California to fix transmission problems
California has a new $7.3 B plan to fix its transmission problems.
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USA, California: California has a new $7.3 B plan to fix its transmission problems.
California Independent System Operator (CAISO), California’s grid operator, approved the plan to build the thousands of kilometres of new high-voltage transmission lines — a crucial step in California’s attempt to modernize a grid that is falling behind its climate goals.
CAISO’s plan seeks to address a clean energy challenge troubling the entire USA, not just California. There’s not enough transmission capacity to connect the huge amount of new clean energy being developed to the grid. In California, CAISO has already had to postpone processing newer interconnection requests to handle its existing ones — and vastly greater amounts of clean power are ordered by the state regulators. The rate of transmission expansion must double or triple in the US if it is to meet Biden administration’s goal of a carbon-free electricity sector by 2035. CAISO’s 20-year transmission projection states that $30.5 B in new transmission is required to reach the state’s 2045 clean energy goals. This plan is just the first step in that effort.
CAISO forecasts that the 45 planned projects will enable the development of more than 17 GW of solar power in California, Arizona and Nevada, over 1 GW of geothermal power in California and Nevada, and more than 3.5 MW of wind power in California.
Source: Yahoo News
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