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By Al Gibbs, The News Tribune, Tacoma, WA, Sep 27, 2002
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The most serious future power problem the Northwest will face may not be finding new sources of electricity. It could well be getting the power from generators to consumers. Solving the problem will cost consumers, but nobody knows how much. That seemed to be the consensus of four of the region's major utility executives who appeared at the Seattle CityClub Thursday. "The existing (transmission) structure is old, it is antiquated," Puget Sound Energy CEO Steve Reynolds said. "We have to be prepared to build something new." Agreeing with Reynolds were:
The Northwest's hydroelectric dams and other power stations are linked by thousands of miles of high-voltage transmission lines. They move power to retail utilities that operate distribution systems to serve residential, commercial and industrial customers. There are even several high-voltage lines linking the Northwest and California. Those tie-lines help both regions avoid building unneeded power plants by moving Northwest energy to California for summer air conditioning peaks and returning electricity to the Northwest for winter heating. Bonneville controls about 75 percent of the region's transmission wires. The economic impact of the high-voltage lines was demonstrated earlier this week when the capacity of two of the lines was cut in half. Wholesale electricity prices in California jumped to $5 to $10 a megawatt-hour over prices in the Northwest. "The most important challenge is for Bonneville to build high quality transmission lines," said Randy Hardy, a former head of both Seattle City Light and Bonneville. He's now a private consultant. Bonneville last year asked Congress for $2 billion in borrowing authority, most of it to build new transmission lines. Congress refused. "It's a critical question for the Northwest," Bonneville's Wright said. But the West Coast's utility industry, still reeling financially from the energy crisis, doesn't have a lot of spare cash. "The crisis and shock waves hit merchant producers the hardest," said Hudgens of PacifiCorp. "This is a capital-poor industry right now." The federal solution of creating independent regional transmission organizations to assure access to all power generators may not be the right answer, Seattle City Light's Zarker said. "It will be very costly," he said.
Future of Distributed Generation in Electricity Markets
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