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Thursday, March 3, 2011
Opportunities Exist in Transmission Line Construction
Economic stagnation, national security concerns, geopolitics, national security and environmentalism make strange bedfellows, but all have come together to create perhaps the next big thing for America’s contractors. They’re all factors that make electrical transmission line construction one of the bright spots on an otherwise mediocre horizon. It’s a source of optimism for construction company owners and executives watching helplessly as private-sector projects are slowly getting back on the architects drawing boards and as craft workers keep filling the unemployment lines. Reinvigorated interest in environmental stewardship as well as a renewed desire for less dependence on foreign oil (along with an unreasonable fear of nuclear power, it seems) has catalyzed the movement for development of renewable fuel options.
Whether it’s photovoltaic collectors in the Nevada outback, wind farms covering the Texas plains, or geothermal power plants scattered throughout the West, 33 out of 50 states have some kind established “renewable portfolio standards” – policies that require electricity providers to secure a certain percentage of their power from renewable energy resources by a certain date. These standards have sent utilities scrambling to build generation facilities. Add to this talk of state renewable energy standards – which experts seem to think 12 to 20 percent is an achievable figure – and the country will need some 300 gigawatts of new renewable production capacity.
One limitation solar and wind power, at least, have in common, is that they must be placed in vast, open spaces in order to achieve the economies of scale required to make them economically feasible and to generate enough power to make a difference. By definition, however, these vast, open spaces are empty, far from much human activity – the kind of activity that will consume the electricity generated at these alternate-fuel production facilities.
That’s welcome news for contractors with the institutional knowledge and the field staff know-how to construct the infrastructure that will bring electricity from its remote generation facilities to the cities and other load centers that need it. Act now to take advantage of this blooming specialty within the construction field. For some contractors, it may be the only viable option. After all, non-building construction in December 2010 rose 29 percent, almost exclusively on the back of “exceptionally strong amount of new electric utility projects,” according to McGraw-Hill Construction, which calculated the sector’s growth at 227 percent.
Indeed, according the Associated General Contractors, “power-focused” public construction offered a bright spot, finishing with a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $95.7 billion, up 7 percent from the previous month and 6.3 percent higher on an annual basis, again, the result of “a mix of oil and gas-fired power plants, renewable power projects such as solar and wind generation, and transmission lines,” a trend it says will continue well beyond 2011.
Ah, the transmission line.
According to Martin W. Gross, president and chief executive officer of ABB Lummus Global Inc., “Transmission capacity for this new and mostly remote generation…does not exist. With an average construction schedule of 60 months to 72 months for a 500 [megawatt], 345 [kilovolt] transmission line, it could take well beyond 2025 to build the needed transmission lines.”
Can you say job security?
The Tres Amigas project slated to begin construction in 2012 in Clovis, N.M., near the border with the Texas Panhandle, is designed to link what Phillip G. Harris, the project’s chairman and chief executive officer and Jack McCall, director of high temperature superconductor transmission and distribution systems for American Superconductor, call America’s “balkanized” power grid. Their article in Mechanical Engineering Magazine notes that the Eastern, Western, and Texas interconnections are almost exclusively independent, with “only relatively small, bilateral [direct current] links…between any two interconnections—a mere 2,000 megawatts of combined power transfer. And the three interconnections have never been integrated.”
The Tres Amigas project aims to break the logjam along the country’s electrical stream, allowing utilities to purchase energy from both renewable and conventional sources through a power marketing hub capable of supporting 5,000 megawatts of power transfer capacity. This ability to transmit power in bulk is the key to overcoming the cost and efficiency handcuffs that are retarding the development of renewable energy generation. While many renewable power sources’ intermittent nature creates challenges for grid reliability, proven, readily-available and cost-effective transmission technologies exist to mitigate their impact, Gross contends. These include high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission systems such as those scheduled for deployment at Tres Amigas, and flexible AC transmission systems (FACTS).
Tres Amigas is a year away from initiation of construction, but several other major projects are on line as well, mostly in California (the leader in renewable energy generation), Texas, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, and elsewhere in the West.
Economic stagnation, national security concerns, geopolitics, national security and environmentalism make strange bedfellows, but all have come together to create perhaps the next big thing for America’s contractors. They’re all factors that make electrical transmission line construction one of the bright spots on an otherwise mediocre horizon. It’s a source of optimism for construction company owners and executives watching helplessly as private-sector projects are slowly getting back on the architects drawing boards and as craft workers keep filling the unemployment lines. Reinvigorated interest in environmental stewardship as well as a renewed desire for less dependence on foreign oil (along with an unreasonable fear of nuclear power, it seems) has catalyzed the movement for development of renewable fuel options.
Whether it’s photovoltaic collectors in the Nevada outback, wind farms covering the Texas plains, or geothermal power plants scattered throughout the West, 33 out of 50 states have some kind established “renewable portfolio standards” – policies that require electricity providers to secure a certain percentage of their power from renewable energy resources by a certain date. These standards have sent utilities scrambling to build generation facilities. Add to this talk of state renewable energy standards – which experts seem to think 12 to 20 percent is an achievable figure – and the country will need some 300 gigawatts of new renewable production capacity.
One limitation solar and wind power, at least, have in common, is that they must be placed in vast, open spaces in order to achieve the economies of scale required to make them economically feasible and to generate enough power to make a difference. By definition, however, these vast, open spaces are empty, far from much human activity – the kind of activity that will consume the electricity generated at these alternate-fuel production facilities.
That’s welcome news for contractors with the institutional knowledge and the field staff know-how to construct the infrastructure that will bring electricity from its remote generation facilities to the cities and other load centers that need it. Act now to take advantage of this blooming specialty within the construction field. For some contractors, it may be the only viable option. After all, non-building construction in December 2010 rose 29 percent, almost exclusively on the back of “exceptionally strong amount of new electric utility projects,” according to McGraw-Hill Construction, which calculated the sector’s growth at 227 percent.
Indeed, according the Associated General Contractors, “power-focused” public construction offered a bright spot, finishing with a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $95.7 billion, up 7 percent from the previous month and 6.3 percent higher on an annual basis, again, the result of “a mix of oil and gas-fired power plants, renewable power projects such as solar and wind generation, and transmission lines,” a trend it says will continue well beyond 2011.
Ah, the transmission line.
According to Martin W. Gross, president and chief executive officer of ABB Lummus Global Inc., “Transmission capacity for this new and mostly remote generation…does not exist. With an average construction schedule of 60 months to 72 months for a 500 [megawatt], 345 [kilovolt] transmission line, it could take well beyond 2025 to build the needed transmission lines.”
Can you say job security?
The Tres Amigas project slated to begin construction in 2012 in Clovis, N.M., near the border with the Texas Panhandle, is designed to link what Phillip G. Harris, the project’s chairman and chief executive officer and Jack McCall, director of high temperature superconductor transmission and distribution systems for American Superconductor, call America’s “balkanized” power grid. Their article in Mechanical Engineering Magazine notes that the Eastern, Western, and Texas interconnections are almost exclusively independent, with “only relatively small, bilateral [direct current] links…between any two interconnections—a mere 2,000 megawatts of combined power transfer. And the three interconnections have never been integrated.”
The Tres Amigas project aims to break the logjam along the country’s electrical stream, allowing utilities to purchase energy from both renewable and conventional sources through a power marketing hub capable of supporting 5,000 megawatts of power transfer capacity. This ability to transmit power in bulk is the key to overcoming the cost and efficiency handcuffs that are retarding the development of renewable energy generation. While many renewable power sources’ intermittent nature creates challenges for grid reliability, proven, readily-available and cost-effective transmission technologies exist to mitigate their impact, Gross contends. These include high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission systems such as those scheduled for deployment at Tres Amigas, and flexible AC transmission systems (FACTS).
Tres Amigas is a year away from initiation of construction, but several other major projects are on line as well, mostly in California (the leader in renewable energy generation), Texas, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, and elsewhere in the West.
Labels: Commercial, Construction Industry, Energy, Industrial