Climate and energy

Kansans know that without an adequate electrical transmission grid, we will never be able to send even a fraction of our wind crops to market.

Scary as that is, don’t worry. For the past few years, several parties have been working toward solutions for a robust regional transmission system – the equivalent of an interstate highway system -  that in the future can integrate with a national grid.

The thing is, an effort of this magnitude is not accomplished overnight. Our world depends on electricity, but practically, if you don’t get electricity right, it’ll kill you (or cause a range of other devastating effects, like long-term blackouts).

On the other hand, an infrastructure transformation like this has to happen, if not overnight – then fairly darn quickly, or what’s the point? Today electricity is the critical linchpin tying together the economy and the environment. Neither of these entities tend to wait around on our convenience. They may seem stable for a long time, but then they change quickly. Anticipating these changes in a timely fashion makes all the difference between disaster and opportunity – between surviving, thriving, or just fading away.

Right now, the Southwest Power Pool (SPP) transmission planning process (with Kansas sitting at the heart of the region) is in a race not to miss this window. SPP work groups are in the middle of figuring out the future of the region’s transmission planning.

More or less, in order to accommodate the colossal scale of planned wind development, SPP is trying to figure out how to build a safe, stable extra high voltage (EHV) backbone of 765 kV and 345 kV (the highway – for now, 345 could become considered only partially highway), plus collector loops of lower voltage (the byways, or access ramps to the highway). And they are trying to figure out how to pay for it.

Because most readers will just want the update on what regional transmission projects stand the best chance of being built ASAP, I put that part first for their immediate gratification. However, the planning part that follows – the big picture – is really the most important.

Priority Projects

The SPP long term planning process is in the middle of a big revision right now, but that doesn’t mean SPP members don’t want to get at least some transmission built while they wait.

The Priority Projects list is the magic list. It started out at over 100 projects, and eventually has been carefully winnowed down to ten projects which will receive further study. For final approval, the regional benefits of the lines have to outweigh the costs, and then the benefits of various projects will be ranked against each other.

Several previous studies have all pointed to pressing long-term regional needs to relieve grid congestion, provide transmission access for pending wind farms, and to improve east and west transfers within the SPP footprint. The project list faces additional analysis that will be based on a ten year time frame and include other factors like fuel costs, wind modeling, the environmental costs of SOX, NOX, and CO2 emissions, etc.

(If you’d like to know more, check out the current draft of the Priority Projects list, which will soon be up for discussion by the SPP membership.)

The current list for additional analysis is… (and yes, the list contains several KS lines at the moment):

1. Hitchland – Woodward District EHV (765kV/Run at 345 kV)
2. Spearville – Comanche – Medicine Lodge – Wichita (765kV/Run at 345 kV)
3. Comanche/Medicine Lodge – Woodward District EHV (765kV/Run at 345 kV)
4. Woodward District EHV – Elk City – LES – Seminole (765kV/Run at 345 kV)
5. NW Wichita – Wolf Creek (765 kV)
6. Woodward District EHV – Woodring (345 kV)
7. Valliant – NW Texarkana (345 kV)
8. Stateline – Potter – Roosevelt – Tuco (345 kV)
9. Riverside Station – Tulsa Power Station (Add Reactor) (138 kV)1
10. Cooper – Maryville – Sibley (345kV) OR
Nebraska City – Stranger Creek (345 kV)2

Sorry for the quality of the map, but this is what the proposed projects for analysis look like:

Hopefully, the analyses will be run sometime this fall, and later the final list will be announced. Analyzing and deciding what projects will be built is one thing. However, figuring out their cost allocation is another.

The SPP Integrated Transmission Planning Process

A little background first. Several factors  triggered a recent revolution in SPP’s traditional planning process, including:

- The enormous number of interconnection requests from wind developers – they need adequate transmission to sell their generation on the grid, and the grid needs to be stable enough to handle massive seasonal amounts and variations of wind power

- The federal government’s movement toward carbon regulation and the possibility of a federal Renewable Electricity Standard (RES)

- Opportunities for profitable new next day energy markets – but if you have grid congestion, you have market congestion, too, and no one likes that

- The federal government’s desire for the transmission policy reforms necessary to build a national grid.

- With or without wind development, the current SPP grid needs major upgrades. It is not planned on a regional scale to provide an equitable supply of energy needs within the SPP footprint, let alone to export electricity to other RTOs.

All of these factors change how electricity works in our region, and how providers can keep the supply abundant, affordable, and reliable.

In short, SPP is facing a paradigm shift of major proportions. The basic categories and equations that electricity analyses depend on are changing. For example,  time horizons are moving from short term to long term (10, 20, 4o years). New variables – such as the environmental impact of carbon emissions – are being integrated into old equations. When such major variables shift, so do costs and benefits, as well as profits and losses.

Why is all this happening? Because what SPP and its members face is a market revolution that extends far beyond electricity. Whether economic or environmental, risk assessment as we know it is fundamentally changing. In an uncertain, transitory world, the new paradigm presumes that in order to minimize long term risks, market players must stay flexible in order to take advantage of  opportunity and avoid danger. They must take as many variables as possible into account.

For short term players, short term mindsets might not be a problem. However, utilities don’t work this way. They are in business for the long haul.

The SPP Integrated Transmission Planning process is underway, but it still has a ways to go, and many difficult questions still come up at meetings. Just a sampling:

What will be the relationships between the highways and the byways – how will byways (the collector networks) be developed and/ or re-configured? Will region-wide cost allocation only cover the highways, or will it cover some percentage of the byways as well (costs which would otherwise be paid for by local transmission owners)?

What levels of wind can safely be integrated into the grid, corresponding to what levels of transmission improvement? How will this entire highway safely ramp up over the next ten, twenty years? What byway improvements are needed in transmission-poor areas, to keep local grids from overloading?

When it comes to voting on the planning, priority projects, cost allocation, etc., how exactly will SPP members go? The ultimate balance of costs and benefits will be critical for regional buy-in.

There are other concerns as well – within the SPP region, planning is in effect shifting from bottom up/local transmission owners to top down/ regional planners. However, SPP’s regional plan is coming somewhat from the bottom up, if you consider that the federal government has not yet put in place national transmission planning from the top down. How will regional and federal planning eventually reconcile?

If all this sounds complicated… before you get any transmission built, there’s actually more. Two levels of more. Beyond the SPP regional planning, there are also state and federal regulations. (Yes, how does transmission ever get built? Sometimes you wonder.)

Cost Allocation

The more robust your transmission, the better off your grid, and the more safe and reliable. However, building transmission is not cheap. What balance should be struck between paying up-front costs, and reaping long-term benefits? How do you balance who pays the costs with who reaps the benefits, keeping the distribution at least roughly equal?

This is the basic struggle of cost allocation decisions. You can plan all you want, but none of the plans will ultimately come to fruition unless you can pay for them.

An example of the conflicts – what voltage of transmission lines are considered highway, and what are considered byway. Highway lines receive full cost allocation spread over the entire SPP footprint, since their high voltage benefits the entire region. Byway lines will most likely receive partial regional allocation, depending on their voltage, but the rest of the cost must be paid by their local zones.

Right now, 765 kV lines are definitely considered highway – but 345 kV lines are less certain. The KCC just approved a 345 kV line (the KETA line) to run from Spearville to Knoll. This line is considered a collector line that will help wind farms tap into the 765 kV system that is coming. Certainly, the 345 kV line has a great deal of regional benefit – and it runs through a very rural zone without a lot of ratepayers in it.

This particular line’s cost allocation is covered under the balanced portfolio project, but the SPP’s upcoming cost allocation decisions could definitely end up affecting ratepayers in similar situations in the the future. The SPP Cost Allocation Working Group is working hard on such questions, and again, is hopeful of coming up with at least some answers beginning this fall/ winter.

The SPP processes and documents are open to the public and interested observers – just go to the SPP website, click on “Org Groups,” and find a group that interests you.

— posted by Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org