Utilities plan to invest more than $165 billion a year in 2024 and 2025 to make significant upgrades and replacements, according to trade group Edison Electric Institute, more than any year since the group began collecting data! Wow.
This timely Wall Street Journal article features DTE, Centerpoint Energy, Avangrid and Portland General. The theme is costs are going up and reliability (and resiliency) is going down.
Detroit’s (DTE) downtown network of poles and wires “will not be able to handle the weather we expect because it has weaker poles and older wires, and it can’t take the demand because the voltage isn’t high enough,” CEO Norcia said. “It fundamentally has to be replaced.”
With what pray tell? Will we continue to rebuild or replace downed poles and wires built to standards from the 1950’s and 60’s and expect a better result? 21st Century grid planners and engineers must evaluate the “total cost of ownership over the life of the T&D asset” and make sound engineering and investment decisions based on the results.
It’s a new paradigm of thinking!
