New solutions to our grid woes
How a 4-millimeter-wide wire could solve America’s billion-dollar transmission challenge
May 2023, By Bud Vos
The US power grid is having a moment, but not in a good way. Electricity demand continues to rise and climate change-driven extreme weather events have doubled grid outages over the past two decades. Ambitious new policies and incentives are speeding the transition to electric homes and vehicles, which will add to the pressures on the grid.
Conventional wisdom says the US needs a massive transmission system upgrade of poles and wires to add enough renewable energy to meet our climate goals. Federal and state policymakers, along with grid operators and other key players, are actively considering necessary reforms based on this thinking, but our old solution set won’t be enough to address the size and scale of today’s problems.
What if a wire the thickness of a human hair was the key to fixing America’s grid expansion and management challenges?
Even though it’s a fraction of the size of conventional wire used in transmission lines, high-temperature superconducting wire (HTS) has the potential to revolutionize the grid. This alternative to copper wire is an advanced power delivery technology designed specifically to transmit very high power at very low voltage, and with near-zero electrical or heat loss. Using this new wire in the grid can significantly increase the capacity of transmission lines, improve stability and reliability, and reduce the risk of blackouts and other service disruptions.
A key impediment to integrating more renewable energy onto the grid is the fact that our high-speed transmission capacity is sorely lacking. A recent draft report from the Department of Energy (DOE) estimates the US will need 47,300 GW-miles of new transmission by 2035, a 57% increase over today’s capacity. Additionally, a Princeton University study estimates that over 80% of the Inflation Reduction Act’s potential emissions reductions are lost if transmission expansion is constrained to the recent historical pace.
The number of new clean energy projects waiting to connect to the grid has also risen dramatically in recent years. Nearly 2,000 GW of solar, wind, and energy storage projects are waiting in these interconnection queues, according to the latest analysis from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The proposed solar and wind capacity alone is roughly equivalent to the installed capacity of the entire US power plant fleet. As wait times stretch to three years and beyond, many of these projects won’t be built.
It’s clear we must build faster, but why merely build faster when we can build better?
High-performance HTS wire is an appealing solution to these interconnection problems. The cables are lightweight and compact, requiring only a single circuit to replace traditional multi-circuit lines. They can transmit up to 10 times more power through a much smaller cable. Being able to deliver more power within an existing right-of-way can be critical to project approval and help solve pressing challenges in alleviating capacity constraints for EV charging infrastructure, offshore wind development, micro-grid installations, and urban transmission and distribution upgrades.
Another key benefit of this technology is the emissions reduction potential: in addition to enabling the interconnection of zero-carbon energy sources, these advanced wires are substantially less carbon intensive to produce than conventional conductors and they reduce the emissions associated with line loss by upwards of 30% from generation through end use.
Above all else, superconducting wire enables grid operators, utilities, and project developers to change the way they approach grid expansion and management. In traditional system planning and analysis of how to get power from point A to point B, one of the biggest constraints is the line loss inherent to the system. To overcome that loss, more voltage is added, meaning the grid is fundamentally designed around voltage.
If HTS cables are used in place of traditional copper cables, this all changes. Now, the design of the grid is constrained not by voltage, but by current. That opens up a tremendous opportunity: power can move at lower voltage but much higher current. From there, system design becomes easier and less costly, interconnection becomes easier and less costly – in short, the scale of the problem changes dramatically.
The energy transition is at a critical juncture when it comes to the country’s power infrastructure and its ability to withstand current and future pressures. Instead of thinking bigger, perhaps this problem is best solved by thinking smaller.
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Bud Vos is the CEO of MetOx Technologies, Inc., a Houston-based manufacturer of High-Temperature Superconducting wire (HTS) and a global leader in HTS technology.