The electric grid has been serving the US for well over a century. It has grown and adapted as the uses of electricity have expanded. It is perhaps the most sophisticated invention created by humanity. Yet things are about to change fast. The grid will need to adapt to three enormous challenges. First, the climate has become more hostile to the grid. Wildfires, tornadoes, floods, and hurricanes are beating the good old grid up. Second, we are moving to hard-to-manage variable power sources controlled by wind and solar energy. Third, the rise of electric vehicles will demand more electricity than ever.
Electric Transmission Is Key
In my recent article, The End of the ICE Age, Utilities Must Adapt, I focused mostly on the generation and distribution part of the business. Yet the electric transmission system is at the heart of the grid. It moves power from where the generation is to where society needs it.
There are two issues: the good old transmission grid is indeed old. Second, it has insufficient capacity to adapt to the abovementioned changes. The good news is that plenty of renewable resources exist in the US. The bad news is that insufficient transmission pathways deliver the power to the rest of the grid.
The National Transmission Needs Study is Complete
In October 2023, the US Department of Energy released its National Transmission Needs Study.
The study notes a wide variation in the wholesale price of electricity nationwide due to transmission congestion. Congestion limits lower-priced wholesale power to reach areas with high prices.
What causes congestion? Ideally, lower-cost power from renewable resources, for example, should flow freely across the transmission grid to wherever the demand is high. However, due to these constraints, the power is limited.
Thermal limits. As the power increases on transmission equipment, they heat up, so the equipment can only withstand so much heat. That limits the amount of power a line can deliver. In effect, the lines are limited by their weakest link.
Voltage limits. As power flows, the voltage must remain within a very narrow band. If that band reaches that limit, no more power can flow.
Stability limits. Most of us recall the Northeast Blackout of 2003. A similar blackout occurred in 1965. That blackout uncovered a grid characteristic called instability and established the reliability councils in North America, now known as the North American Reliability Corporation or NERC.
Challenges
Catherine Clifford’s February 2023 article for CNBC, Why It Is So Hard to Build New Transmission Line in the US states it well. She writes, “Building transmission lines in the US is like herding cats. All of the stakeholders in the construction of a new line — utility companies, regulators, landowners — have to come to an agreement, and they may have competing interests.” Not in My Back Yard or NIMBY is prevalent. The benefits often don’t directly accrue to the people near a proposed transmission, although relieving congestion will ultimately lower rates for everyone in the region.
The DOE’s Transmission Needs study notes that the high scenario requires the transmission capacity to double by 2035 for regional transmission growth. The high scenario for interregional capability is four times what we currently have.
GIS Can Help a Lot
The first figure in the DOE’s Needs study is a map. Maps help people get their bearings. Of course, GIS does a lot more than create maps. It precisely models the grid. Its modern network management capability allows transmission operators to highlight the assets and areas most needing replacing or upgrading. GIS imagery and video management uses drones and machine learning to quickly find weak links in the system. GIS integrated with real-time data, 3-D models, and work management systems provides a digital twin of the transmission lines and substations for rebuilding old lines and designing the optimal routes for new ones.
Here are several challenges outlined by the DOE study and how GIS can help:
Lack of Interregional Capacity. GIS makes it easy to share information among entities, from the transmission operators to the RTO/ISO (regional transmission operators/independent system operators) to the NERC reliability councils.
Network information in multiple applications. Esri’s GIS modern network management capability can highlight thermal, voltage, and stability constraints. It can bring in imagery, real-time weather, and network data to fine-tune the grid capability.
Aging Infrastructure. Many parts of the electric grid infrastructure need repair or replacement. GIS can help utilities identify and prioritize areas that require maintenance or upgrades.
Need for Renewable Energy Integration. GIS can assist in identifying suitable locations for renewable energy installations, optimizing their placement, and analyzing their impact on the grid.
Grid Resilience and Reliability: GIS can help assess vulnerabilities, identify critical infrastructure, and develop contingency plans to improve grid resilience.
Grid Planning and Expansion. GIS can assist utilities in planning for future growth and expansion of the grid.
Outage Management. GIS can also assist in predicting and mitigating potential outage risks by analyzing historical data and weather patterns.
GIS provides both the content (the wires, the insulators, the substation equipment) and the context (the relationship of the content to the constraints that limit power flow). The good old grid will be the key to the US movement to decarbonization by 2050. GIS can help a lot.
Esri has set up a special forum for those interested in asking questions and learning what other transmission utilities are doing. Contact Bill Meehan at [email protected] to find out how to join the forum. Learn how GIS can help transmission owners and operators in nearly every aspect of their business here.
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