Transmission and renewables would reduce carbon emissions, generation costs in western United States

If all of the high-voltage transmission at the moment below development and in superior levels of allowing is constructed by 2030 within the Western United States—enabling the development of latest renewable power initiatives—carbon dioxide emissions within the Western United States would drop by 73% in comparison with 2005.

Vitality era prices would additionally lower 32% by 2030, in comparison with a reference case the place most of those initiatives will not be constructed.

These are the outcomes of a new report by the Division of Vitality’s Pacific Northwest Nationwide Laboratory that appears at how new transmission and renewable power initiatives within the Western United States might deliver economic benefits and cut back carbon dioxide emissions. The report, referred to as the Western Interconnection Baseline Research, printed September 13, 2024. The report is a part of the Nationwide Transmission Planning Research.

“The Western Interconnection Baseline Study uses the grid industry’s most reliable data to look at how future transmission and renewable energy projects would lower carbon emissions and save money, all while keeping the western grid stable and reliable,” mentioned Konstantinos Oikonomou, a workers energy techniques analysis engineer at PNNL and lead creator of the research.

Throughout the US, greater than 700,000 miles of transmission strains transport power from turbines like fossil fuel power plants, nuclear power plantswind and photo voltaic farms, power storage techniques and hydropower vegetation. This spine of the electrical energy grid permits power to then be distributed to cities, neighborhoods and finally to particular person customers.

Lately, DOE has been finding out how increasing transmission might assist combine extra renewable power, decrease the price of power era and reduce carbon emissions from grid operations. In help of this effort, a PNNL workforce did a baseline evaluation contemplating solely the affect of main new transmission initiatives which are within the pipeline for the Western Interconnection, {the electrical} grid that powers 16 western states and a couple of Canadian provinces.

Modeling extra transmission, renewables

To research the impacts of latest transmission and renewables, the analysis workforce constructed a mannequin of the Western Interconnection that integrated 12 transmission initiatives at the moment in superior levels of growth or allowing. These 12 initiatives would add greater than 3,000 miles of latest transmission, connecting locations like Wyoming to southern California, Nevada and western Arizona.

The researchers then added the probably wind and solar energy initiatives and power storage techniques that may be constructed benefiting from this new transmission capability. As of July 2024, the Western Interconnection hosts 30 gigawatts of wind energy, 38 GW of solar energy and 14 GW of power storage. The report’s situation would add an extra 35 GW of wind, 31 GW of photo voltaic and 12 GW of power storage by 2030.

With their new mannequin of a Western Interconnection that has extra transmission and 68 extra GW of renewable power, the researchers simulated a typical 12 months of power demand and era. The simulation included real looking situations with electrical energy demand and era dipping and rising as a result of time of day, temperature and climate situations. The researchers additionally checked out how the price of power era and transportation fluctuated over the 12 months.

The mannequin confirmed that extra, cheaper renewables built-in within the grid by the 12 months 2030 would displace 15% of the era output of current fossil energy vegetation and cut back carbon dioxide emissions by 73% (in comparison with 2005 ranges). The price of era would additionally drop by 32%.

What’s extra, the brand new transmission strains unlock new power import alternatives for states like California, which at the moment imports some power from the Pacific Northwest’s hydropower turbines. New transmission strains within the Southwest would enable California to import wind power from windy areas in New Mexico and Wyoming, the report notes.

“Because we have developed power flow cases that show how electricity actually moves through the grid for different operating hours under different generation mixes, grid planners in the Western Interconnection can use these study cases in future planning,” mentioned Nader Samaan, a chief energy techniques analysis engineer at PNNL and co-author on the research.

Renewable power for a secure grid

Researchers additionally needed to seek out out whether or not this hypothetical future Western Interconnection might stand up to a big failure. They thought-about two eventualities: a lack of energy era and a lack of energy transmission.

Each failures have been simulated to happen on July 29, 2030, at 4 p.m. The researchers selected this date as a result of earlier evaluation means that electrical energy demand tends to peak mid-summer as folks activate their air conditioners. They selected 4 p.m. as a result of solar energy begins to dip within the late afternoon because the solar begins its night descent.

Within the first emergency situation, an Arizona nuclear plant loses two producing models—the equal of “two to three large thermal power plants,” Samaan mentioned. That loss could be an enormous hit on the grid, doubtlessly resulting in outages for hundreds of consumers.

The researchers discovered that on a grid with a excessive proportion of renewables, power storage techniques would kick in, offering stability wanted to brace the grid towards a big era loss.

“Before the generator goes down, the energy storage systems are charging. But once the system loses that generation, the energy storage devices have enough reserved energy to cease charging and ramp up their generation to stabilize the grid,” Samaan mentioned.

Within the second emergency situation, a transmission line delivering 3,100 MW from southern Oregon to northern California fails. On this case as properly, the grid stays secure with the brand new transmission strains supporting the prevailing community, which might reroute energy via different paths.

Nationwide Transmission Planning Research

The brand new report “shows that with careful planning by utilities, developers and reliability working groups, new transmission lines and renewables are able to keep the grid stable even with large demand growth,” mentioned Paul Wetherbee, a grid advisor at PNNL.

It additionally helps DOE’s Nationwide Transmission Planning (NTP) Research, which investigates completely different transmission enlargement eventualities and gives suggestions to policymakers. The Western Interconnection Baseline Research acts as a “base case” for the fashions used within the NTP research, slated to publish later this 12 months.

Led by DOE’s Grid Deployment Workplace and in partnership with PNNL and the Nationwide Renewable Vitality Laboratory, the NTP research goals to establish transmission choices that can present broad-scale advantages to electrical clients, inform regional and interregional transmission planning processes and establish interregional and nationwide methods to speed up decarbonization whereas sustaining system reliability.

The NTP research is complemented by a number of companion stories, together with this newest report on the financial advantages new transmission and renewable energy projects would deliver to the Western United States, and two earlier stories on market and working practices and interregional renewable power zones.