Transmission

“On a steel or wood pole, a specialized coating or a sleeve is put on below grade to protect from corrosion. But with concrete, it comes out of the mold ready to set in a corrosive environment.”

“Galloping is a type of low-frequency, high-amplitude vibration in power lines. It’s when the wires start bouncing up and down, sometimes to an extreme degree. It’s a big deal because it can cause serious damage.”

“Zach and I are hitting on the ways that engineers can expand their thinking to set up craft labor for more successful and safe execution.”

“The key takeaway is understanding the evolving approach to traditional refurbishment projects. That’s where advanced conductors like ACCC come in. These all-aluminum composite conductors offer higher capacity and performance without requiring changes to the existing line design.”

James Duehning, Mark Van Dyne, Kent Herzog, Alex Lee, and Andrew Schulte: “We need to shift from a deterministic planning model to something more probabilistic, especially with all the uncertainty around future load and generation. The way we identify project needs today doesn’t fully reflect the realities we’re facing.”

“At least in the early phases of a study, utilities must develop automated tools for qualifying and quantifying the upgrade requirements for interconnecting the cluster, though generation projects increasingly require specialized studies, such as electromagnetic transients.”

“We came across a neat wrinkle around the untapped potential of existing retired infrastructure, like a retired coal plant, which in many cases has transmission interconnection and substation infrastructure. There are about 180 or so that have adequate infrastructure for utilities to consider retrofitting.“

“Tech innovation is happening at a rapid pace, but it runs right into something that wants to change over decades. You see this even in the regulatory response to some of this.”

“With the right policy and market development framework in place, regulators have an opportunity to accelerate the deployment of VPPs, improve grid reliability, reduce rate pressure on consumers, and make progress on decarbonization.”

“There is a mismatch of need and timing. For those growing utilities, the demands are coming faster than new transmission can meet. Transmission is part of the answer – but what can be done in the interim of this lopsided world?”