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Utilities can't upgrade the grid without Uncle Sam

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Henry Craver's picture
Henry Craver
Small Business Owner Self-employed

As a small business owner, I'm always trying to find ways to cut costs and boost the dependability of my services. To that end, I've become increasingly invested in learning about energy saving...

  • Member since 2018
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  • Jun 15, 2021 9:29 pm GMT
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A great deal of utilities and their customers want more renewables on the grid. However, as it stands now, transitioning to renewables demands utilities take on a considerable degree of risk. Technological upgrades that render the grid more accommodating to renewables, like advanced power control, dynamic line ratings and topology, have the potential to double renewables on the Southwest Power Pool, according to a study by the Brattle Group. However those same technologies carry some big opportunity costs. They’re expensive themselves, require additional operational costs and personnel training, and put utilities in danger of racking up penalties if things go wrong. 

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These risks make such upgrades unfeasible for utilities that have a bottom line to worry about. That’s right, sometimes the market doesn’t work how you want it to. In such cases, the government needs to interfere for the good of society. FERC should provide incentives to mitigate the risk surrounding grid-upgrades to facilitate the adoption of renewable energy. 

There are encouraging signs already. FERC has scheduled a workshop in September that will address some of the mentioned risks. What’s more, the agency is in the midst of a earnest effort to improve the accuracy and transparency of line ratings. Still, there’s much more to be done.


 

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Rao Konidena's picture
Rao Konidena on Jun 21, 2021

Henry

If transmission owners give interconnection customers an option to study alternatives to network upgrades, my hypothesis is, we will have more renewable projects connect to the transmission grid. The TOs don't have to give this option for all projects, only for interconnection studies that are delayed by more than a year.

I happen to think, from the time the interconnection customer submits a request to the time, they get the final facilities study that shows the final bill for all network upgrades  - all that can be done in 12 months.

Do you need Uncle Sam for that?

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