Back in August, Bernalillo County, New Mexico approved 20 million dollars in industrial revenue bonds to support the Tres Amigas power infrastructure project, an unprecedented effort to connect North America’s three major isolated electric grids. Should all go well, the project will enable efficiency gains, aid in the integration of large-scale renewables, and support power system resilience.
Currently, the US has three separate power grids:
1) the 729 megawatt (MW) Eastern Interconnection
2) the 193MW Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC)
3) the 74MW Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT)
Putting in a transmission ‘superstation’ in Clovis, New Mexico would connect these three systems.
Project benefits include facilitating the development of renewable power sources and lowering power costs by allowing the selling of power between the main US power grids that will mean lower cost power can be brought to market. In addition to selling transmission rights and wheeling power, Tres Amigas intends to directly participate in these arbitrage opportunities by incorporating on-site storage into the superstation. This will certainly reduce these wide price differentials.
The project would also use subterranean superconducting high voltage direct current (DC) cables, the first in the United States. American Superconductor’s ‘Amperium’ wire — manufactured by LS Cable and Nexans — will transmit at a super cool minus 346 degrees Fahrenheit allowing electrons to move in an orderly and efficient fashion with almost no losses.
While a project of this size and audacity will certainly run into snags and regulatory hurdles, the hope is that its completion will do a lot to put the US onto a more sustainable path with regards to electricity generation and transmission.
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