T&D

In the opening move of what is certain to be a long and contentious process, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources (ENR) Committee, introduced a suite of bills covering a broad range of energy issues, from infrastructure to regulatory reform to civil enforcement. Along with several others introduced by […]

In his May 6 appearance on Comedy Central’s Daily Show, Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz addressed both the military and civilian energy issues that the Department of Energy is responsible for. His discussion with host Jon Stewart ranged from the recent negotiations with Iran over that nation’s capability to enrich fissile material to domestic energy […]

The wireless transmission of power by microwave over long distances is viable, Japanese technology firm Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) has proved in a recent ground demonstration test. The company has been developing the new technology for use in space solar power systems (SSPS)—which it says will be “the power generation systems of the future.” As […]

Europe—and especially Germany—has been struggling with how best to integrate large amounts of renewable generation while maintaining grid stability. While considerable attention has been devoted to expanding national transmission systems, new links between those national grids are growing in importance. The biggest project so far took a step forward when, on March 19, the consortium […]

Investor-owned electric utilities in the U.S. spent $16.9 billion in 2013 to build transmission infrastructure, a report recently released by the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) shows. The ninth annual publication of the EEI’s Transmission Projects: At a Glance  highlights a cross-section of more than 170 major transmission projects completed in 2014 or planned over the […]

The U.S. energy infrastructure needs not just substantial investment for the future but also considerable rethinking about its role and functions in order to be positioned to deal with a rapidly changing energy landscape and evolving threats from cyber attack and climate change. That was the message from William F. Hederman, Jr., Department of Energy […]

The California Independent System Operator (CAISO) and Portland, Ore.­–based utility PacifiCorp announced on April 14 that they had signed a memorandum of understanding to explore the possibility of PacifiCorp joining the ISO as a participating transmission owner. The move would be a big one for both entities. PacifiCorp, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Energy (BHE), […]

A dip in voltage prompted temporary power cuts to the White House, Capitol Hill, the State Department, and other parts of Washington, D.C., on Tuesday afternoon.  D.C. utility PEPCO said in a statement that the disturbance that affected about 8,000 customers and left a wide swath  of the nation’s capital in the dark was caused […]

The consortium behind the Nordlink high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) link between Germany and Norway on Mar. 19 awarded the construction contract for the project to Swiss firm ABB. The $2 billion, 525-kV transmission line will be, at 623 kilometers (km), the longest HVDC connection in Europe. It will transit the North Sea across the Skagerrak strait, […]

As the global electric power industry continues to develop clean, high-quality energy capacity for sustainable development, the position of small hydropower has changed. In the past few decades, small hydropower development in China has experienced positive momentum, but there are still problems to be solved. To solve these problems, various relationships within the small hydropower […]

E.ON—a major investor-owned energy supplier that manages facilities across Europe, Russia, North America, Brazil, and Turkey—announced this week that it will embark on a new corporate strategy focused on renewables, distribution networks, and customer solutions, while combining its power generation, global energy trading, and exploration and production businesses into a new, independent company. “We are […]

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) completed an evaluation of a plan to export power to Mexico from the Frontera Generation Station, located in Mission, Texas. Although the results indicated that the power system could operate effectively during normal conditions without Frontera’s capacity, ERCOT says it has concerns with power supply sufficiency and transmission […]

Despite record low temperatures and widespread generation outages during the polar vortex, bulk power system reliability was maintained, says the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) in a newly released analysis of the extreme cold weather event that engulfed most of the nation this January.  The Jan. 6–7, 2014, weather condition that resulted in temperatures […]

A 7,100-MW±600-kV high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) line that runs 2,375 kilometers (km) from new hydropower plants on the Madeira River in the Amazon Basin to major load centers in southeastern Brazil

A coalition of four companies are proposing to build a 2.1-GW, $8 billion project that would comprise the world’s largest wind farm in Wyoming, a huge compressed-air energy storage (CAES) system in Utah, and a 525-mile transmission line that would supply up to 9.2 TWh per year of electricity to Southern California. Pathfinder Renewable Wind […]

The Department of Energy (DOE) will designate $8 million for seven microgrid projects to help cities and towns better prepare for extreme weather events and other power disruptions. The funding will help develop advanced microgrid controllers and system designs for microgrids of less than 10 MW. Each projects includes a company cost-share, ranging from 20% […]

Geographically and politically, Texas and Germany are on opposite sides of the world, but both believe strongly in competitive energy markets, and both have largely deregulated their power industries. Now both are reconsidering their market designs. Its easy to think that Germany and Texas could not be more different. One is northern, cold, and Old […]

The Federal Regulatory Energy Commission (FERC) can mandate transmission provider participation in a regional planning process, a federal court has held. In a 97-page decision, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Aug. 15 rejected challenges to FERC Order No. 1000 and related orders. FERC’s landmark final transmission-planning […]

The U.S. Department of Energy issued the final Environmental Impact Statement for the Champlain Hudson Power Express transmission line on Aug. 8, clearing the project for final permitting. The $2.2 billion venture is expected to bring up to 1,000 MW of renewable power from Canada to the New York City metropolitan area. The plans call […]

A standard to enhance physical security at critical power system facilities submitted by the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) will need modifications before it can be approved, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) said last week.  FERC ordered NERC on March 7 to develop and submitnew reliability standards requiring owners and operators of the […]

British Columbia (BC) has long enjoyed some of the lowest electricity costs in North America, but when in August 2013, a draft of the BC Rates Plan which proposed a 26% rate increase by 2016, was leaked, this was met with such a backlash of protest that the government was forced to reconsider the proposal. […]

At the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) annual meeting this week in Las Vegas, the tone was one of collaboration with partners from Washington to distributed generation companies. Those partnerships will be needed as the investor-owned utility (IOU) industry fights not so much a war on coal as a war for mindshare and wallet share in […]

Anyone who follows either the energy industry or the military knows that all branches of the U.S. military have aggressive goals for renewable energy and for improving energy security and independence. Microgrids are a key part of that plan. When I wrote about military microgrids in “The Military Gets Smart Grid” back in January 2012, […]

Aside from places where microgrids have a track record—educational, industrial, and commercial campuses—commercial and community microgrids are still the domain of early adopters, but the number of people wanting to travel the trail they are blazing is increasing. A microgrid is any collection of interconnected loads and distributed energy resources within clearly defined electrical boundaries […]

If you’re looking for the easiest place to deploy microgrid technology, look at islands. That was the general consensus of presenters at the 4th Military & Commercial Microgrids Summit in Washington, D.C., held June 17-19. In addition to a presentation about a microgrid being developed for Necker Island—owned by Sir Richard Branson, founder of the […]

If, as Navigant Research suggests, the global microgrid market will exceed $40 billion annually by 2020, where is all the capacity going, and what’s fueling it (literally and figuratively)? Peter Asmus, a long-time researcher of smart grid technologies at Navigant, shared that market projection and others at the 4th Military & Commercial Microgrids Summit in […]

South Africa’s critical power situation has been the subject of much talk and speculation since 2008, when the country experienced its first electricity crisis after enjoying a surplus of cheap electrcity since the 1980’s. Download the report.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) should have classified and protected a sensitive grid-related document created by its staff, the Department of Energy’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) said in a memorandum on Wednesday.  Sens. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) requested that the inspector general investigate sensitive information leaks suspected to have originated […]

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) on Tuesday issued a final rule that revises a 42-year-old construction standard for electric power line work to make it more consistent with general industry standards.  The final rule, which is scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on April 11 and becomes effective 90 days after that, […]

Investor-owned electric utility companies spent $14.8 billion in 2012 to upgrade transmission infrastructure, and investments in 2013 and 2014 are expected to soar even more, peaking at about $17.5 billion, the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) says in a new report.   The eighth annual publication of the EEI’s report “Transmission Projects: At  A Glance,” estimates more […]