By Liz Enbysk

SGN Managing Editor

In our Smart Grid 101 series we lament an aging, outmoded electricity highway that was designed back in the 1950s when the primary objective was to keep the lights on.

Maybe we're reading more into it than we should, but it seems to be happening. We are seeing some significant investments in transmission upgrades across the country. And in fact a report in Transmission & Distribution World suggests some 65,420 miles of new and upgraded transmission lines are planned in the U.S. and Canada in the next eight years with a level of investment that could reach over $170 billion.

What got us drilling down on this was today's announcement from ABB that it won a $90 million order from American Transmission Company (ATC).  ABB's HVDC Light technology will be deployed to control the power flow between the Upper and Lower Peninsulas of Michigan and provide dynamic voltage support. The goal is to improve regional grid reliability and enable the integration of additional wind generation. (You can read the specifics in the press release that appears on page 2.)

ATC's project is just one of several we've been hearing about in recent weeks. Here's just a short list that reflects some of the activity we’re seeing around the country:

·         PPL Electric Utilities announced earlier this week that it plans $664 million in capital improvements to its electric delivery system that serves central and eastern Pennsylvania this year.  That figure represents a nearly 50 percent jump in capital investments over 2011 as the utility expands efforts to strengthen reliability and address aging infrastructure.  Read more >>

·         Duke Energy and Progress Energy, as part of their proposed merger, will consider up to eight transmission projects in their service territories, with a price tag ranging from $75 million to $150 million. Read more >>

·         The ColumbiaGrid board, a nonprofit membership corporation formed to improve the electric grid in the Pacific Northwest, earlier this month updated its transmission expansion plan to include $2.3 billion in additions. Read more >>

·         The Southwest Power Pool plans to spend  $1.7 billion over the next 10 years for more than 900 miles of new transmission lines and 15 tranformers in  Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. Read more >>

·         Ameren is expected to file a formal request any day now to build a new 345-volt, $27.6 million transmission line to improve  grid reliability in Illinois. Read more >>

·         Central Maine Power set a milestone last month when crews planted its transmission project's 1,000^th wooden structure. By the time what is being called the largest construction project ever in Maine is finished in 2015, 5,000 wooden structures are expected to be set. The $1.4 billion  project includes the construction of five new 345-kilovolt substations and related facilities linked by approximately 440 miles of new transmission lines. Read more >>

These represent a drop in the bucket, of course, if you look at the big picture and how much investment will be required to upgrade the entire electric power infrastructure. But it seems like progress.

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