East Coast Electric Grid Getting A $1.8 Billion Make-Over
by Jaymi Heimbuch, San Francisco, California 
on 11. 4.08
Fifty-one million people in 13 east coast states and Washington DC are going to get one heck of an upgrade to their power grid in order to make energy supplies reliable as renewable energy increases its presence.
Dozens of projects priced at less than $50 million each will make the needed improvements within PJM Interconnection’s transmission zones, which include all or parts of Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia.
While it’s great that lots of pieces of systems will get upgrades, no new backbone transmission infrastructure lines were authorized, yet anyway.
As we have talked about on TreeHugger before, keeping our power grid up to snuff is vital to keeping the nation running, and making sure that it is growing at the same rate and locations as renewable energy is even more important if we’re to make a timely switch away from fossil fuels.
Projects like this are wonderful and should be applauded. They help us to avoid future power hiccups. But we need both smaller projects and substantial elements of the infrastructure to be worked on if we’re to avoid future meltdowns.
Hopefully we’ll continue to see these upgrades, and a whole lot more extensive ones in the near future.
Via Press Release
More on Power Infrastructure:
Time for a Radical Infrastructure Overhaul
US Electric Grid Not Keeping Up With Renewable Energy Growth
Networked Wind Power For Base-Load Stability
“A Generational Challenge to Repower America”: Al Gore’s Energy & Climate ‘Moon Shot’ Speech
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I wonder if the customers who will pay for these upgrades know that their electricity prices are being raised in order to accommodate larger amounts of more expensive wind energy?
Yes, new wind (even after being heavily subsidized by the federal gov't) is more expensive than existing coal and nuke contracts in the region.
Yes, the ratepayers will pay for the upgrades, even if their state doesn't have a renewable energy production mandate.
No, they won't have any say in the matter.
Yes, I think renewable energy is important.
No, I don't think this is a moral process, since people who don't think there is a problem are still being forced to pay to fix it - in a regulated monopoly environment it amounts to taxation without representation.
The same thing could be said for safer cars, pollution controls and many other things that individuals don't know they want but is better for the common good.
People just see: 15 cents per kilowatt-hour and think that is what I consumed therefor that is what I paid for. But there are intangibles like improved reliability and the prevention of lost work gained through improvements to the total system. These lost hours are SAVED due to these improvements. So, 17 cents per kilowatt-hour now gives certainty and less likelihood of a regional blackout and lost economic benefits.
People today forget that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. This is exactly that. You may object to the price increase, but you are benefiting from a more stable society and should have to pay just like the rest of us.
These upgrade projects are claimed by some to be "coal-by-wire" projects - intended to allow west-to-east delivery of power from dirty coal-fired generating plants in the Ohio valley, to markets in the cities along the East Coast.