they plan to supply it (fuel mix) as well as their maintenance plans, expansion plans, etc.

What they are talking about here are high voltage long-range transmission lines that interconnect between individual utilities within a given grid (e.g. PJM or SPP) or how the grids interconnect.

There is less long-term planning on those because it's a lot more complicated, in terms who is footing the bill for it since it may have asymmetrical benefits to individual utilities.

So this new initiative is a good thing because the ability to quickly import and export power from utility to utility or grid to grid is going to be more and more important as more renewables are added and also behind-the-meter solar, which will change grid loads substantially over the next 10-15 years.

This ^

[patric]

(KOTV) Oklahoma House Speaker Designate Kyle Hilbert, (R-Bristow,) announced Thursday night at a packed meeting in Sapulpa the controversial federal plan to designate more than 600 miles of Oklahoma land as possible home for electrical transmission lines will not be built.
Even though it's not going to happen, Hilbert said an official word from the U.S. Department of Energy will come on Monday: here's what we know about the proposal.

Q: What parts of the state would have been impacted?
A: The proposed 645-mile corridor spanned northern Oklahoma. It started near the Arkansas border by Fort Smith, paralleled I-40 near Sallisaw, then meandered north through south Tulsa County, Okmulgee County, Creek County, south of Stillwater, and across I-35, ultimately reaching Woodward and the Panhandle.

Q: What would this line have done?
A: If would have ferried electricity across the state and allowed the Southern Power Pool to move electricity across its service area to meet demand.

Q: Why build new transmission lines?
A: The SPP said in its most recent assessment report it expects an increased load on its system because there are new sources that pull power from the grid, like data centers, and utilities are retiring older power supplies like coal-fired plants. More transmission lines allow it to move electricity across the system easier and more efficiently.

Q: What does the SPP say they need to meet demand across Oklahoma and the rest of its service area?
A: It recommends new projects including:

    1,788 miles of extra-high voltage transmission (EHV)
    148 miles of rebuilt EHV transmission infrastructure
    545 miles of new high-voltage transmission
    347 miles of rebuilt high-voltage transmission.

Q: Why were people upset in Oklahoma?
A: Many were worried about eminent domain and the possibility this project would result in unwanted transmission lines being strewn across their land.

Q: What happens next?
A: The DOE is still narrowing down potential transmission corridors across the country.
https://www.energy.gov/gdo/national-interest-electric-transmission-corridor-designation-process

[dbacksfan 2.0]

Better late than never. The shutting down of nuclear power plants in the late 70's stopped all the grid connection construction. There have been two nuclear plants that have come on line in the last 51 years. Watts Bar in Tennessee was started in 1973, stopped in 1985, restarted in 2007 and went online in 2016. That's 43 years. The other is the addition of two reactors to the Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant in Georgia to make it the largest with four reactors. This plant started construction in 1971 with the first two reactors online in 1987 and 1989.

Wind and solar has been a band-aide while hydro and coal plants are being shut down and demolished like the Navajo coal plant in Page AZ that was actually licensed until 2044 but was shutdown 25 years early based on Pacific Gas & Electric deemed coal too expensive, and part of PG&E's plan to eliminate fossil fuel plants in California. The plant had been upgraded to meet stricter particulate standards not long before the decision to shut it down.

To try and meet new data center demands, they are restarting Three Mile Island and a nuclear plant in Michigan because there is not enough based on current projections.

A single Meta Data Center uses roughly 1,243,306 MWh with the total across all their centers is 14,975GWh.

https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/meta-data-center-electricity-consumption-hits-14975gwh-leased-data-center-use-nearly-doubles/

[Red Arrow]

To try and meet new data center demands, they are restarting Three Mile Island and a nuclear plant in Michigan because there is not enough based on current projections.

I was in Grad School when Three Mile Island had its mishap.  People with access to real data said that TMI released less radioactive materials during its mishap than a coal plant of the era did on a regular basis.  Chernobyl was a different story, different design for safety.

[dbacksfan 2.0]

I was in Grad School when Three Mile Island had its mishap.  People with access to real data said that TMI released less radioactive materials during its mishap than a coal plant of the era did on a regular basis.  Chernobyl was a different story, different design for safety.

I was a sophomore in high school for TMI. We had talked about The China Syndrome before it was released in my sociology/contemporary affairs class along with the Black Fox plant protests. IIRC you couldn't get a ticket to see The China Syndrome after TMI happening two weeks later.

Seems that I remember it was the Swedes that sounded the alarm about Chernobyl because their radiation sensors pegged the scale. From everything that I have read that was a grenade with a missing pin waiting to go off.

Those were topics of discussion along with the SL-1 reactor accident in Idaho in 1961 while taking radiation safety class at Spartan before we started our Radiography course back in late 1988 or early 1989. There were a couple of guys I didn't think were going to pass the Radiography class when we did a simulated live source incident before using an actual live source for x-ray work. One guy was from Philadelphia and was just afraid of the live source after TMI and Chernobyl.