Today’s grid transmission system is becoming increasingly complex and expected to carry bulk power in ways it was never designed to.
GE Power’s Grid Solutions business has spotlighted recent wins for its Flexible AC Transmission System, specifically related to its industry-leading Fixed Series Compensation (FSC) technology, that are helping customers navigate the evolving energy landscape. Worth more than $60 million, these contracts reflect grid customers’ confidence in GE’s innovative FACTS solutions.
GE’s FSC system allows utilities to cost-effectively increase the power transfer capabilities of transmission lines, with reduced losses and improved power grid stability. FSC systems make transmission lines behave as if they are physically shorter, giving them an increased ability to carry electric power over longer distances.
Recent grid customer contracts for GE’s FSC systems include:
· LS Power DesertLink: A 500 kV FSC bank will be installed to increase the capacity of a new transmission line to enable the import of more renewable power into California;
· Idaho Power Boise Bench: The upgrade of two banks at the Boise Bench substation;
· AEP Kanawha River Project: The 345 kV series capacitor is used to help maintain reliability on the transmission grid and allows flexibility during maintenance and construction outages. Specifically, the 345 kV Series Capacitor Bank assists in alleviating an interconnection reliability operating limit constraint under certain system conditions, and can also assist in mitigating system impacts from geomagnetic disturbance events;
· Large electric wind developer: GE’s FSCs addressed this customer’s need to build two transmission lines to connect wind farms to the grid. By adding the FSC solution, they were able to increase capacity and ultimately only had to build one transmission line;
· Large electric transmission system operator (TSO) in the Pacific Northwest: Expansion of a substation in Oregon to interconnect Avangrid’s planned Montague Wind Power Project to the Federal Columbia River Transmission System;
· Large electric TSO in the Pacific Northwest: Upgrade of facilities to provide interconnection capacity for new large load addition requests in the central Oregon area;
· Eletronorte Miracema: Upgrade of facilities to support increased power flow through the North-South Interconnector in Brazil;
and Neoenergia: New transmission line with FSC banks to support expansion of the North-Southeast and North-Northeast interconnections in Brazil, and help dispatch energy and provide for future wind power projects.
These projects are utilizing new technologies that have proven to benefit the customer through cost savings and improved safety, among other things. This includes GE’s newly developed, polymer-housed metal oxide varistors – which improve cost, lead time and personnel safety – as well as a new capacitator factory that produces a 22 in fuseless capacitor design – up from the usual 13.5 in. This investment allows GE to design capacitor stack-rack equipment packages that cost less than the traditional design, and to reduce platform space requirements, bridging the economic competitive advantages of large, internally-fused capacitor units, while retaining the operational and technical advantages of fuseless technology.
“Demands on transmission systems continue to grow as new power generation sources continue to develop in new locations around the world, and especially in North America. The quality and reliability of GE’s products, combined with the outstanding work from our project teams is key to our continued success,” said Emanuel Bertolini, region leader for the Americas at GE’s grid solutions business.
GE is a worldwide leader in executing and delivering series compensation projects, with more than a century of experience designing transmission networks, including the first series compensation project, in 1928. Today, GE has led the industry by delivering more than 40,000 Mvars of series compensation systems in the last six years, providing superior systems through innovative products that result in project cost savings and increased quality and reliability.
