Company will make 1st US power transmission line to avoid blackouts

The Executive of Clean Energy Sector Cary Kottler was one of Millions of affected by the URI winter storm which hit Texas with a historic cold wave in 2021.

The temperature inside your home was just above zero and the family golden fish froze in the aquarium. Kottler survived the storm, but more than 200 Texans died during the rare outbreak of cold, which left millions without power for days.

Now Kottler’s company, Pattern Energy, is about to build the first major broadcast line that will connect Texas to the US East States – something that would have helped bring saving electricity to the state during that storm.

“When something like the URI storm happens, you could bring energy from the Southeast, and there is a lot of energy there that could be exported to Texas,” Kottler told CNN .

This line of transmission is just an example of what US authorities and experts and experts say that the country needs urgently: High, high voltage electric lines capable of transporting large amounts of energy from one place to another.

This ability to transfer electricity between regions is increasingly important as US power grid is reached by extreme climate events with increasing frequency. The network has been affected several times by strong storms this year. Added, the helene and Milton hurricanes have left almost 11 million consumers without energy in the southeast of the country, and thousands are still in the dark.

“You need your power grid to be greater than the weather condition,” said former Federal Energy Regulation Commission, Allison Clements. “When extreme cold fronts cross the country or a heat dome is parked in an area, and there is more demand for energy than expected, it is necessary to bring electricity from places that are not facing that climate.”

Turn straws into wide pipes

With the country facing increasingly extreme weather conditions, authorities and experts ask concessionaires and legislators to significantly expand the power grid to maintain the power supply.

But the climate is not the only reason for this expansion. The demand for electricity is growing rapidly, driven mainly by data centers and artificial intelligence, both with high energy consumption. In addition, there is a huge amount of clean energy – such as solar and wind – waiting to be connected to the grid, which overcomes all the energy today in operation.

In short, the US power grid is obsolete and full of patches, according to Clements.

“We have an interstate transmission system over 60, 70,” she said. “It’s like we used a VHS network in an economy that works at Hulu.”

In practice, the American power grid consists of three main networks: the east and west interconnections, as well as the Texas independent network. Within them, there is a mosaic of about a dozen smaller regional systems. The physical lines that connect these networks are fragile and outdated, according to experts heard by CNN .

“Among these three large networks, we basically have a straw connecting Olympic pools,” explained Rob Gramlich, CEO of Grid Strategies. “If we could turn these straws into wide pipes … everyone could have electricity.”

The future network will need to be two to three times larger than the current one – and better connect regions, estimates energy department officials. It should also be more resistant to the extreme climate.

“Most energy falls occur due to distribution problems, physical damage to smaller wires, such as branches touching cables, vehicle collisions, strong winds, contact with animals,” said Ariel Horowitz, deputy department modernization director of the Department of Energy.

In the case of forest fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, and intense storms, he said the energy industry demonstrates “great interest” in reinforcing its electric infrastructure. The Biden government announced on Friday an investment of US $ 4.2 billion (about R $ 24 billion) in resilience projects from the power grid. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm stressed that there was a flood of proposals, many of which will not be contemplated.

Reinforcing the network may include the replacement of wooden poles with stainless steel or concrete structures, cable burial or their elevation to avoid contact with trees. It may also involve making electric lines more responsive and adaptable so that dealers can redirect supply during storms.

Clements warns that even with a larger network, it will not be possible to solve all the challenges brought by climate change. In the case of Hurricane Helene, “many transformers were submerged, whole substations were underwater,” he said.

Part of the federal financing will be intended to raise these substations in the coastal areas, above the flood level.

But she adds in states like California and Texas – whose networks face increasingly severe heat waves in summer – “there is no example when investments have not made the network more resilient to the extreme climate.”

See also: Demand for electricity beats a new record in Brazil

COP 30: What scientists say about the global climate moment

This content was originally published in a company will make 1st US power transmission line to avoid blackout on the CNN Brazil website.

Source: CNN Brasil