To the Editor:
While transmission built to “compete” with generation capacity is an interesting notion, it generally misses the real value of transmission (see “PJM’s New Game,” by Bruce W. Radford, December 2005, p. 26).
One of high-voltage transmission’s greatest attributes today is to move low-cost generation (whatever fuel it happens to be from). Generators, for the most part, produce power with only one fuel, so generation is a poor substitute for more robust transmission to move affordable energy to load. Transmission, on the other hand, is fuel neutral.
In today’s high energy-price world, delivering “affordable” energy to consumers is very important. We, in the United States, are paying upward of $350 billion more today for natural gas, oil, and electricity than we did in 1999. Putting a small percentage of that cost back into the grid (on top of the standard investment over the last several years) would pay huge dividends in reducing natural gas demand and therefore prices. It can be argued at today’s gas prices that there is far more value in moving extra low-cost (generally coal) megawatts east and south during off-peak hours to displace gas generation of more than 4,000 hours a year.