North American Industry Trends Supporting Intelligent Grids

To meet the rising electric power demand, and accommodating the new demand and supply-side options of the 21st century, significant improvements in the bulk power transmission system are necessary. Transmission constraints and grid congestion can raise costs by limiting access to lower-cost, more diverse power supplies during both normal conditions and system emergencies. The engineering, design, licensing, and construction of a major high-voltage transmission project require at least 7 years and can extend beyond 10 years. Investigations determining the performance of the bulk power system beyond 5 years are heavily influenced by the addition and location of new generation, dispatch patterns, load growth, and loop flows from other systems. These uncertainties and risks hamper the ability to conduct transmission planning, while forcing electric utilities and regulatory authorities to make unpopular licensing and routing decisions based on imperfect information. Tremendous foresight and regulatory fortitude are required to propose large regional and inter-regional transmission projects that have anything but a clear reliability need. Expansion of the high-voltage transmission system to support adequacy goals can be also influenced by market, and/or economic conditions. These expansions require careful study to balance supply-side, bulk transmission and demand-side options on the same basis so comparative analysis can support critical decisions.