Cha-Ching!!!
https://www.yahoo.com/news/biden-greenlights-3b-las-vegas-184627441.html
1 Like
It was also reported in Trains NewsWire:
If the’re giving that much money to private rail, they should also give money to to electrify the San Bernardino line for both Metrolink and to bring the Brightline trains into LA.
1 Like
I read that is Brightline’s long term plan. The outlier pickup point outside of LA was to save the rail congestion around LA currently which would increase the price of the project significantly if they tried to mitigate that via their own dedicated route. Using an existing route as you imply would require improvements but would still be congested and slow. So my guess is their priority is to get the system up and running first and worry about the downtown LA line later.
1 Like
How will the Brightline trains be powered, diesel, hybrid, LPG, battery, hydrogen?
1 Like
Brightline says all-electric. Promotional drawings show catenary.
1 Like
In other words, coal, natural gas, oil, hydroelectric, with a smattering of solar and wind.
2 Likes
In 2024 approximately 40% of the electric energy in California was generated by solar, wind and nuclear. Another 50% was generated by natural gas. The remainder was hydro and biomass. California has very little if any active coal generation.
In Nevada solar, wind and geo-thermal accounted for approximately 37% of electric generation. Nevada does not have any nuclear generation. Natural gas generation was approximately 55%. The remainder probably was purchased from other sources.
California has a competitive wholesale electric generation market. It is managed by the California Independent System Operator. It allows independent power producers and non-utility generators to trade power, thereby promoting competition and lower costs. The market is similar to Texas. A large customer can sign a contract with a generation company for power and can choose 100 percent renewable. It may cost a bit more than gas fired generation.
My guess is Brightline, if it does not generate its own power, will sign long-term contracts for power and hedge them. If it generates its own power, it probably will sign long-term contracts to sell any excess power into the market.
California and Nevada have goals to be 100 percent renewable by 2050.
3 Likes
Doesn’t Nevada get some hydroelectric power from Hoover Dam?
1 Like
I thought California imports just under 30% of it’s electricity from areas outside the state? Although Texas has a independent electrical grid, it has more power outages than most other states.
1 Like
California buys approximately 30 percent of its electric energy from outside the state. The statistics are for power generated in state and were intended to show that most of California’s generation is from renewables or natural gas.
1 Like
Nevada gets some power from the Hoover Dam. However, due to low water conditions, as I understand it, the amount of electric energy produced by the dam’s generators has fallen significantly in recent years.
1 Like
According to the Energy Information Administration, Texas and California have more electric power outages than any of the other states. Outages are primarily due to extreme weather events. It should also be noted that California and Texas, the nation’s two most populous states, probably have more wire than any other state, which means they have more potential points for failure.
ERCOT is tied to the Eastern Interconnection with a 220 MW DC tie near Oklaunion and a 600 MW DC tie near Monticello, Texas. It is tied to Mexico with a 300 MW DC tie near McAllen and a 100 MW tie near Laredo. ERCOT has used these ties to sell or buy power, although their use is infrequent.
There is a proposal to build a 320-mile, 525 kV line to connect ERCOT with grids in the Southeast. It would provide three gigawatts of bidirectional capacity between Rusk County, TX and Choctaw County, Mississippi. It will use voltage source converter technology to enhance gride reliability.
1 Like
My understanding is that voltage source converters can be detrimental to grid stability unless the control system has been properly tuned. The grid has evolved around synchronous generation.
What would make more sense would be banks of phase shifting transformers, which would allow flow of reactive power (VAR) as well as real power (watts) while allowing for small frequency differences between interconnected systems. The PRR had means to rotate the frequency converter sets to allow for phase shifts on the 60Hz lines supplying the converter substations.
2 Likes
There are backlogs in all of the power ISO’s to get alternate power generation sources connected to their respective grids.
The worse is PJM which covers Chicago and states to the east. PJM has a huge investment from Exelon in nuclear for base power and have a couple of reactors running at below 20%. So it was thought that PJM was dragging their feet to protect one of their large suppliers.
The Texas ISO has open access to alternate suppliers, but the ISO allowed too much coal powered base to come off the grid before all of the alternates had good contingency plans. The cold weather froze many of the peakers natural gas access and so they had to reach farther for more expensive sources or in this recent case, had rolling blackouts.
As for the CISO, they are having issues with the liberal home solar policies the state has passed to facilitate alternate sourcing. When PG&E attempted to raise net metering rates to get their solar customers to pay more for alternate energy sources for their ISO, it brought the house down and the opposite ocurred. Now many of those net suppliers are choosing to disconnect completely. PG&E is trying to ban “total disconnect” by homeowners and wants them to pay if there is a transformer near your home.
The problem for the ISO’s is that everyone wants to be a peak supplier, but few want to be a base load supplier on the private market. Generation of base loads is capital intensive and requires favorable long term financing. To get good financing terms, bond holders want a some kind of guarantee of payment, in this new power supplier envionment, that requires the state PUC to require people to pay for the capability, not just for the connection.
1 Like