Financing Plan for Renewables Transmission Lines
California ISO Asks Federal Government to Back New Plan for ''Greening the Grid''
California ISO, press release, January 25, 2007
In a precedent-setting move that could have national implications, the California Independent System Operator Corporation (California ISO) filed today with its regulator, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), to approve in concept a financing plan for transmission trunklines to remote locations in order to get green power from multiple users onto the grid. ...
If the new payment mechanism is approved and implemented, it would be a first-of-its-kind means of removing financial barriers that can hinder development of wind, solar, geothermal ... renewable energy resources. ...
“We don’t have a choice as to where these natural resources are located,” said Rich Ferguson research director for the Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies. “If we’re going to use these assets to offset less environmentally friendly types of power generation, we need to be able to build the transmission lines that reach those remote locations.” ...
This press release points out very well one of the big problems that renewable energy power plants have in becoming a larger factor in competing with conventional power sources. Even larger problems are expanding the grid so that power can be transmitted to widely separated geographical areas. How these costs should be passed on to the consume, must be determined before financing these projects can go foreword.
Unfortunately affordable high temperature superconducting (HTS) transmission cables are still years away from widespread use, even though significant progress is being made. See Amercan Superconductor Reports Out sanding Progress, ACCC (Aluminum Conductor Composite Core) cable and Second Generation Superconducting Cable Energized, for some of the developments being made in newer technologies for our transmission lines.
California has been unable to meet its lofty alternative energy goals for bureaucratic reasons, despite broad bipartisan support in this state. There are two agencies that must approve any given project before it can be built. The 20% by 2010 law is 13 pages long, a comparable one in Texas is ten paragraphs. It's a wonder anything gets built at all.
NIMBYism is also a factor. The Sunrise Power Link, which is intended to bring in solar energy from a solar-thermal project by Stirling Energy Systems, will probably have to take a less efficient route through the desert because certain environmental groups oppose it.
Posted by: Cervus | January 29, 2007 at 01:36 AM