Bill requiring utilties to consider GETs in transmission planning signed into California law

California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed SB 1006 into law, requiring utilities to evaluate grid enhancing technologies (GETs) including dynamic line ratings, advanced power flow control devices, and topology optimization at least as often as every two years in transmission planning.

California utilities will be required to evaluate GETs projects for seven distinct cost-saving, decarbonisation, and safety benefits:

• Increased transmission capacity
• Reduced transmission system congestion
• Reduced curtailment of renewable and zero-carbon resources
• Increased reliability
• Reduced risk of igniting wildfire
• Increased capacity to connect new renewable energy and zero-carbon resources
• Increased flexibility to reduce risks surrounding technology and permitting uncertainties and improve optionality for load-serving entities
• Once fully deployed, these tools promise to unlock hundreds of millions of dollars of wholesale electricity cost savings every year, according to the WATT Coalition, which advocates for GETs.

“SB 1006 will unlock the cheapest generation for Californians and help the grid adapt to the changing climate,” said Julia Selker, executive director of the WATT Coalition. “We applaud Governor Newsom for signing this bill to ensure that Californians get the full value out of grid investments, and that utilities are using the most cost-effective tools to manage the energy transition.”

In the past decade, PG&E customers have faced a staggering 128% increase in their energy bills, and Californians pay more for electricity than any state in the lower 48, despite the state’s advanced renewable energy infrastructure.

Have you read:
California tells utilities to speed up new grid connections & upgrades
Californian vegetation experts have improved powerline inspections with satellites and AI

While costly wildfire mitigation efforts contribute to higher rates, GETs provide a path to cost reduction by preventing avoidable fires by optimizing the flow of energy and identifying power lines prone to overheating or congestion, enabling more clean energy integration and reducing primary causes of curtailment by up to 40% or more.

Some estimate this pivotal piece of legislation, one of three clean energy bills awaiting the Governor’s signature, will enhance California’s grid capacity between 10-30%, perhaps more.

“There’s no energy transition without transmission, and it’s the big bottleneck right now to getting cheap renewable energy to where it’s needed,” explained Edson Perez, California lead at Advanced Energy United (AEU) on a quick phone call with Renewable Energy World.

It can take a decade or longer to build out new transmission in California but GETs are relatively straightforward upgrades that can be deployed quickly and deliver benefits exceeding their costs within months.

“There’s this low-hanging fruit with GETs and advanced reconductoring,” Perez asserts, “That will allow us to expand, maybe even double or more in some places, the existing capacity of the existing transmission system.”

“We don’t have to do the hard part, just upgrade the existing lines… It’s really just a no-brainer to deploy these as much as possible.”

Other environmental, clean energy, and ratepayer advocates are joining the chorus applauding the Governor’s signing of the GETs Bill, including Environment California clean energy advocate Steven King.

“If we want more renewable electricity powering our lives, and less need for global-warming fossil fuels, we need a modern electric grid that can deliver that power and keep our transition to clean energy on track,” said King. “We thank Gov. Newsom for signing SB 1006, which will help maximise the grid’s capacity and efficiency.”

AEU’s Perez says in a nutshell, this bill incentivizes the state to find the best ways to deploy these technologies across California’s utilities.

“Utilities can be risk-averse,” Perez acknowledges. “It kickstarts a process. Without this bill, it’s up to the utilities and regulators to deploy these. This nudges them in the right direction.”

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is nudging too, requiring the use of advanced power flow control devices and other GETs in generation interconnection and transmission planning to improve grid performance. According to the FERC, there is an efficient way to evaluate the advanced power flow control devices for wide-area applications, asserting modeling and software limitations are not major roadblocks to adoption. If Transmission Providers can’t use GETs, they have to provide the feds with really sound reasons for doing so.

FERC Order 2023 mandates Transmission Providers evaluate several alternative transmission technologies during the cluster study generation interconnection process: static synchronous compensators, static VAR compensators, advanced power flow control devices, transmission switching, synchronous condensers, voltage source converters, advanced conductors and tower lifting.

In Order 1920, Transmission Providers are required to consider four alternative transmission technologies during the long-term and existing regional transmission planning process: dynamic line ratings, advanced power flow control devices, transmission switching, and advanced conductors.

Originally published by Paul Gerke on Renewable Energy World.