A Grid Bigger Than the Weather

Read the full article here.

January’s winter storm underscores the critical role transmission plays during grid emergencies—both in maintaining reliability and shielding customers from the price shocks that accompany severe weather.  Over the first storm weekend, strong winds in Kansas and Oklahoma drove power prices sharply lower while neighboring Midwestern states faced sky-high prices because they did not have access to these cheap resources.

“Each additional gigawatt of transmission connecting the Texas grid (ERCOT) and the Southeast could have saved nearly $1 billion while keeping the heat on for hundreds of thousands of families.” The Midwest and Great Plains regions weathered that same storm with far fewer outages precisely because they had more robust transmission ties to neighboring regions—importing over 13,000 megawatts (MW) of power when they needed it most. Texas, by contrast, could only import about 800 MW. The difference was catastrophic. The combined impacts on civilians, business, and the military are unacceptable—and entirely preventable.

Source: Wikipedia