Transmission Challenges for Renewables

• NW Power & Conservation Council & BPA slides used and special thanks to Tom Eckman for keeping humor in a dry subject

• How to integrate Renewables: wind, solar, geothermal, wave or tidal, biomass?

• Presentation:– History & Politics– System Characteristics – Economics – Smart Grid

History & Politics• Bonneville Power Administration – 80% of PNW

Transmission Lines

• BPA facilitates renewables with transmission system connections/studies and the funding of Bonneville Environmental Foundation

• It is a political organization driven by its customer utilities, regional Congressional delegation and public opinion

• BPA Power Contracts limit public customer self generation, utilities are risk-averse, public or private, due to regulation and governance

PNW early 80’sUtility Reaction to Power Council’s First Plan Was “Mixed”

Could today’s word be Renewable?

Characteristics • Wind has a capacity factor of only 30% (it only blows 30% of the

time) and there is no correlation between when the wind blows and peak generation needs

• Solar only during the day, maximum in summer, minimum in the winter

• Wave & Tidal have great predictability

• Geothermal is a good base load resource

• Biomass could be dispatched

• Wind requires within hour capacity ramping, Hydro system is essentially is a giant storage system, except there may not be enough hydro-capacity to meet sudden within hour changes in wind conditions

CharacteristicsBase load resources

Energy Efficiency12%

Hydro55%

Coal18%

Biomass1%

Wind1%

Nuclear4%

Natural Gas9%

Petroleum & Pet Coke0%

CharacteristicsEast – West Power Flow (winter peak, summer growing)North – South Flow (summer to south, winter to north)

California – Big Market for Renewables

AlbertaTar Sands

Big Problems in River City

Wind integration options being talked about:Gas Turbines or Pumped Hydro Storage

http://www.nwcouncil.org/energy/Wind/library/2007-1.pdf

Energy Efficiency is Still the Cheapest Option

$0

$20

$40

$60

$80

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Energ

y Effic

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Gas C

omb

Cycle

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Advan

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asin

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ind (L

ocal)

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veliz

ed

Life

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e C

ost

(2

00

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/MW

h)

Emission (CO2) cost

Transmission & Losses

System Integration

Plant costs

Economics drives resource decisions by utilities and regulators

EconomicsThe PNW Plans To Meet Nearly All Future Load Growth With

Conservation and Renewable Resources

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1,000

2,000

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6,000

20072009

20112013

20152017

20192021

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RPS Hydro

RPS Solar

RPSGeothermalRPS Biomass

RPS Wind

Conservation

CommittedWind

Smart Grid

• DOE definition:

– Self-healing from power disturbance events

– Enabling active participation by consumers in demand response

– Operating resiliently against physical and cyber attack – Providing power quality for 21st century needs

– Accommodating all generation and storage options

– Enabling new products, services, and markets

– Optimizing assets and operating efficiently

• All of these are enabling characteristics for operation of the electrical grid

Demand Response

GIS Mapping

Energy Efficiency

Smart Grid (stimulus)• BPA – 3.25 billion spending authority increase (stimulus), impact on renewables?

• Regional Reality: BPA oversight of $100 million (50% match)

• The Smart Grid could help integrate renewables

• Broadband infrastructure in rural areas could help integrate more renewables in rural areas (east side at community scale)

• Demand Response (thermostat set back, water heater turn off) on the west side of the Cascades could open up transmission for renewables (reduce load on west side) at peaks

• The Smart Grid can provide demand response economically, securely and in real time to help integrate renewables (National Grid in the UK has provided “ancillary services” since 1997 using a pre-Internet system, saving 100’s of millions of cost while reducing greenhouse gas emissions)

• What would this require? Consumer education and involvement, commercial and residential

Take Away

• What should future power system development be: (both generation and enabling technologies) large scale centralized or small scale distributed?