Transmission solutions for electric grid : Short Wave : NPR

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AARON SCOTT, HOST:

Hey there, SHORT WAVErs. Aaron Scott here with Julia Simon, NPR's climate solutions reporter. And today, we are going to nerd out about the U.S. electric grid.

JULIA SIMON, BYLINE: Our mess of an electric grid. Hot mess.

SCOTT: (Laughter) Hot mess, indeed.

SIMON: Yes. We know more than half of our electricity comes from planet-heating fossil fuels, and we know to reduce emissions, the U.S. needs to get a lot more renewables on the grid. But there's a problem.

SCOTT: Is it that our electric grid is too old and outdated to handle all this new renewable energy?

SIMON: That's exactly right. And thousands of wind and solar projects are waiting years to get online - sometimes five years.

SCOTT: And this is just when we need all of this new power. Things like the Inflation Reduction Act are incentivizing a big transition to things like electric cars and heat pumps and other devices that need electricity and are only going to further push the limits of our existing infrastructure.

SIMON: Right. And experts agree we are going to really need to ramp up how fast we build new transmission lines if we hope to get closer to our climate goals. But some tech companies have a solution to make the existing grid work better.

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SCOTT: So today on the show, the surprisingly cheaper and quicker solutions to fix the grid. You're listening to SHORT WAVE, the show that loves to search for the silver lining in an old power line.

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SCOTT: OK, Julia. So today, we're exploring how new tech can give new life to our aging power grid. I understand that you checked out some cool innovations. Where do you want to start?

SIMON: I went to a suburb of Sacramento called Folsom, and there was this huge transmission tower in the middle of the neighborhood. I was standing with this guy named Jon Marmillo. Jon stares up at transmission lines a lot, even when he's driving.

JON MARMILLO: I have to get reminded to get my eyes on the road. I stare at the transmission lines.

SIMON: I actually do this now, too, especially those ones, Aaron, that look like a cow. You know what I mean?

SCOTT: (Laughter).

SIMON: Anyway, as he stares up at those lines, he told me he's often thinking, we could be getting more power out of those lines.

SCOTT: More power. So it's not like electric lines are just on or off. Utilities actually are controlling how much electricity goes through them at any given time, right?

SIMON: Right. Right. But while utilities and grid operators mostly know how much power is going through their lines, they aren't required to know the real-time conditions of the lines, so things like if it's windy on the line or how hot the line is.

SCOTT: And that matters because things like wind determine how much electricity they can transmit?

SIMON: Well, yeah 'cause utilities - they really can't just let her rip and send all the power through because the line could overheat, and the insulation could melt and start a fire - all this bad stuff. But wind could cool a line. And if a line is cooled down, then with that knowledge, a utility could transmit more power safely.

SCOTT: OK. So without that real-time info, utilities are using more conservative standards on how much power they can run through the lines, which I'm guessing means they're not always transmitting as much electricity as they could.

SIMON: That's exactly right. So that's why Jon's company, LineVision, is putting boxes on these power lines so companies can add more power. Here's Jon.

MARMILLO: It's actually this right here, this piece of equipment. On the bottom, you have a solar panel, and then on top, you have a lidar sensor.

SCOTT: Lidar - we just did an episode about how there are researchers who are using it to detect ancient Maya ruins. And it's how some autonomous vehicles detect the distances of objects around them. But, Julia, what is it doing on transmission lines?

SIMON: Yeah, lidar is basically shooting lasers to take distance measurements. And here, they're using the lasers to understand these power lines.

MARMILLO: And that laser is telling us the distance that the power line is from the sensor itself.

SIMON: So with the lasers, they can read things like the sag of the line or the side-to-side swaying motion of the line. So, like, that would help them understand the wind. And I got to see this in action. On the day I was out with Jon, it was a summer day, but it wasn't too hot.

MARMILLO: So today, it's very temperate. There's a nice breeze.

SIMON: OK. So those sensors are looking. They're reading the wind, and they're saying, OK, utility, green light, go. You can put more power on this line.

MARMILLO: Exactly.

SIMON: This idea of reading lines to put more electricity through - it's growing in popularity in places like Denmark, Belgium. I spoke with the engineer at the Danish national grid operator, who told me that by using algorithms and measurements, they can get up to 30% more power on lines, especially in the windy spring and fall. A Pittsburgh utility told me they're using sensors to get an average 25% more capacity.

SCOTT: Wow. So just getting more efficiency out of our existing infrastructure - solution number one. Tell us about another technology you looked into.

SIMON: So a lot of the wires in transmission lines in the U.S. use technology from the early 1900s, these old, copper wires that sag. They aren't super efficient.

SCOTT: So we've basically got antiques powering our civilization, which is very steampunk.

SIMON: And now there are these new, fancy wires that can transmit more electricity. They don't sag as much. Some are insulated with aluminum. Some have a carbon fiber core. This is all called reconductoring. Conductors are another word for these wires. So all this means rewiring the lines with more efficient wires.

SCOTT: Big words for cool things. OK, so what is the next solution?

SIMON: Another is this software and hardware that can avoid congestion on the grid because the electric grid is like a lot of roads in a city - there could be traffic jams. Like, there's a lot of demand for electricity over here, but maybe the power's over here, and it needs to be rerouted.

SCOTT: So this hardware and software is basically acting like a traffic control to make the juice flow around the grid more freely?

SIMON: And all this tech falls under the umbrella of grid-enhancing technologies, advanced transmission technologies. I should say all the experts I spoke with say the U.S. needs more transmission lines. We have to build them. We can't avoid that. But building transmission takes time, as we said, like, sometimes a decade. There's resistance, permitting issues. And it's expensive, often billions of dollars. The climate crisis is here now. We need more renewables. We have to get our grid working urgently. So I spoke with Allison Clements about this tech. She's a commissioner for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC. That regulates interstate electricity transmission. And here's what she said about this tech.

ALLISON CLEMENTS: This is a really great opportunity. You can squeeze more juice out of our existing transmission system at lower cost and way more quickly than you can invest in the development of a new significant transmission line.

SCOTT: So this all sounds like pretty low lifts, Julia. I mean, I have to admit, I would've assumed utilities were already doing this. Are these technologies getting embraced?

SIMON: Well, while some utilities are looking at this tech and adopting this tech, a lot of people worry that these companies are actually disincentivized to embrace the tech. And that's because a bit more than a hundred years ago, the U.S. was trying to incentivize utilities to build a lot of infrastructure. And so the incentive structure that regulators came up with is basically that the more utilities build, the more money they make.

SCOTT: OK, so building big, new projects, like, say, a shiny, new power plant, can often get them a guaranteed profit. But just upgrading their existing infrastructure to make it more efficient won't necessarily make them any more money.

SIMON: Right. Some regulators worry that this old way of incentivizing utilities to do things doesn't incentivize the right things for the climate crisis - things like energy efficiency or, in this case, adopting these cheaper, grid-enhancing technologies. Here's Marissa Gillett. She's chair of Connecticut's Public Utilities Regulatory Authority.

MARISSA GILLETT: So if you're a utility whose sole incentive is, you know, historically based on, how much money can I spend? - and that's going to get me more money and you're being told over here, well, why don't you try this technology, if I'm a utility, I'm not going to be all that excited about that because, you know, all else being equal, I have less of a money-making opportunity.

SIMON: I should note that we spoke with Scott Aaronson of the Edison Electric Institute, a leading trade group for utilities. He says dozens of utilities are already jumping onto these innovations, including the laser sensors. Some utilities are actually investing in these new tech companies. Still, Marissa says we can't ignore the potential that many utilities have these mismatched incentives. She says it's Economics 101.

SCOTT: So are there other ways to get these technologies into more widespread use, then?

SIMON: Yeah. The federal government could speed up the adoption of these grid innovations, mostly through FERC - again, that's the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. And, in fact, late last month, the commission passed a new rule that deals with these long lines of energy projects trying to get on the grid. In the rule, they required that grid operators and utilities have to evaluate many of these new technologies, including those new wires that carry more electricity. Now, Allison, the commissioner from FERC - she noted in the meeting that it's requiring them to evaluate the tech, not requiring them to deploy the tech. It's a low bar, she said.

SCOTT: Yeah, I can see that.

SIMON: But the commission is having more hearings about this tech in the coming months, and they will be considering requiring some of this tech, including the tech involving the laser sensors.

SCOTT: Julia, thank you for taking us on this tour of the electric grid.

SIMON: Thank you, Aaron, for having me.

SCOTT: We'll link to Julia's reporting on transmission solutions in our episode notes.

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SCOTT: This episode was produced by Carly Rubin. It was edited by Berly McCoy, Amina Khan and our managing producer, Rebecca Ramirez. Julia Simon checked the facts. Kwesi Lee was the audio engineer. Beth Donovan is our senior director, and Anya Grundmann is our senior vice president of programming. I'm Aaron Scott. Thank you, as always, for listening to SHORT WAVE from NPR.

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