This Might Be The Fastest Way to Double U.S. Grid Capacity

[740GLE]

I would have thought the bundle was just to reduce resistance,

There’s dual 230kv lines they fly over a local grocery store parking lot, it’s single conductor, when it’s humid (or even worse raining) you can hear the crackling of the corona it’s kinda cool. If it was dual conductors it’d be silent.

I always am curious at how many people notice it as the walk right underneath.

 

[740GLE]

I would have thought the multiple conductors was just to reduce resistance, but these four wires held in a square or more for hex etc. bundle approximate a larger diameter conductor, probably reduces voltage gradient to reduce corona discharge. Field from the wires merge into one.
Lets wind through better than a large pipe.

Obviously not a field I've worked in before, but now that it has been brought up, makes sense.

View attachment 199189 View attachment 199190

This is prob the coolest ROW I’ve stopped underneath and admired. Wife wasn’t as impressed.

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[Q-Dog]

I've spent a bit of time collecting fossils underneath the DC intertie.


Spent quite a lot of time under some of the AC lines too.

 

[rickst29]

I'm going to make a long and maybe too-comprehensive reply.

Solar farms, large-scale battery-based storage facilities, and wind farms would all prefer to interface to an HVDC "grid" - but no such grid exists in the USA. (As far as I know, the only multi-point DC interconnect on this continent is in Canada, with just 3 shared endpoints). All other HVDC power distribution in the USA is point-to-point, generally converted to 60-Hz AC at the "consumer" endpoint.

The biggest of these HVDC distribtuion lines is the "Pacific DC Intertie", AKA "Path 65", providing about half of the Los Angeles power demand peak in summer. That's when Air Conditioning causes high demand in southern california. In winter, power transmission is actually reversed - supporting higher consumption in the North, for heating and lighting.).

When transmitting DC current, metallic electic cable wires do not suffer from a "surface" effect - the entire cross-section (diamater) of the cable is in use. Cables are more durable and cheaper to build. The cost issues arise at the endpoints, where power converters must either modify DC voltage between source and destination, or convert to AC (as 2-phase or 3-phase Inverters).

Altrhough AC transformer prices have been increasing in recent years, 'power converters' are vastly more expensive. The power converters are also less reliable, and generally have shorter lifespans. (Even though the lifespan, safety, and reliability of AC transformers has been an issue in man outages, both large and small.)

Although the paper referenced by the starting post was focused on AC Voltage "upgrades" rqdes to only 500Kv, newer and better-researched papers have shown voltages greater than 700Kv to be more cost effective for lengthy paths within the two more comepetent Intercoonects (Western and Eastern, excluding Texas - which is both non-cooperative and incompetent.). Lower voltages remain popular because power companies like staying with more familliar, less reliasble and less cost-effective products. In my own neighborhood, NV Energy is planning to build a new power line for energy exchange (primarily sales from growing Solar generation) into California, - but they propose only 500kV, again as an AC power line, even though the distance is fairly long and the fire/weather risks along the route are very high.

I have a fairly good understanding of current high-power electrical procution and distribution technologies (Path 65 runs North-South, about 40 miles East of my house, and my brother is an expert in large-scale grid outage prevention and blackout recovery.) The superior reliability, efficiency, and compatibility with increasing generaration from lower-carbon production methods (solar, wind, and perhaps others) makes the choice of adding new transmission capacity as a multi-point HVDC backbone better (for numerous obvious reasons, both technically and financially - but the political power of entrenched "AC-only" electric operators, and their enormous existing investments makes it hard to create, Their close relationships with wealthy and powerful cabon-based energy compaines adds more challenges, on both political and fiancial fronts.

An HVDC backbone would not have the phase-matching problems of current interconnects. Use of smaller AC distribution areas would also provide easier backout recovery processes. It would probably not induce high rates of cancer in people and animals living near power lines and voltage converters -- and AC problem (relating to rapidly shifting mageantic fields) which has not been adequately studied or documented - because the results would almost definitely offend the rich and powerful, perhaps even creating panic among homeowners living near transformers.

The USA suffers from low reliability, too many companies fighting aganst the public interest, and each other for maximum profits. The companies have great political power and they are regulated poorly, with frequent "revolving door" job changes between regulating commissions and the supposedly regulated companies. We have the slowest approval process in the world for adding new power lines, with no policieis favoring the construction of safer DC power lines. Unfortunately, I do not see any reason to anticipate a lot of improvements in any of these areas soon.

 

[ksmithaz1]

It's a real shame so many "under-regulated" power companies would prefer not to toss their existing investments. I think what we need to do is just shut them down cold, and re-start all the underlying processes and build out new grid infrastructure. This will surely cut the capital costs to the point that rates will fall several orders of magnitude. While we are at it, we should just let the government just take it over completely. This will likely make it a drastically more efficiently run organization, since decisions made by committees of elected people are always superior, and will ensure everything is done fairly.

This is somewhat silly. I can assure you, if HVDC was dramatically better, and reduced operating costs significantly the utility companies would be falling all over themselves to implement it. If it's better, then it will gradually get adopted where and when it makes sense both financially and physically.

 

[740GLE]

I'm going to make a long and maybe too-comprehensive reply.

Solar farms, large-scale battery-based storage facilities, and wind farms would all prefer to interface to an HVDC "grid" - but no such grid exists in the USA. (As far as I know, the only multi-point DC interconnect on this continent is in Canada, with just 3 shared endpoints). All other HVDC power distribution in the USA is point-to-point, generally converted to 60-Hz AC at the "consumer" endpoint.

The biggest of these HVDC distribtuion lines is the "Pacific DC Intertie", AKA "Path 65", providing about half of the Los Angeles power demand peak in summer. That's when Air Conditioning causes high demand in southern california. In winter, power transmission is actually reversed - supporting higher consumption in the North, for heating and lighting.).

When transmitting DC current, metallic electic cable wires do not suffer from a "surface" effect - the entire cross-section (diamater) of the cable is in use. Cables are more durable and cheaper to build. The cost issues arise at the endpoints, where power converters must either modify DC voltage between source and destination, or convert to AC (as 2-phase or 3-phase Inverters).

Altrhough AC transformer prices have been increasing in recent years, 'power converters' are vastly more expensive. The power converters are also less reliable, and generally have shorter lifespans. (Even though the lifespan, safety, and reliability of AC transformers has been an issue in man outages, both large and small.)

Although the paper referenced by the starting post was focused on AC Voltage "upgrades" rqdes to only 500Kv, newer and better-researched papers have shown voltages greater than 700Kv to be more cost effective for lengthy paths within the two more comepetent Intercoonects (Western and Eastern, excluding Texas - which is both non-cooperative and incompetent.). Lower voltages remain popular because power companies like staying with more familliar, less reliasble and less cost-effective products. In my own neighborhood, NV Energy is planning to build a new power line for energy exchange (primarily sales from growing Solar generation) into California, - but they propose only 500kV, again as an AC power line, even though the distance is fairly long and the fire/weather risks along the route are very high.

I have a fairly good understanding of current high-power electrical procution and distribution technologies (Path 65 runs North-South, about 40 miles East of my house, and my brother is an expert in large-scale grid outage prevention and blackout recovery.) The superior reliability, efficiency, and compatibility with increasing generaration from lower-carbon production methods (solar, wind, and perhaps others) makes the choice of adding new transmission capacity as a multi-point HVDC backbone better (for numerous obvious reasons, both technically and financially - but the political power of entrenched "AC-only" electric operators, and their enormous existing investments makes it hard to create, Their close relationships with wealthy and powerful cabon-based energy compaines adds more challenges, on both political and fiancial fronts.

An HVDC backbone would not have the phase-matching problems of current interconnects. Use of smaller AC distribution areas would also provide easier backout recovery processes. It would probably not induce high rates of cancer in people and animals living near power lines and voltage converters -- and AC problem (relating to rapidly shifting mageantic fields) which has not been adequately studied or documented - because the results would almost definitely offend the rich and powerful, perhaps even creating panic among homeowners living near transformers.

The USA suffers from low reliability, too many companies fighting aganst the public interest, and each other for maximum profits. The companies have great political power and they are regulated poorly, with frequent "revolving door" job changes between regulating commissions and the supposedly regulated companies. We have the slowest approval process in the world for adding new power lines, with no policieis favoring the construction of safer DC power lines. Unfortunately, I do not see any reason to anticipate a lot of improvements in any of these areas soon.

There are 4-5 new HVDC ties being proposed by investor owned utilities (in agreement with HQ) in the Northeast, each of them giant cash cows for the utilities, its local opposition (including many NIMBY environmentalists) a old fossil that’s fighting the forward progress.

 

[740GLE]

It's a real shame so many "under-regulated" power companies would prefer not to toss their existing investments. I think what we need to do is just shut them down cold, and re-start all the underlying processes and build out new grid infrastructure. This will surely cut the capital costs to the point that rates will fall several orders of magnitude. While we are at it, we should just let the government just take it over completely. This will likely make it a drastically more efficiently run organization, since decisions made by committees of elected people are always superior, and will ensure everything is done fairly.

This is somewhat silly. I can assure you, if HVDC was dramatically better, and reduced operating costs significantly the utility companies would be falling all over themselves to implement it. If it's better, then it will gradually get adopted where and when it makes sense both financially and physically.

It works for Hydro Quebec, compare their rates with yours. Profits for the people!!!

 

[45North]

It works for Hydro Quebec, compare their rates with yours. Profits for the people!!!

Quebec benefits from large-scale hydro-electric dams on James Bay - hence the name!

 

[Hedges]

Who paid for the dam?

 

[45North]

Who paid for the dam?

Project owned by Hydro Quebec which is owned by the gov of Quebec. Largest such project in the world - size of NY state!
Built by Bechtel and $billions borrowed from investors. (For more info, google "James Bay power project")

 

[740GLE]

And the sale of power to the US goes right back to every citizen and rate payer, and stuffs the coffers of the government (the shareholder).

 

[ksmithaz1]

Something about apples and oranges comes to mind. My rates here just went up significantly. ~0.09/0.26 off/on peak now. Boulder City NV pays less than 0.05. . . Something about a large hydro-electric project.

 

[Quattrohead]

The USA suffers from low reliability, too many companies fighting aganst the public interest, and each other for maximum profits.

I agree with everything you mentioned except this piece, it happens the world over.

 

[rickst29]

I agree with everything you mentioned except this piece, it happens the world over.

Thank you for reading my diatribe!

In recent years, USA reliability (i.e. availability of power to end users) has been significantly lower than that of many other countries. In 2021, US citizens had to deal with an average of 438 minutes of power outages per user per year and an average of 1.39 power outages. Most other first-world' Countries have better outage records - often with 3x to 6x lower outage time and number of incidents. But different States had wildly different numbers, as you can see from map and tables in my reference document: https://generatordecision.com/states-with-the-most-least-reliable-power-grids/

Even those figures are highly suspect, because the 'outage incident reports" are from the companies themselves, likely presented with strategy of "looking good". American Civil Society of Engineering gave the U.S. power grid a "C-" grade a few years ago, ansd it has gotten worse since then (especially in Texas and Louisiana.)

In comparing with other countries, though, we must remember that the "best ones" are much smaller in size, with much shorter grid distribution distances and fewer areas of difficult terrain to cover. Many of those countries also have less severe weather extremes.

Current interconnect pricing schemes, a spot market for the distribution of power as 60-cycle AC are a huge problem: Even when allowed to function (and nobody was allowed to sell into Texas when everyone was freezing), they reward quick-responding and more "tunable" power generators (including natgas turbines and, to a somewhat smaller extent, even legacy oil and coal generation). There is zero consideration of the installation costs for wind and solar, and no considration of their relative "cleanliness": Wind farms are frequently "awarded" prices below zero when the grid operators pefer to use keep their own legacy "filthy" generators running at their lowest tuable production levels.

The entire situation is bad. In some ways, it is getting worse rather than better. Our reliability is NOT as good as most other first-wolrd countries, and our under-reported outages have been a huge drag on the economy -- all paid for by the consumers, not the power companies and their managers. (in recent years, this has probably averaged around $100 billion per year, although that specific figure isd a persobnal SWAG as I write this.)

 

[AntronX]

Power grid in SFL is once-in-10-years-outage reliable which is kinda annoying since I love it when power is out so I can enjoy ham radio without local RFI. Last time we had proper multi day power outage was 19 years ago in 2005 from hurricane Wilma. So I have hard time believing that power grid in USA is failing. Maybe in California.

 

[740GLE]

Thank you for reading my diatribe!

In recent years, USA reliability (i.e. availability of power to end users) has been significantly lower than that of many other countries. In 2021, US citizens had to deal with an average of 438 minutes of power outages per user per year and an average of 1.39 power outages. Most other first-world' Countries have better outage records - often with 3x to 6x lower outage time and number of incidents. But different States had wildly different numbers, as you can see from map and tables in my reference document: https://generatordecision.com/states-with-the-most-least-reliable-power-grids/

Even those figures are highly suspect, because the 'outage incident reports" are from the companies themselves, likely presented with strategy of "looking good". American Civil Society of Engineering gave the U.S. power grid a "C-" grade a few years ago, ansd it has gotten worse since then (especially in Texas and Louisiana.)

In comparing with other countries, though, we must remember that the "best ones" are much smaller in size, with much shorter grid distribution distances and fewer areas of difficult terrain to cover. Many of those countries also have less severe weather extremes.

Current interconnect pricing schemes, a spot market for the distribution of power as 60-cycle AC are a huge problem: Even when allowed to function (and nobody was allowed to sell into Texas when everyone was freezing), they reward quick-responding and more "tunable" power generators (including natgas turbines and, to a somewhat smaller extent, even legacy oil and coal generation). There is zero consideration of the installation costs for wind and solar, and no considration of their relative "cleanliness": Wind farms are frequently "awarded" prices below zero when the grid operators pefer to use keep their own legacy "filthy" generators running at their lowest tuable production levels.

The entire situation is bad. In some ways, it is getting worse rather than better. Our reliability is NOT as good as most other first-wolrd countries, and our under-reported outages have been a huge drag on the economy -- all paid for by the consumers, not the power companies and their managers. (in recent years, this has probably averaged around $100 billion per year, although that specific figure isd a persobnal SWAG as I write this.)

Just think every time there’s a power outage, at least the utility can’t still charge you for KWhr you don’t use.

Storms are storms, they only seem to be getting worse. Trees are the number one cause of outages in my neck of the woods. Guess what land those trees predominately are on? The cities and towns road easements, sadly the towns just let the utity deal with the headaches.

Blame urban sprawl of the US there is zero chance any substantial amount of current infrastructure will be placed underground.


If you have an internet outage (or heaven forbid a cellphone outage) they still charge you the same each month.