<story><title>Wind is outpacing coal as a power source in Texas for the first time</title><url>https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/25/us/texas-wind-energy-trnd/index.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>adrianN</author><text>How difficult is it to build transmission lines in the US? In Germany we have enormous problems building a transmission line from the offshore windparks in the north to the industrial centers in the south. NIMBYs are opposing it fiercly.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>6thaccount2</author><text>It depends on the region, but most of the US doesn&amp;#x27;t have too much of a problem.&lt;p&gt;There is always pushback from locals (understandable), but there has been billions in transmission built in the Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and West Texas regions to name a few areas. A lot of this is to help with the existing (ageing) infrastructure as well as helping make sure the ~22GW of currently built wind capacity can actually serve load and not be curtailed 24&amp;#x2F;7. In fact, a lot of that wind wouldn&amp;#x27;t have been built without the necessary transmission. Keep in mind that there is greater than a ~2:1 return on investment from these projects (difference in production cost in a year with the projects there and then not there) if I recall correctly.&lt;p&gt;The Western Interconnect of the US seems to favor using RAS and phase-shifting transformers in order to avoid as many transmission projects. A Remedial Action Scheme is basically an automated system that keeps certain catastrophic events from happening when a certain triggering event happens. Phase shifting transformers can help push back on certain interregional flows. I think this makes more sense in the Western Interconnect as it isn&amp;#x27;t as much of a dense network as the Eastern Interconnect. You have dense load centers in Denver, California, and Oregon&amp;#x2F;Washington with a dessert and mountain range in the middle (forms a donut). It is very rural over the vast majority of the distance, so I imagine transmission is pretty expensive and harder to justify. They do have interregional planning groups in the West though.</text></comment>
<story><title>Wind is outpacing coal as a power source in Texas for the first time</title><url>https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/25/us/texas-wind-energy-trnd/index.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>adrianN</author><text>How difficult is it to build transmission lines in the US? In Germany we have enormous problems building a transmission line from the offshore windparks in the north to the industrial centers in the south. NIMBYs are opposing it fiercly.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tracker1</author><text>Similar in the US.. but will vary greatly depending on where you&amp;#x27;re going to&amp;#x2F;from.  Of course, the NIMBYs are really against expansion of nuclear power, which by all means should be &lt;i&gt;much&lt;/i&gt; more common than coal at this point.  Especially in relatively stable locations like inland Texas, for example (and most of the non-coastal southwest us).&lt;p&gt;A little NIMBY&amp;#x2F;FUD goes a long way.</text></comment>