Dive Brief:
- The company behind 95% of U.S. bulk power transactions is seeking federal funding for PowerNow, an initiative it says could unlock 10% to 20% more transmission capacity without building any new infrastructure.
- Minnesota-based OATI applied earlier this summer for a portion of the U.S. Department of Energy’s $1.9 billion SPARK program, which aims to fund line reconductoring and other advanced transmission technologies to boost headroom on the bulk grid. Selection notifications are expected later this month ahead of formal award announcements beginning in October, DOE says.
- PowerNow is among a growing set of AI-enabled efforts to expand headroom on the bulk power system as data centers and other large loads chase dwindling capacity. GridCARE, a California-based startup, said in March that it would help National Grid free up bulk capacity in New York after unlocking more than 80 MW of headroom in an Oregon pilot with Portland General Electric last year.
Dive Insight:
PowerNow will use three levers to increase transmission capacity, OATI says: automated, near-real-time coordination between neighboring transmission operators; software-based dynamic line ratings that more accurately reflect real-world grid conditions and safely remove artificial constraints on power flows; and AI-enhanced dispatch of flexible resources that OATI says can respond more quickly to grid needs than traditional generation.
Kevin Sarkinen, OATI’s chief operations officer, said the immense complexity of the bulk power grid makes it difficult for grid operators to evaluate large-load interconnection requests and reliably serve those loads.
A single line constraint “can really impact what’s available on the grid,” Sarkinen told Utility Dive in an interview. A study conducted by OATI ahead of its SPARK grant application reached an “astonishing” conclusion, he said: Increasing a single line rating limit can “change the [grid] capacity availability by 100% to 200% based on what’s flowing on that particular line.”
While it’s difficult to estimate how much grid capacity PowerNow might free up at the national level, it could increase individual lines’ capacity by “hundreds of megawatts,” Sarkinen said.
PowerNow’s automated inter-regional coordination lever replaces weekly, daily or hourly data exchanges between grid operators with near-instantaneous updates that allow operators to respond quickly to capacity constraints on neighbors’ lines, OATI says. The effect is greatest, OATI says, when “clusters of adjacent operators adopt this capability simultaneously, which is exactly why this requires coordinated deployment rather than piecemeal adoption.”
To that end, OATI has recruited a geographically diverse coalition of regional transmission organizations and transmission utilities, including the California Independent System Operator, New York Independent System Operator, the Southwest Power Pool, PacifiCorp, Duke Energy and Florida Power & Light, among others.
“Just removing some individual constraints that bind power transfers is really the crux of what we’re doing,” Sarkinen said.
