HOW TO BUILD NEW TRANSMISSION

Who doesn’t love acronyms?

For instance: CREZs established by the PUCT were evaluated by ERCOT. A consortium of 6 companies looked at the resulting ERCOT plans, considered what their end of the deal would cost and said “OK.”

That’s all there is to new transmission.

Translation: The Public Utilities Commission of Texas (PUCT), anticipating the need for new electricity supplies to feed Texas’ growing population’s growing appetite for power, considered the coming constraints on greenhouse gas emissions and decided to get ready for life in a carbon-constrained world.

It assigned the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) the task of defining – here comes the most important acronym of all – Competitive Renewable Energy Zones (CREZs).

CREZs are areas of the state where New Energy resources are strong and the only thing obstructing the development of hugely valuable New Energy production is planning and available transmission.

In CREZs, regulators do preparation and preplanning in regions where returns are expected to be worth the effort.

ERCOT’s December 2006 report included a list of findings that led to an explosion of Texas wind energy development in 2007. The Report Findings included: “There is significant potential for development of wind resources in Texas…around 17,000 MW of wind generation has requested interconnection analysis…the existing transmission network is fully utilized…new bulk transmission lines are needed…there are four general areas of wind capacity expansion: the Gulf Coast; the McCamey area, central-western Texas, and the Texas Panhandle. Transmission solutions for each of these areas are described…”

A 2007 supplemental report followed a year later with updated information and designations for development of new CREZs where wind resources are ripe for the picking and transmission routes and costs have been identified.

Only PUCT’s consent was wanting. Was. The ink is barely dry on its stamp of approval and already transmission builders have a deal.

The ~2400 miles of new 345kV transmission is expected to enable the development of ~18.5 gigawatts of new wind power capacity.

Moral: When new transmission is the need, CREZs are the way to go.

In order to provide the U.S. with 20% of its electricity by 2030, the U.S. wind energy industry estimates it will need $60 billion in new transmission.

The U.S. solar energy industry is planning solar energy power plants throughout the sun-drenched southwestern desert regions on the way to providing 10% of U.S. electricity by 2025.

That’s a lot of CREZs. And CREZ is an acronym New Energy producers and consumers will surely come to love.

click to enlarge

Group seeks $5 billion for Texas wind energy network
September 15, 2008 (Power Engineering International)

WHO
Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT); Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT); 6 electric utilities and transmission companies (Electric Transmission Texas, LCRA Transmission Services Corp., Oncor Electric Delivery, Sharyland Utilities, South Texas Electric Cooperative and Texas-New Mexico Power Co.)

WHAT
The 6 companies will file a $4.93 billion proposal to build ~2,400-miles of new transmission.

The most productive areas were preselected for development. (click to enlarge)

WHEN
The plan awaits final approval.

WHERE
The new transmission will be in 5 CREZs in Texas’ central western region and Panhandle.

WHY
- The new transmission will be 345 KV lines.
- The estimated cost will be $4.93 billion.
- The ~2,400-miles of new transmission will be dedicated to carrying wind energy-generated electricity from rural Texas regions where the turbines will be to the cities where the demand is.
- ERCOT established the scope of the new transmission $4.93 billion estimated cost.
- Electric Transmission estimates its share of the project will be ~$1.7 billion.

Knowing what costs will be going in streamlines the development process. (click to enlarge)

QUOTES
From ERCOT’s report to the TPUC: “Senate Bill 20 required the PUCT to provide an initial report on activities associated with the designation of Competitive Renewable Energy Zones (CREZ) throughout the State of Texas by December 31, 2006. In its role as coordinator of transmission planning and analysis for the ERCOT region, ERCOT System Planning has completed this detailed study of possible transmission improvements to provide the PUCT with estimates of the transmission capital costs and forecasted system benefits associated with the designation of different areas in the State as CREZs… The results of this study indicate that there is a significant amount of wind generation potential in the State of Texas. Transmission concepts have been identified to allow a portion of this wind to be incrementally added to the ERCOT transmission system.”