The Tres Amigas Project would link solar fields in the Southwest, with wind turbine fields from Texas and the Midwest, to an electric transfer grid station to power cities throughout the system. The project is to be located in New Mexico, and will act as a super highway grid for renewable energy fields throughout the Southwest and Midwest. The grid will be the first one dedicated to only renewable energy in this country.
Tres Amigas Grid Station
Besides solar and wind power, the grid could also tie into geothermal fields. The grid seeks to take advantage of delivering energy to areas that need it the most. According to Tres Amigas, the new project would utilize superconducting cables from American Superconductor to transfer electricity among the different regional grids- known as the Eastern Interconnection, the Western Interconnection, and the Texas Interconnection. The new superconducting cables significantly reduce the loss of electricity that overhead lines tend to lose in transmitting electricity. These ground based cables have been around for at least a decade, but most utility companies continue to maintain their current overhead networks. The superconducting cables have only been installed in a few places around the U.S. The Tres Amigas project would solely use these cables to link the three renewable networks into one transfer station. The benefit of linking wind and solar grids would allow electricity to be transferred from one region to another. For example, when wind turbines at night are generating more electricity than can be used in one grid, it could then be transferred to a another grid that would off load the excess. The new project is scheduled to cost 1 billion dollars. A completion date of this project was not provided by Tres Amigas. Both the funding and regulatory approval have not been secured for this project. Hopefully, they will be able to over come both hurdles to become the first super grid station for renewable energy in this country. We need more proposals like this from the current utility companies.
John Vlahakis
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