WIND NEEDS WIRES

Gridlock
Paul Dvorak, July 7, 2010 (Windpower Engineering)

"Last year was good for the wind industry as it added [9,000+ megawatts and]almost 40% more capacity…But don’t look for a repeat this year or the next unless legislation somehow speeds the painfully slow expansion and improvements to the transmission grid…because [the wind power] will have no way to get where it’s needed.

"Expanding and shoring up the infrastructure is absolutely essential…[T]he nation will need some 50% more power by 2050…The grid-as-a-bottleneck problem has been brewing for some time…A few years ago, [T. Boone Pickens’ Mesa Power Group] had ordered 667 wind turbines for a planned 1,000-MW wind farm in the Texas panhandle, but lack of transmission lines switched the project off…Without new lines, there is no way to get power to customers in Austin, Dallas, or Houston. And without an updated grid, kiss goodbye the Renewable Electricity Standard’s goal of 20% renewable energy by 2020."

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"A 2005 DOE report noted that some 70% of the 164,000 miles of U.S. transmission lines are at least 25 years old…[T]here are few miles of the [newest, most-efficient] 765-kV lines in the U.S, and probably only a few hundred miles of 345-kV lines, a 1950s capability.

"The U.S. isn’t alone with this problem. China’s wind-power capacity hit 1.2 GW in 2005 and a whopping 12.2 GW just three years later. But…about 30% of the capacity sits idle and aging because there is no connection to the country’s transmission grid."

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"On the upside, if wind-plant owners can provide abundant low-cost electricity in their vicinity, new companies that rely on cheap energy might be encouraged to set up shop nearby…On the downside, power outages and loss of power quality cost the economy from $25 billion to $185 billion annually…[yet] the electricity industry will need to pour almost $300 billion into the transmission grid over the next 20 years to meet increased demands for energy…

"Who will pay for the upgrade? We all will in one way or another. But if demand outstrips generating capacity, brownouts on the scale of the Northeast blackout of 2003 could be frequently recurring events…"