POWER August 2021 - 26

TRANSMISSION & DISTRIBUTION
The Future Electric Grid: How
HVDC Could Transform the U.S.
Power System
The U.S. electric grid is a complex web of interconnected power lines. It functions
remarkably well, considering that it is a constant work in progress. Yet, what has
served adequately in the past may not be ideal for the future. As more renewable energy
is added to the grid and traditional central power stations retire, getting electricity
where it needs to go presents a significant challenge. Experts suggest major investment
is needed, including in high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) interconnections.
Aaron Larson
t's no secret that the mix of power
generation resources is changing in
the U.S. and has been for more than
a decade. Coal-fired generation peaked
in the U.S. in 2007, when coal generators
produced more than 2,000 TWh of
electricity. Since then, coal-fired production
has declined significantly (Figure
1). In 2020, coal accounted for less
than 775 TWh of electricity. The trend
lower is likely to continue due not only
to climate concerns, but also because
of poor economics-low-cost natural
gas-fired generation, and constantly
decreasing costs for wind and solar
power, have been pushing coal generators
down the dispatch queue in many
competitive markets.
I
Planning for a
Renewables-Heavy Grid
As the U.S. power mix evolves, with
more wind and solar generation resources
added, and traditional central power
station assets retired, transmission system
requirements also change. Is the
existing grid ready to accommodate the
shift toward renewables? Some experts
say no.
" I think we're not well-prepared at all, "
said Pablo Ruiz, president and CTO of
NewGrid, a company that provides grid
congestion monitoring and mitigation
services to transmission operators and
utilities. Ruiz made the statement while
participating in a breakout session titled
" Transmission System of the Future "
during the U.S. Department of Energy's
Advanced Research Projects AgencyEnergy
(ARPA-E) Innovation Summit on
May 26. " We need to change it from
what is today a static asset with limited
26
monitoring and low utilization to a wellmonitored,
flexible, adaptive grid, if we
want to realize that vision in a timely
manner, " he said.
Another panelist, Aaron Bloom, director
of New Product Research and
Development with NextEra Analytics,
said some of the challenges can be
overcome, at least in the short term, using
newly developed software. " One of
the things that we have going for us is
we have a lot of latent capability in the
grid that we have today, and that can be
leveraged through software that helps
us better use the assets that we have, "
he said.
In the long term, however, Bloom
suggested a well-conceived plan for the
future would be crucial. " We've got to figure
out how we [can] use our land more
efficiently, and whether that's transportation
right of ways or existing transmission
right of ways that could have more
throughput, we really need to open up
these opportunities and take some really
progressive approaches to how we do
transmission planning, and kind of [emulate]
how they do transmission planning
in the rest of the world, " he said.
Leveraging Existing Right-of-Way
Corridors
One project that is basically doing what
Bloom suggested is the SOO Green
HVDC Link. SOO Green is a company
owned by investment funds managed
by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners,
Siemens Energy, and Jingoli Power. The
SOO Green HVDC Link will connect the
company's converter station in northern
Iowa to its Illinois converter station just
west of Chicago, roughly 350 miles away
(Figure 2). It will use paired 525-kV crosslinked
polyethylene-class cables installed
1. This chart shows how the power mix has changed in the U.S. over the past 20 years. Once
the undisputed king of power generation, coal-fired production decreased more than 60% in
the U.S. from 2007 to 2020, putting it behind both natural gas and nuclear last year. Meanwhile,
wind and solar generation have been growing steadily-and that's likely to continue. Source:
U.S. Energy Information Administration
www.powermag.com
POWER | August 2021
http://www.powermag.com

POWER August 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of POWER August 2021

Contents
POWER August 2021 - Intro
POWER August 2021 - Cover1
POWER August 2021 - Cover2
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