With 201,243 miles of power lines Western grid has some hot spots

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Grassroots Information Coordination Center (GICC) : One Thread

Published on HeraldNet on Sunday, January 28, 2001 With 201,243 miles of power lines Western grid has some hot spots

Herald staff and wire services

Four years ago, the Western power grid hit media radar screens when the lights went off along the network linking power-generating facilities in 14 states, Canada and Mexico.

Today the grid has become an even more familiar part of energy vocabulary as links between power use in California and the Northwest have gained visibility.

Operated by the Western States Coordinating Council, which is responsible for coordinating and planning "a reliable and adequate electric power system," the power transmission system covers 1.8 million square miles and provides power to more than 65 million people.

The national grid consists of more than 3,000 power plants, and its transmission lines travel 201,243 miles -- enough to circle the globe eight times.

Power moves along the grid's interconnected high-voltage lines, which link facilities like the Bonneville Power Administration hydroelectric plants and natural gas-fired plants in California to local utilities, which in turn distribute the power to customers.

According to the Northwest Power Planning Council, the most important parts of the grid for Northwest purposes are the California-Oregon tie linking the Northwest to Northern California and the tie to the Los Angeles region.

They connect to the major generating markets like the mid-Columbia River market and the areas along the California-Oregon border -- two areas where the Snohomish County PUD buys most of its spot market energy.

Along the grid are a series of substations or "control bubbles."

Sometimes those bubbles can get in the way of moving energy, said Jay Fintz, who heads the PUD's power scheduling department.

You have to buy transmission rights at each one and you may not get guarantees that the power will actually arrive, he explained.

Power purchased through BPA, however, comes with a level of guarantee that the power will make it from point to point, Fintz added.

Sometimes, though, the capacity of the lines is limited. For example, lately the PUD has been buying power from Montana, but because of a shortage of capacity, the times it can be sent are restricted, he added.

This story can be found at: http://www.heraldnet.com/Stories/01/1/28/13390909.cfm

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), January 28, 2001


Moderation questions? read the FAQ