Chattanooga Electrical Engineering News Blog
Topics Related to Electronics and Electrical Engineering
A recent NPR article warns that much of the nation’s power grid is vulnerable to the winter threat approaching with major winter storms that could cause power outages and power shortages potentially affecting over 60% of US and Canada.
“North America’s power grid is vulnerable…People living in Southwestern states are at particular risk.”
TVA’s load growth demand forecasted is expecting over a 30% increase in power demand within the next decade. Like other utilities trending away from fossil fuel power generation due to stringent carbon emission regulations, TVA is retiring their coal-powered plants and replacing with cleaner energy generation and renewable resources.
The trend of moving away from older fossil fuel technology to cleaner generation systems is very costly. TVA recognizes this and has approved moving forward with capital expenditures of $15 billion that it will invest over the next 3 years by performing system reliability upgrades and transition into cleaner energy supply.
As coal power and other fossil fuels continue to decline as the nation’s leading power generation source, more power utilities are increasing renewable energy sources such as solar power.
Pennsylvania is replacing their planned fossil fuel generation retirements with clean solar power. The state is helping promote more jobs and job transitions for the green switch from traditional carbon emission type power generation into renewable energy resources.
With the increases in power generation retirements in both coal powered and nuclear energy plants, presents major reliability concerns to the electric infrastructure. There is over “83 GW of fossil fuel and nuclear generation” in planned retirements over the next decade that could wreak havoc on the nations power system.
NERC indicated in their “Long-Term Reliability Assessment” that this “creates blackout risks for most of the United States.”
Substations can be modelled in three-dimensions, allowing customers to see full scale in isometric views, or any views relative to positioning that they would not have had before with traditional 2D designs. Proper construction of electrical equipment in most 3D software also allows for efficient go-by production, as elements can be plugged in or removed in minutes, and entire substations can be remodeled according to revisions or to create whole new designs.
The ability to change the virtual materials of 3D models also allows for consistent and accurate representation of the substation. Instead of having a matte, grey mass in the shape of a transformer, circuit breaker, switches, concrete foundations, steel structures, insulators, and copper connection points can be expressed with proper physical dimensions of density, mass, etc., and includes appropriate colors that anyone who observes real-life substations can recognize.