AC and DC transmission comparison for Kaiparowits coal-fired generation plant

This paper contains various technical and economic comparisons of long distance EHV AC and DC transmission expansion plans for remote generation plants. The future Kaiparowits coal-fired plant located in Southern Utah is used as the case study to evaluate dynamic system performance, subsynchronous resonance, economics, and transmission system reliability. The reliability analysis outlines a comparison of AC versus DC transmission system reliability and quantifies the results in terms of economics. Because of the difficulties involved with the comparison of transmission alternatives from a reliability standpoint-especially when comparing AC and DC alternatives, a conventional generation resource reliability program has been applied in a new manner to quantitatively assess transmission reliability. This is a departure from standard transmission planning practice and is the basic significance of this paper.