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Battle of the Bottlenecks
Creating new gas and transmission lines has a host of friends — and at least as many enemies
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Business New Haven
1/6/2003
By: Karen Singer
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Creation of a new state energy coordinating authority, as well as more public participation and greater attention to environmental concerns are some of the recommendations in a just-released report on how to evaluate new land-based power line projects in Connecticut.
The recommendations come from a working group headed by Joel Rinebold, who runs the Institute for Sustainable Energy at Eastern Connecticut State University in Willimantic. Rinebold also chairs a task force examining underwater power lines to Long Island Sound. Those recommendations are due by June.
The state legislature created both groups last year to look into major energy problems. The working group has focused on the vexing issue of energy congestion in the southwest part of Connecticut, which has the dubious distinction of being labeled one of the ten worst areas in the country by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The area encompasses 52 municipalities in New Haven and Fairfield counties.
The International Organization for Standardization-New England (ISO-NE), which operates New England's bulk power system and transmission facilities, regards southwest Connecticut as most congested region in New England.
The problem is not insufficient electricity, but rather an antiquated infrastructure with older generators and small power lines that make it difficult - and expensive - to get electricity where it's needed.
Recent business growth and increasing energy demands have made matters worse, causing strains on the system, reliability problems and several near-disasters. The worst to date took place in the summer of 2001, when a massive blackout was narrowly averted.
A large part of the New England grid, including much of Connecticut, is linked via high voltage 345 transmission wires, but the largest wires in southwest Connecticut carry only 115 volts.
“It's like the difference between a superhighway and a dirt road,” says Robert Early, an attorney for the Connecticut Business & Industry Association (CBIA). More accurately, a dirt road pitted with potholes.
“Planning for infrastructure is usually done well in advance, but what happened is the rate of growth slowed in the late 1970s and early '80s,” explains Dennis Hrabchak, the United Illuminating Co.'s vice president for regulatory policy. “Then, in the late '90s, the load started coming back with a vengeance.”
Stamford, Norwalk, Greenwich and New Haven currently are the biggest users of electricity in the state, according to Northeast Utilities.
The overtaxed transmission system is prone to several problems. Lower-voltage lines heat up and “can literally melt” as the voltage increases at times of peak load.
“We're about at the point where we won't be able to meet thermal restraint,” Hrabchak says.
Another problem is keeping the voltage up during summer and other peak periods, as well as when maintenance is done on the so-called “Sooty Six” (or “Filthy Five”) generators run by private companies since deregulation began.
Some back-up generators, mostly diesel-based, are available in an emergency, but state Department of Environmental Protection regulations strictly circumscribe their use.
Voltage fluctuations can wreak havoc on businesses.
Two-thirds of respondents to a recent CBIA survey said a mere 60-second power loss would have some impact on their operations. As well, 90 percent of them said a one-day power outage would produce a serious or even catastrophic effect.
A third problem concerns circuit breakers. If they fail to open when electrical faults occur, as often happens in an overburdened system, a resulting “fail cascade” could destroy equipment.
A checklist of procedures to prevent the worst-case scenario (rolling blackouts) includes voltage reduction, which cuts energy demand by about three percent. Hrabchak says this has been done about half a dozen times a year over the past couple of years. One of the final steps is radio announcements asking consumers to reduce energy consumption.
“Then you hope you don't have one of those contingencies where you have no margin [for error],” Hrabchak says. “We've had a couple of situations like that in the past two years and just got lucky.”
Dave Bogisloski, Northeast Utilities' vice president for transmission, paints a similar scenario. “We now have 20 or 30 plates in the air, and have caught them just before they hit the floor.”
But luck is not good enough for ISO-NE, which is responsible for long-range planning for the power grid as well as facilitating transactions for buyers and sellers of electricity.
“The infrastructure in southwest Connecticut has to be addressed to ensure reliability,” says ISO-NE spokesperson Ellen Foley.
Another looming problem for Connecticut is ISO-NE's impending implementation of a new pricing system for calculating so-called congestion costs incurred primarily because of transmission problems in the southwestern part of the state.
Beginning March 1, those extra costs will be borne by states where they occur, rather than collectively, as they have been in the past, by all six New England states.
ISO-NE estimates congestion costs could range between $50,000 and $300,000 annually over the next several years. Because Connecticut is the most congested state in New England, it likely will be responsible for most of these costs.
This, coupled with the likely expiration of the standard offer - the rate UI and Connecticut Light & Power (CL&P) charge for electricity - at the end of the year (which may result in major increases), could have serious implications for businesses already trying to cut energy costs.
“We're concerned businesses that are paying a premium for their energy are going to be put in a disadvantaged position,” says CIBA attorney Early.
Moreover, Early adds, “We can't grow that part of the state unless we can get the power in there.”
The big question is how to achieve that goal.
A Siting Commission hearing on a CL&P Phase I proposal to install 345 transmission lines between Bethel and Norwalk has been on hold pending release of the working group report, but is set to resume in the middle of this month, according to executive director Derek Phelps. The commission has until April to make a decision.
Phase II of CL& P's plan, to run 345 transmission wires between Norwalk and Middletown, is still under development. Northeast Utilities estimates Phase I would cost at least $130 million, and Phase II at least $180 million.
ISO-NE supports the CL&P Phase I plan, which has drawn criticism from environmental groups, property-owners and others such as the Woodlands Coalition, a Weston-based residential group.
Placement of high-voltage power lines is among the environmental concerns.
Underground wires, which are more expensive to install than overhead lines, are the “least damaging,” says Pat Sesto, a working group member representing the Connecticut Fund for the Environment.
“Overhead wires may disturb wetland areas, allowing opportunistic non-native species such as the Japanese barberry to crowd out native species,” Sesto says. Placement of power line poles also will create disturbances because areas need to be cleared for their installation.
“Restoration plans can't replace trees,” adds Sesto, environmental director for the town of Wilton. Lack of shade also could damage or destroy vegetation and wildlife in affected locations.
Rinebold stresses the urgency of confronting and finding a way to address energy congestion in southwestern Connecticut.
“I think we have to address the issue and identify solutions now,” he says. “We're not advocating stopgap measures, but rather working as rapidly as possible to identify the problems that allow development of a solution.”
Working group recommendations include initiatives to encourage market development of targeted generation, site generation and distributed generation into specific areas where it's most needed.
“Distributed generation is a solution that can be encouraged with the development of wholesale and retail markets, but cannot be relied on as the sole solution for energy problems in southwest Connecticut,” says Rinebold. “The working group both endorses and further encourages the development of detailed options and alternatives that include undergrounding [of power lines], lower-height structures, route variations and mitigation measures to avoid or minimize impact to sensitive cultural and environmental areas.
“Although the working group has not reached consensus on a particular line configuration and route for transmissions,” Rinebold adds, “it does endorse the development of site-specific options consistent with environmental preference standards through a public proceeding that involves industry, the municipalities and affected landowners.”
To help facilitate a comprehensive state energy policy, the working group recommends establishing a single entity, the Connecticut Energy Coordinating Authority (CECA) “to provide planning, coordination and public validation for energy and associated environmental issues among state agencies, and to represent Connecticut's coordinated energy policy and needs before ISO-NE and TEAC, or successor entities.”
Members could include the state's Department of Public Utility Control (DPUC), Department of Environmental Protection, Office of Policy & Management, Department of Economic & Community Development (DECD), and Department of Agriculture for Long Island Sound crossings, as well as the Siting Council, Office of Consumer Counsel and Department of Transportation.
CECA's responsibilities may include preparing an annual assessment of energy infrastructure, including an assessment of adequacy and alternative energy strategies for Connecticut.
Rinebold remains upbeat about the future. “I don't think we're close to disaster, but do see some problems coming up in the next few years. We need to curtail energy use, improve infrastructure and develop new sources of generation. It's likely to be a balanced approach, including reinvestment in conservation and load management, more efficient transmission, and development of more types of generation, with some fueled by renewable fuels.”
The recent trend toward increased natural gas use is a step in the right direction, according to Rinebold, but not a long-range solution because it, too, is a fossil fuel likely to run out in “the next 75 years.”
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