According to a Black & Veatch Report “Advanced Transmission Hardware – a Catalogue of Technologies and Drivers in the West,” many Utilities have selected Advanced Conductors such as ACCC® Conductor to accommodate load growth (40%), improve ROI (40%), mitigate grid congestion (60%), integrate renewables (80%), and improve grid reliability (100%). While this particular report was published a number of years ago, more recently, the term “Decarbonization” has been added to many Utilities’ lists of objectives – for good reason.
Southern California Edison, for example, in its ‘Pathway 2045’ roadmap for enabling a clean energy future for California, predicts a 60% increase in demand and a 40% increase in peak load by 2045. SCE also predicts that the bulk of renewable generation resources will continue to be located far away from load centers. Considering the time and effort it takes to approve new transmission lines, reconductoring with ACCC® Conductor is a perfect alternative. ACCC® Conductor can not only double the capacity of existing corridors to help integrate more renewables, it also reduces transmission line losses by 25 to 40% or more.
While most people in the electric power industry understand that it is much less expensive to “save a negawatt than it is to produce a megawatt,” improving the efficiency of the transmission grid has been widely overlooked. If we are going to effectively decarbonize the grid, the use of highly efficient ACCC® Conductors will make the job much easier, quicker and less expensive.
