1.10 Transmission and Distribution

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From the course by University of Colorado System

Electric Utilities Fundamentals and Future

100 ratings

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University of Colorado System

Electric Utilities Fundamentals and Future

100 ratings

THIS COURSE GIVES YOU THE INSIDE TRACK TO A COMPLICATED INDUSTRY. The approach of this course is truly unique in how it approaches and engages learners. It looks at the electric utility industry, which has remained critical to our quality of life, health and comfort from the eyes of numerous industry experts through on-location interviews, compelling visuals, and animation. You will benefit from having the inside track because you see some behind-the-scenes information not covered in news stories, social media or even if we are in the business ourselves. EACH WEEK YOU NOT ONLY LEARN WHAT IS CHANGING, BUT WHY. As this industry continues to unfold at an unprecedented pace, you will be armed with knowledge and insights to form informed opinions supporting decisions you will increasingly make for your energy-dependent homes and businesses. This course kicks off with animated crash course on industry history, highlighting aspects of the structure, governance, and technology that remain today, despite the passage of time. Then, throughout the modules, you will build some basics about how electricity gets to you, who watches over decisions, including setting rates. This information establishes a knowledge foundation so that when we explore some of the most critical topics, like renewable energy, smart grid, battery storage, and you can think about it from a much more analytical and critical viewpoint. YOU WILL DEVELOP A FRAMEWORK FOR MAKING SENSE OF THIS INDUSTRY THAT WILL BENEFIT YOU BEYOND THIS COURSE. This industry can get pretty complicated, and this course will help you make more sense of it. Electric Utilities Fundamentals and Future is the course for you whether you’re just curious about the industry or an industry veteran looking to grow – or, thinking about joining the industry. (Hint: now is a good time. You'll learn why in this course.) No prior education or experience required. You just need a healthy curiosity and an open mind to learn about an industry that I think a lot of us, including myself sometimes, take for granted.

From the lesson

Taking Shape and Grid Fundamentals

We kick off this course with a look at how the electric utility industries' technical, regulatory and structural history continues to shape how we receive electricity today. You'll follow electricity from how utilities generate it by using fossil fuels or renewables to how it is delivered to your home or business. And, you'll learn there is more than meets the eye when it comes to the electricity we all depend on.

1.1 Introduction1:31

1.2 Electric Utility Industry Animated Crash Course6:54

1.3 What Happens When You Flip a Switch?3:38

1.4 Generation for Generations8:08

1.5 Fossil Fuels8:46

1.6 Nuclear5:58

1.7 Renewables - Hydroelectric and Wind12:34

1.8 Renewables - Solar, Biomass and Geothermal15:32

1.9 The Generation Portfolio4:52

1.10 Transmission and Distribution6:19

Meet the Instructors

Melissa Wood
Faculty Member
University of Colorado Denver Business School, Global Energy Management Program

Well, this is a simplistic view of how electricity gets to you after leaves

the plant.

The voltage is basically stepped up by substation transformer.

It then goes into transmission lines.

These are basically the superhighways that transport electricity over long distances.

Structures are picked based on the amount of voltage that's being transported and

the terrain it's being served.

As you can imagine, that can vary widely.

And transmission is built and maintain in some pretty tough spots.

Significant stakeholder buy in goes into transmission route planning and

on going maintenance.

According to the Edison Electric Institute, the US electric transmission

grid consists of approximately 200,000 miles of high-voltage lines.

Those are 144 kilovolts or more.

Redundancy or backups are built into the transmission system, so

that there are other power plant paths available in emergencies and

to efficiently access electricity generation.

This is even done across different power providers.

The US power grid is actually made up of three large interconnected systems.

These are the Eastern, Western and Texas interconnections.

This is so the electricity can be moved around the country.

In other words, electric transmission and distribution lines owned by an individual

utility are no longer used by just that utility.

Without a reliable transmission system we would not have reliable power distributed

to our homes.

Standards are in

place that have been approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

They regulate the transmission system in the US.

They're an independent agency that regulates interstate transmission of

natural gas, oil, and electricity.

Despite the backup paths,

there are some pretty big challenges to managing a transmission grid of this size.

This include getting approval from multiple stakeholders to access the land

including tribal land.

Also, calculating a fair way to recover construction costs when transmission lines

are built in one state but benefit customers in a totally different state.

Making sure transmission lines are constructed to reach renewable

energy is another issue.

A big challenge is that often wind and utility-scale solar

are not built in population-dense areas where the electricity is actually used.

That means it needs to be transported, and

in many cases the transmission lines don't yet exist.

And last but not least, protecting the grid from natural disasters.

Both physical or cybersecurity is also something stakeholders worry

about including who has ultimate authority from a governance standpoint.

>> Until about 2005, we witnessed a decline in investment,

a deterioration of the high voltage grid.

At a time when the electric system and

the economy were just beginning to become transformed into something we have today.

We have of course more renewable energy and

as capital cost come down and the cost of producing wind power,

solar, bio mass power, there's more of it and

it completely transforms the nature of the whole electric system and how it operates.

>> Right now transmission congestion is held up as one of the biggest issues or

concerns in the US industry.

Even if we built a lot of renewable energy, we need to figure out a way to

move it across long distances, and even across state lines.

After the transmission lines carry the electricity long distances, as you heard,

the power is stepped down again, through a neighborhood substation transformer.

It's then carried across distribution lines that carry the electricity to our

homes and business.

Transformers on the poles actually step down electricity once again.

And that's to ensure it's at a safe and useful level in our homes and businesses.

While beauty is in the eye of the beholder,

many people don't like the appearance of distribution lines or transmission lines.

They also feel that burying distribution lines not only solves this issue but

also helps avoid outages.

So weren't they all just buried?

That's a question I get a lot.

The simple explanation is that it's a matter of cost.

In many cases, it's cost prohibitive to bury power lines.

According to the US Energy Information Administration, the cost of

underground power power lines could be five to ten times that of overhead.

The amount varies considerably by geography though.

So Florida has a high water table and

the Rocky Mountain region has a lot of granite bedrock.

This makes burying those lines not just expensive but sometimes not even possible.

Here are some real world examples of the impact that

this could have on customers' bills.

The effect of undergrounding on a customer's utility bill

depends on the characteristics of each unique project.

Let me show you a range of some effects.

There was a 2010 study that assessed undergrounding options requested

by the District of Columbia's Public Utility Commission and

they found that burying all overhead equipment would cost $5.8 billion.

A local utility official later stated that this would add $226 to

the average monthly bill over ten years or $107 a month for 30 years.

Let me give you another example, after a series of storms North Carolina looked at

the cost of undergrounding the state's distribution infrastructure and

they found it would raise electricity rates by over 125%.

Anaheim, California decided to completely convert its system for aesthetic reasons.

To minimize the impact on customer bills, undergrounding is taking place slowly over

a period of 50 years, and it's funded by a 4% surcharge on electric bills.

Another thing to consider is that underground lines are more difficult to

locate and repair in the event of an issue.

So as we've seen, there's more that meets the eye even when it comes to

the infrastructure of this industry and

it pays to look at the impact of decisions on cost and reliability.

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