Technical Features
High capacity transmission such as current technology 800KV high voltage direct current lines would span the country providing linkages to local electric utilities and distantly located bulk power generation facilities. The national backbone would be intelligent in a manner similar to local smart grid clusters. As local electricity networks are upgraded to smart grids, interactions with the national backbone can become more coordinated. Examples given of the kinds of coordination are that hydropower from the northwest can be dispatched if wind is expected to temporarily subside in the Dakotas. Discretionary air conditioning in California can be turned on if there are strong winds blowing in Delaware.
Long distance interconnections are not new. The 1400 kilometer Pacific DC Intertie between Los Angeles and the Pacific northwest was proposed in the 1930s and initiated by President John F. Kennedy in the 60s. The Pacific Intertie carries up to 3.1 gigawatts on two 500 KV overhead lines. The 1200 kilometer Quebec to New England HVDC line with 2 gigawatts of capacity was constructed in the 1980s. A 5 gigawatt 800KV system is being constructed along the southern provinces of China at a cost of €300 million and is scheduled for completion in 2010
The Unified Smart Grid proposal is not simply a collection of point to point interconnections between regional systems with some communications intelligence. The topology conceptually has many access points with each node being a smart grid that could be a virtual power generation cluster, could be a local electric utility system, or could be a Grid energy storage facility.
Read more about this topic: Unified Smart Grid
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