#transmission lines

[mostlythemarsh]

Corridor

[technological-existentialism]

created by beings of higher power. carrying messages on one linear path. are transmission towers angels?

[gorgoph]

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Canary Media:

The Grain Belt Express, a $7 billion transmission line project that’s been more than a decade in development, has won conditional approval for a $4.9 billion federal loan guarantee.

The Grain Belt Express could enable 5 gigawatts’ worth of affordable, clean power to be developed on the windswept and sun-soaked Kansas plains and then delivered to customers in Missouri, Illinois, and broader eastern U.S. power markets. If finalized, the federal backing would help push the sorely needed transmission project over the finish line.

The proposed loan guarantee is the latest in a string of Biden administration actions aimed at bolstering the U.S. power grid. The country needs to rapidly build high-voltage transmission lines in order to accommodate new solar and wind power, reduce grid congestion that’s driving up electricity rates, and improve power system reliability in the face of extreme weather events.

Whether the Grain Belt Express will be able to make use of this financial support is unclear, however. Last week’s conditional commitment from the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office (LPO) may ultimately depend on whether the Trump administration decides to follow through with it.

The LPO has played a major role in the Biden administration’s clean energy agenda, announcing about $37 billion in loans and loan guarantees over the past four years. Recipients include electric vehicle and battery factories; battery mineral mining, processing, and recycling facilities; distributed solar and battery deployments; EV charging projects; makers of alternative aviation fuels; clean-hydrogen production plants;and the owner of a shuttered nuclear power plant in Michigan that hopes to restart it.

Roughly $25 billion of those commitments have yet to be finalized and contracted by the DOE, according to a late November tally from Politico. The LPO has been sprinting to complete these contracts in case the incoming Trump administration opts to freeze any in-progress loan agreements.

Many of the projects backed by the LPO are in Republican congressional districts, Politico reported. That includes the Grain Belt Express, which plans to use its conditional loan guarantee to finance the first phase of its 5-gigawatt high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission line — a 578-mile stretch from southwestern Kansas to Missouri. 

[pinkblanc]

Thomas U-966 insulated lines on the Niagra Power Transmission, 1901

[genderlesseltrichentity]

my aesthetics are so fried bruh this shit is beautiful

[red-wing-photography]

Sunset substation (February 11, 2023)

[azukilynn]

[saurabh-03]

[nepalenergyforum]

ADB and Nepal Celebrate 50 Years of Energy Sector Collaboration

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) launched a photo exhibition to celebrate over five decades of partnership with Nepal in the energy sector—a collaboration that has been instrumental in driving the country’s development and energy transformation. State Minister for Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation Purna Bahadur Tamang and ADB Country Director for Nepal Arnaud Cauchois inaugurated the…

[mostlythemarsh]

Mediate

[technological-existentialism]

[gorgoph]

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Canary Media:

The two grid operators providing power to the Midwestern U.S. are proposing to build $1.7 billion worth of new transmission lines to bridge the ​“seam” between their networks. The move could unlock huge amounts of clean power and potentially serve as a template that other parts of the country can follow to build more of the power lines the U.S. needs to meet its clean energy goals.

Last week, the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) and Southwest Power Pool (SPP) filed plans with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) seeking permission to undertake what SPP’s filing describes as ​“an unprecedented, innovative, and proactive collaboration” between the two grid operators.

The so-called Joint Targeted Interconnection Queue (JTIQ) process has been in the works since��2020, when MISO and SPP pledged to team up to identify transmission projects that could bring value to customers along the border separating the two grid operators’ territories.

That border stretches from Canada to Louisiana and passes through the Great Plains, the most productive part of the country for generating wind power, as well as the target for an increasing number of solar farms.

But many of those projects are languishing in the lengthy interconnection process. The five new joint transmission projects proposed as part of JTIQ, which would connect the two grid systems across the part of their border highlighted in yellow on the map [above], could help ease interconnection for 28 to 53 gigawatts’ worth of projects planned in the region, according to a joint presentation from the two grid operators.

This gap in cross-border transmission capacity is a well-known problem. And multiple studies conducted by grid operators, government agencies, universities, and independent analysts have shown that the cost of building new power lines to close that gap would be more than paid for by their long-term value to the grid: namely their ability to cut congestion and enable more cheap, clean energy to come online.

[pinkblanc]

Photos of the Niagra Power Transmission taken between 1894-1897