A Look at the Changing Electrical Energy Transmission Operations
Aug 12 - Electrical Apparatus
EA interviews the first president of the first transmission company
In January 2001, the first such organization in the U.S. was launched, using
facilities formerly owned by a number of non- affiliated utilities. The American
Transmission Co. of Pewaukee, Wis., serves 450,000 square miles of Wisconsin,
Upper Michigan, and a small piece of Illinois, with $700 million in system
assets including 8,900 miles of transmission lines and 450 substations. The 20
"founding participant" utilities transferred assets in return for
equity interests in the new company. Its rates for providing transmission
service are set under a tariff system administered by the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission (connected utilities pay in proportion to their peak
demand); right -of-way and construction matters are regulated by the states
involved.
How does such a company operate? How are the decisions made that affect every
electricity user in the region? What are ATC's plans to maintain and improve
operation of its portion of the electrical grid?
Those were some of the questions asked of ATC's President and CEO, Jose M.
Delgado, who oversaw the firm's creation between 1999 and 2001. An electrical
engineering graduate of Marquette University, later earning MSEE and MBA
degrees, Delgado spent 27 years with Wisconsin Electric Power Co., eventually
becoming Vice President of Electric System Operations. He has held many
positions in the North American Electric Reliability Council, the Edison
Electric Institute, and other industry organizations.
What's your feel for the trend in utility deregulation, or "reregulation,"
as a consequence of the final DOE report on the 2003 blackout? What lessons have
you learned from the blackout?
"A connection between the blackout and the regulatory process? I just
don't see it. What the blackout did was highlight the specific responsibilities
of transmission operators. I think you're going to see renewed attention to the
details of system reliability, such as tree trimming. We're pushing within the
industry, talking to major transmission companies, promoting best practices. The
industry has owned up to its responsibility, and we're in the process of getting
it done. The consumer really expects nothing less than the very best in
reliability and will have to pay for it, but the operator has to make the
commitment to provide it. We must all operate very well. The nuclear industry
did this through their plant operators association, through cooperation; they
said, one bad plant can mean we're all in trouble."
What about the "new technologies," such as composite-core
conductors, that have been proposed as solutions to the shortcomings of the
national grid-are they practical, and will they be important in the future?
"We do all these things now, such as low-sag conductors, adding
conductors per phase to increase line capacity . . . even burying some lines
underground, but there's not only a cost limitation there, it's also a capacity
limitation because the line gets hot. Super-conducting cables-we are using
superconductivity already; we have five superconducting energy storage units in
our service area, to help stability. It's expensive technology, though. If you
increase a circuit voltage level, you need longer insulators and probably higher
poles, too. We do all these things we can."
Your company is planning a controversial 220-mile transmission line
connecting ATC's service territory with the regional grid in Minnesota. What's
the outlook for still more out-of-state interconnections to meet future needs?
"That line will be our fifth interconnection. We're looking at Nos. 6
and 7, and thinking about No. 8. A line like that has multiple benefits. But
mainly we are too close to the edge here, and we need to move away from that
edge. Several times a day now we have to curtail transactions-block some energy
from moving over our system-because there isn't enough capacity. Everybody
loses. Consumers lose, because there may be cheaper generation available, but
they can't use it because there's no transmission access.
"Future load growth in Wisconsin will average 2% a year; 1% in Upper
Michigan. But we have pockets, like Dane County [the location of Wisconsin's
capital, Madison] that are growing much faster. For each of our five operating
zones, we have detailed maps showing where the bottlenecks are, where we're
having voltage sags more than 5% low. Going to the county and local governments,
we show them, here's where this needs fixing. If we can't work together to
correct the problem, then our system won't be able to support future economic
growth in your area."
What will be ATC's relationship to other transmission operators, to maintain
reliability over a wider region?
"The Midwest Independent System Operator, or MlSO, coordinates all our
activities. I worked on the formation of MISO; they're in Carmel, right outside
Indianapolis. Their control rooms monitor signals from us, daily and hourly. If
there's a problem, they help us solve it. For power that's routed through us,
subject to our regional tariff, they act somewhat like an airline booking agent.
In the future, they will also run the energy market, as a service to
customers."
How does ATC plan for the future?
"Once a year, we come up with a plan. Everything is based on the needs
of our utility customers. Right now we are looking ahead ten years with $2.8
billion in projects. That includes 1,500 miles of new or reconstructed lines
from 9 69 to 345 kV. Our customers come to us with their load growth forecasts,
reliability improvement needs, facilities replacements. . . . We ask them,
where's your local generation? Where will you need a substation? When will you
need it? And we ask them for a firm commitment, for some up-front money. That
puts them in a queue-on our list. If anybody comes up with some other request,
we tell them, if we don't see your needs on this list, we're not planning for
them. We cannot afford to build where there isn't a need. For 2004, we have $250
million in projects scheduled, some of them due for completion this year, others
are multi-year. We're filing now for next year's projects."
How will future transmission costs compare with those incurred by the
individual utilities, before ATC existed?
"The first day of ATC operation, costs would have been the same. But
since then, we've added $350 to $400 million in assets to the transmission
system. That means added cost. People come to us and ask, are you going to give
us cheap transmission? We say, you already have that; we're going to give you
adequate transmission. The system in Wisconsin was already 'cheap'-very limited,
very weak in some areas. We need to fix that."
If ATC owns the entire transmission system, you're responsible for keeping it
working, as well as expanding it. What will sustain your ability to do whatever
is needed to maintain reliability?
"All our field work is done by contractors. We looked very carefully at
that. There's no economic way for us to manage field work ourselves. We work
with every contractor in the area, and with the unions. Every year, we meet with
the unions, put our requirements in front of them. We cannot do it alone. We
want the very best work force we can get. We need to replace people who are
retiring. In some places, we run feeder programs to train line mechanics. The
first group just graduated in a class at Marquette, Michigan. We don't hire
those people ourselves; we want to make them available to contractors. There's
work all over, so they can stay in their home areas."
What about emergency response? Can you get crews out as fast as the local
utility could?
"Our contractor response is outstanding-fantastic. We're totally
connected to them. They will even stop construction jobs in progress to deal
with an emergency. Without transmission, generation doesn't work, nothing else
works. So we have to fix the trouble first."
We've heard a lot about the "aging infrastructure " of the grid. Is
there a concern about transmission facilities wearing out, dying of old age?
"Getting old is not the issue. Some equipment may not perform well with
age. Conductors do get brittle. Epoxy insulators may last 20 years, and we know
porcelain and glass can last 80 years. But mostly things become obsolete because
of changing customer needs. Replacement doesn't mean something is about to
collapse; the customer just has a different need. For example, years ago there
was no prohibition against somebody building a house under a transmission line.
Now, if we want to put a new line there, we have to go around."
Is the operation of a TRANSCO changing your views of utility operalions?
"When each utility was responsible for only its own part of the system,
the operators saw only the needs of their own customers, in their own areas.
What we're seeing here, now, is the need of a whole region, with radically
different customer perspectives, the whole diversity. Everybody becomes a
customer, and every customer has a right to complain. I've never seen the word
'easy' and 'ATC' in the same sentence. We have learned a lot about how to
communicate to the public, make contact, to hold public meetings, to get ahead
of the proble\m. We lean over backward to do that."
Any closing thoughts?
"Adequacy, reliability, with safety-that comes first. But access is also
a key focus for discussion in 2004. That's the ability of customers connected to
our system to have greater access to low- cost energy and move it where it's
needed. That's our goal."
'What the blackout did was highlight the specific responsibilities of
transmission operators'
'Replacement doesn't mean something is about to collapse; the customer just
has a different need'
By Richard L. Nailen, P.E., EA Engineering Editor
Copyright Barks Publications Aug 2004 For far more extensive news on the energy/power
visit: http://www.energycentral.com
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