Wind Today - Q4 2008 - (Page 32) Interview Michael Goggin Electric Industry Analyst, American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) Michael Goggin, Electric Industry Analyst, AWEA, represents the wind industry on transmission matters, working to promote transmission investment and advance changes in grid operations to better accommodate wind energy in the nation’s power system while maintaining system reliability. Wind Today interviewed Goggin by phone in October. U.S. r Sy The U.S. T ansmission System The high voltage transmission system in the United States has been around for about 100 years. It started out when Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse built large central station electric power systems around 1900 and needed a way to move that power from where it was produced to people’s homes. Today’s grid is largely an alternating current, or AC, system based on what they started. Electricity produced at a power plant runs over transmission lines to a distribution network. The distribution network’s lower voltage lines take the power to homes and businesses. Most of us are dependent upon this transmission system for electricity—very few people in the United States are entirely off the electric grid. Current Sy Limitations of the Current System There has been minimal investment in the transmission grid in the last 10 to 20 years, so its really obsolete for meeting today’s needs. The current grid has evolved from when the power industry was dominated by large, vertically-integrated, monopoly utilities. Those utilities would basically have just enough transmission to meet the electric needs in their region. More than 140 of these grid operating areas still exist today. Because there wasn’t really any need to move power from one region to another, or for one utility to share with neighboring utilites, ties between regions were weak. That creates a problem for wind energy. A lot of the best wind resources are in areas like the Great Plains—from the Dakotas to Texas—and don’t have a lot of transmission built to them. There aren’t many connected transmission lines to move power from where it’s produced to where people live. It’s also important to be able to move renewable energy from region to region. Wind output can be variable so we need to be able to connect different regions if the wind is not blowing in one region, but is blowing somewhere else. The ability for power to flow from one region to another provides a much more stable power source. However, that’s difficult to achieve with today’s power grid. for New r Goals for New T ansmission AWEA’s preliminary agenda for 2009 is largely designed to address transmission shortcomings. The biggest component of this agenda would be construction of a high-voltage transmission grid. We envision a network of very high voltage (765 kV) lines that can efficiently move power from the Midwest to the coasts where people need it. These lines are much cheaper; electricity losses amount to one-tenth of the losses on conventional lines; and they require less land area. Some 765 kV lines already exist, but we’re talking about building a lot more. r Authorit uthority T ansmission Authority Under the vertically integrated power generating system that was the norm until about 10 years ago, states had a lot of authority over the transmission system. That made sense when a utility in each state served the majority of the people. But it Born: 1982 Education: B.A. with honors in Social Studies, Harvard College Career: Prior to joining AWEA, worked for two environmental advocacy groups and a consulting firm supporting the U.S. Department of Energy’s renewable energy programs. 32 WIND TODA Y Fourth Quarter 2008
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