on a sunday evening…
January 27, 2008
Sitting here on an early Sunday evening – technically, I am at my desk working. However, what I am actually doing is reading over the 2008 World Day of Peace Message from His Holiness Benedict XVI (aka, the Pope). So there is a little bit of contemplation involved.
The excerpt linked above is posted at www.catholicsandclimatechange.org. This text focuses on climate change, “urging the human family to begin to act prudently, responsibly, collectively, and urgently to solve global climate change which threatens our ‘home’, the earth.”
A lot of this message is clearly aimed at the current international discussion on climate change. Right now, that revolves around making sure that the costs and benefits of dealing with climate change are distributed fairly between developing and developed nations. However, there general language in the statement that speaks very well to the moment and the questions even here in the Midwest. Quotable:
Prudence does not mean failing to accept responsibilities and postponing decisions; it means being committed to making joint decisions after pondering responsibly the road to be taken, decisions aimed at strengthening that covenant between human beings and the environment, which should mirror the creative love of God, from whom we come and towards whom we are journeying.
In this regard, it is essential to “sense” that the earth is “our common home” and, in our stewardship and service to all, to choose the path of dialogue rather than the path of unilateral decisions (italics in original).
If you like the sentiments but would also like to read perspectives in addition to the Catholic one, of course check out one of the CEP website’s most popular pages – Tips for Congregations. Scroll down to the listings of creation care sites, click on one, read it, hop to their links and resources – like the Energizer Bunny, you can keep going and going.
— Maril Hazlett
Want to know more about climate and energy in the Midwest? Check out www.climateandenergy.org.
falling into line – notes from the SPP Transmission Summit
January 27, 2008
Last week, the Southwest Power Pool (SPP) held a Transmission Expansion Summit in scenic Oklahoma City in the lovely Jim Thorpe Building, and the seats in the courtroom were really, really comfortable. Two out of those four statements are true.
The summit was open to the public, so, I went. I’m probably the least qualified of the CEP staff to have gone, but the following is what I learned. If you’d like to follow along with the materials I am referring to, the SPP has promised to post them at their website linked above. If they do not, remind me and I will bug them. Or any of you can do so as well. (Edit – click here and here and here – these are all very big pdfs, though, so go lightly.)
This entry got way too long, so I will summarize the highlights up front:
1 – KS has 1,975 megawatts (MW) of wind interconnection agreements signed, with another 7,911 MW under study, and a projected 5,000-10,000 MW of wind development possible by 2030. While this might seem like a lot, OK is way ahead of us.
2 – There’s at least four new transmission lines going into KS, but they are mostly 364kV (not the bigger 765 kV) and SPP doesn’t seem to be planning much more for our state.
3 – The wind export market for our region is primarily in the east (Chicago) and southeast (Atlanta), not to the west.
4 – SPP is going to ask its board to pursue a “postage stamp” system of cost recovery
The point of the summit seemed to be: The wind rush has created both opportunity and challenges, and while SPP is not entirely sure of how they are going to respond, they do plan to do so. They are studying all the ramifications and plan to let us know their final results, but for the moment, here’s a snapshot of where things stand.
A little bit of background first. SPP wears several hats, but for our purposes they are best understood as the guys – and presumably gals, although I didn’t actually see very many of those – who control the transmission lines (not distribution lines) of our regional electric grid. They’re the traffic cops for the electrons that power our daily lives.
SPP serves 4.5 million customers (you’re probably one of them, although little did you know it), covers 255,000 square miles of service territory with 52,301 miles of transmission lines, and manages 42.4 gigawatts of peak demand. Physically, the SPP region covers all of KS, OK, part of the TX panhandle, an smidgen of Arkansas, New Mexico, and Louisiana – all of which lie in the Eastern Interconnection zone of the United States.
SPP members – the folks (utilities, municipalities, private developers, etc.) who actually own the transmission lines and the power generating stations – have to ask SPP for permission before they can use the grid, and they have to obey SPP rules in how they do so. SPP is one of eight ? or so regional transmission operators (RTOs) in the country, all of whom derive their authority from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).
So, more or less, when the wind equivalent of a gold rush is going on in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, SPP really cares. They have to. It’s their job – their mission – to ensure the safe and reliable transmission of electricity, and to make that system accessible to all users.
In a perfect world. In this world, it strikes me that SPP faces some obstacles in doing their job as well as they would like. My general understanding: Today’s grid is fairly constrained and congested. Nor is it getting any younger – some upgrades are needed for basic safety. And when you expand a grid, or improve it, that costs money. As always with money, if you spend more and spend wisely up front, that usually lowers your costs in the long-term – but all prices these days, everywhere, seem to be Wal-Mart-ed. Lots of people seem to prefer to spend less money up front and don’t care how quickly the product falls apart, and I think SPP faces exactly this mindset when they propose grid upgrades. A quote, from whom I forget, maybe SPP’s Jay Caspary: “Least cost planning is sometimes at odds with long-term grid planning.” He said it much nicer than I just did. Someone also said something to the effect of – we need to move away from putting band-aids on our system.
So the grid has some issues. Then the wind rush came along. Yikes. SPP had already completed a nice big study on future transmission needs. Then NREL came out with some amazing wind development numbers, the SPP wind development applications shot through the roof, and they realized – oh heck. Maybe we need to do a “re-study” :) no, I had never heard that word before, either. However, I’m glad they’d rather be better safe than sorry.
Frankly, though, I don’t see how anyone could have anticipated the numbers. Kansas alone has 1,974 megawatts (MW) of wind generation interconnection agreements signed, and OK has 1,089 MW. (This status means that all the relevant studies have been done, SPP has approved it, and now the applicant has three years to get it together and make the facility happen.) KS has another 7,911 MW of wind applications under study with SPP, and OK has 8,964 MW.
