When President George W. Bush first came to Washington, D.C. in 2000, he hit the ground running.

In his first term, he charged Vice President Cheney with leading a team to develop a comprehensive energy plan. Cheney was an obvious choice, as his experience in business included a stint as CEO of Halliburton, a global energy infrastructure company.

On May 16, 2001, Cheney's team, the National Energy Policy Development Group, delivered its national energy policy recommendations to President Bush. The document, “Reliable, Affordable and Environmentally Sound Energy for America's Future,” acknowledged that the United States had an aging and heavily loaded bulk power delivery system. The document noted that investment in T&D assets was adversely affected by a lack of a coherent energy policy. The bulk power system, in too many instances, was unable to transmit power to locations where it was most needed. The policy document warned of trouble ahead if action was not taken. Over a 10-year period, energy use was predicted to grow by 25%, while transmission capacity was predicted to grow by only 4%. Regional shortages of generation capacity combined with transmission constraints reduce the overall reliability of the electric supply.

In areas that affect T&D, the group recommended that President Bush:

• Direct the Secretary of Energy to authorize the Western Area Power Administration to explore relieving California's Path 15 congestion through transmission expansion financed by non-federal contributions.

• Direct the Secretary of Energy to expand the Department of Energy's (DOE) research and development efforts in transmission reliability and superconductivity.

• Direct appropriate federal agencies to take action to remove constraints on the interstate transmission grid.

• Direct the Secretary of Energy to work with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to improve the reliability of the interstate transmission system by developing legislation providing enforcement by a self-regulatory organization subject to FERC oversight.

• Direct the Secretary of Energy to work with the FERC to relieve transmission constraints by encouraging the use of incentive ratemaking proposals.

• Direct the Secretary of Energy, in consultation with appropriate federal agencies and state and local government officials, to develop legislation to grant authority to obtain rights-of-way for new transmission lines.

Doing a little research, I found that the Bush Administration has been making progress in many of the areas outlined by the National Energy Policy Development Group.

Path 15 Upgrade

The 84-mile (135-km), 500-kV Path 15 line was placed into service Dec. 14, 2004. The line was financed and built through a public/private partnership between Western Area Power Administration, Trans-Elect and Pacific Gas and Electric Co.

Superconducting Technologies

Several projects will result in new T&D capabilities. A superconducting cable has operated to provide electrical service to Southwire Co.'s Georgia manufacturing plant. For the last four years, the cable has operated in unattended mode. The DOE is presently supporting three superconducting cable projects covering a range of cable designs and operating conditions. All three projects will begin operation in 2006-2007. The cable test sites are located in Long Island, New York (138 kV); Albany, New York (34.5 kV); and Columbus, Ohio (13 kV).

The DOE has also funded development of a 38-kV superconducting fault current limiter scheduled to undergo field-testing in 2006.

Advanced Low-sag Conductors

The DOE Transmission Reliability Program is partnering with the 3M Co. to develop and evaluate an advanced composite-core transmission conductor that can carry at least twice the load as the same size conventional steel-core conductor with no additional sag. These conductors have been installed in the field at several utilities to provide operating experience under actual environmental and loading conditions. 3M received its first commercial order to reconductor a 10-mile (16-km) line in Minnesota in August 2004.

Eastern Interconnection Phasor Project

Following the August 2003 blackout, the DOE Transmission Reliability Program accelerated efforts in real-time monitoring and control to create a network of time-synchronized measurement instruments for use on the Eastern Interconnection. DOE is leading a working group of utilities, regional transmission organizations, independent system operators and vendors to deploy and interconnect phasor measurement units that collect data from across the Eastern Interconnection at a central location and process it through a visualization program. Participating members can then view conditions on their own, as well as neighboring transmission systems, to detect and mitigate abnormal conditions before they develop into outages.

Transmission Constraints

The DOE prepared the “National Transmission Grid Study,” which was released in May 2002. This study made 51 recommendations to eliminate bottlenecks in the nation's electricity transmission system and to modernize the electricity infrastructure.

One implemented recommendation was the creation of the DOE's Office of Electric Transmission and Distribution. The office provided important leadership in the U.S. — Canada Task Force's investigation of the blackout and provided recommendations to avert and minimize future blackouts. This past summer, the office initiated a Notice of Inquiry concerning the criteria it should use for designating “National Interest Electric Transmission Bottlenecks” and the actions it might take to help mitigate such bottlenecks.

The FERC is tackling the problem of inadequate infrastructure by showing a willingness to experiment with a variety of innovative financial incentives to spur new transmission investment. It has also held regional conferences on infrastructure issues to highlight both its continuing concern with infrastructure and its desire to address infrastructure problems in a regional context.

Reliability Mandates

The North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC), with strong support from the DOE and FERC, is taking major steps to strengthen reliability and reduce blackout risks, including:

• Remedial measures to address the direct causes in the Midwest of the August 2003 blackout.

• Reliability readiness audits conducted over most of the rest of the Eastern Interconnection to verify that minimum requirements are being met and to identify conditions in need of improvement.

• A restatement of existing reliability standards to make them clearer and easier to enforce.

• Initiation of processes to develop new reliability standards on key subjects, including vegetation management.

• A requirement that all grid operating staff receive a minimum of five days of emergency preparedness training per year.

The Future

I'll give President Bush and his administration credit. They have crafted a sensible plan and they are seeing it through. We will see considerable progress in the next Bush Administration, particularly if they are able to push through a comprehensive energy bill that provides FERC backstop siting authority and mandates enforceable reliability standards.