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The aging U.S. power grid is about to get a jolt

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Re: The aging U.S. power grid is about to get a jolt

#31

Post by BurningFrog »

ordu wrote: post #22
pyrale wrote: post #4

These ‘grid enhancing technologies’ look like cheap fixes that can only buy some time before real work is needed. Sure, with better monitoring and some overload management systems you may work closer to some limits, but that’s not a solution for long-term usage increases. Where I work, they are used a lot to adjust for renewables power surges, not to increase transit. The bit about automaticaly shifting power to othe…

The article says they are buying the time. New lines are slow to build, so while they are being built, it is possible to squeeze more from the existing lines.

They're not being built though. Not at nearly the rate needed.

https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/transmission/the-us-is-...

Re: The aging U.S. power grid is about to get a jolt

#32

Post by foota »

Is building a long high voltage line not profitable? It seems like the potential for arbitrage should allow for sufficient profit, but maybe not?

I know there's a lot of blockers, but if there's money to be made I would have thought more people would have worked around them.

Re: The aging U.S. power grid is about to get a jolt

#33

Post by luuurker »

wcoenen wrote: post #14

Summary: utilities will use dynamic rating and other tricks to squeeze a bit more performance out of existing lines. (Transmission lines have losses, these heat up the wires. If they get too hot, they droop too much. So they have a maximum power rating. Dynamic rating takes weather effects into account to vary that maximum.) Meanwhile in China: thousands of km long megavolt UHVDC transmission lines. https://www.hitac…

> Meanwhile in China

Outside China, companies and governments usually have to be careful when making investments. They can't decide to start building transmission lines/housing/fast train lines/deploy 5G everywhere and spend huge amounts of money if the return is small/non existent... And so usually things are only built or improved when there's a demand for it.

China can make a 5 year plan to build UHVDC everywhere and the grid operator won't go under no matter what. This has been working for them so far (even though it creates some serious problems) and certainly gives them an advantage, but you can't do that in most places.

Re: The aging U.S. power grid is about to get a jolt

#34

Post by ntonozzi »

foota wrote: post #32

Is building a long high voltage line not profitable? It seems like the potential for arbitrage should allow for sufficient profit, but maybe not? I know there's a lot of blockers, but if there's money to be made I would have thought more people would have worked around them.

It turns out homeowners with veto rights are a lot more powerful than capital in the US.

Re: The aging U.S. power grid is about to get a jolt

#36

Post by neltnerb »

pyrale wrote: post #15
neltnerb wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this not just the same question as for decades? Which is cheaper, a peaker plant after the transmission line hitting peak capacity, or increased transmission line capacity for a small percentage of the time? Now it's just battery storage instead of natural gas peaker plants. You can still smooth out the transmission line capacity with downstream storage. Or have we already done that to the max with peaker plants a…

Here is the thing: planning a grid is always done with cost in mind, we do not build golden pylons for the sake of it. But on the other hand, reasonable grid planning is done a decade ahead, more for some equipment. Money spent in a hurry is likely to be wasted in that business. Storage to optimize grid (not production) cost is neither efficient nor resilient as far as I know. Also having a peaker plant solves produc…

Yeah, although distributed power generation is an actual solution to reduce transmission loads, I agree that it's too soon. It is very complicated (but I think doable!), but even then probably takes too much space for populated areas.

I like the idea of knowing if a transmission line is hot enough to start a fire, but that isn't a substitute for new transmission capacity from remote PV farms or just to be more resilient.

Re: The aging U.S. power grid is about to get a jolt

#37

Post by rgmerk »

pyrale wrote: post #4

These ‘grid enhancing technologies’ look like cheap fixes that can only buy some time before real work is needed. Sure, with better monitoring and some overload management systems you may work closer to some limits, but that’s not a solution for long-term usage increases. Where I work, they are used a lot to adjust for renewables power surges, not to increase transit. The bit about automaticaly shifting power to othe…

Sure, I get there’s only so much that get squeezed out of existing lines without any physical infrastructure changes.

But reconductoring seems like it buys you a lot of extra capacity over the existing physical right of way, and if you use advanced conductors you don’t even have to replace the towers if they’re in good condition. Yes, you have to replace a lot of equipment at substations, but my understanding is that while there is a shortage of some of this physical equipment, getting permits for new transmission lines is a far harder problem.

Re: The aging U.S. power grid is about to get a jolt

#38

Post by JumpCrisscross »

BurningFrog wrote: post #31
ordu wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article says they are buying the time. New lines are slow to build, so while they are being built, it is possible to squeeze more from the existing lines.

They're not being built though. Not at nearly the rate needed. https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/transmission/the-us-is-...

> not being built though. Not at nearly the rate needed

…according to “consultancy Grid Strategies and commissioned by trade group Americans for a Clean Energy Grid (ACEG).” This is like the civil-engineering society perennially failing our civil-engineering spending.

Re: The aging U.S. power grid is about to get a jolt

#39

Post by JumpCrisscross »

luuurker wrote: post #33
wcoenen wrote: post #14

Summary: utilities will use dynamic rating and other tricks to squeeze a bit more performance out of existing lines. (Transmission lines have losses, these heat up the wires. If they get too hot, they droop too much. So they have a maximum power rating. Dynamic rating takes weather effects into account to vary that maximum.) Meanwhile in China: thousands of km long megavolt UHVDC transmission lines. https://www.hitac…

> Meanwhile in China Outside China, companies and governments usually have to be careful when making investments. They can't decide to start building transmission lines/housing/fast train lines/deploy 5G everywhere and spend huge amounts of money if the return is small/non existent... And so usually things are only built or improved when there's a demand for it. China can make a 5 year plan to build UHVDC everywhere…

> has been working for them so far

It works in the wake of a decimated economy. War. Natural disaster. Cultural revolution. There is so much slack in the system virtually anything will be put to productive use.

In that state, you can build a road to nowhere and people will put it to use, not because it’s a well-placed road, but because it’s the only road in the vicinity.

Re: The aging U.S. power grid is about to get a jolt

#40

Post by bobthepanda »

pyrale wrote: post #24
ordu wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article says they are buying the time. New lines are slow to build, so while they are being built, it is possible to squeeze more from the existing lines.

I get it, I'm just baffled with the hint the article gives that the stuff needed now wasn't planned 10 years ago. I guess this is yet another "US infrastructure disaster" article, but with a positive outlook.

this is talking about grant awards that are happening in the current year, so it's not like they were planned 10 years ago.

hindsight is 20/20 but some things like the growth of data centers was probably not predicted, particularly their location. As a general example, Ireland had to put a moratorium on new data centers until 2028. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/15/power-grab-hid...

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