Geothermal needs transmission lines to grow

There's no shortage of energy locked in the earth in northwestern Nevada geothermal steam fields permeate much of Churchill, Pershing, Humboldt, Lyon, Washoe and other counties.

The trick isn't even accessing that buried energy, despite typical drilling depths of 2,000-4,000 feet. The biggest challenge to tapping renewable geothermal energy in Nevada currently a 300-megawatt industry that has the potential to yield an estimated 2,500 megawatts, or roughly enough power for 2.5 million people is delivering power from steam-generating plants in remote areas to the cities that need electricity.

The heart of the problem, says Steve Munson, chief executive officer of Bend, Ore.-based Vulcan Power Co., is that northern and southern Nevada have their own power grids that are not interconnected.

"You cannot route power from Reno to Las Vegas in any economical way," Munson says. "There is a cost to moving power. The other problem is that there is very little capacity available from northern Nevada to Los Angeles."

Vulcan has proposed several possibilities to expand transmission capacities in the state in order to facilitate the expansion of renewable energy mandated by the Nevada's Renewable Portfolio Standard. Adopted in 1997, the Renewable Portfolio Standard stipulates that by 2015 the state's two investor-owned utility providers, Sierra Pacific Power and Nevada Power, must generate, acquire or save no less than 20 percent of their electricity from renewable resources.

Vulcan's plan would add transmission lines rom Yerington 210 miles south to Beatty to serve southern Nevada. Another solution calls for building a substation at Aurora, along the California state line southwest of Hawthorne, to allow Nevada geothermal plants to inject power into the grid for sale to Los Angeles. A third proposal would adds new lines from northfrom Yerington 210 miles south to Beatty to serve southern Nevada. Another solution calls for building a substation at Aurora, along the California state line southwest of Hawthorne, to allow Nevada geothermal plants to inject power into the grid for sale to Los Angeles. A third proposal would add new lines from north of the I-80 corridor 160 miles south to Bishop for delivery to California markets.

Munson feels responsibility to boost the state's transmission capacity lies with the utilities.

"Our company thinks logically that they should be the ones that build and own the lines, but if they can't do it timely there are major financial institutions that want to be in the transmission business," he says.

Sierra Pacific Resources has proposed to build a 250-mile transmission line that would link the north and south regions of the state. That line would be part of the company's development of a 2,500-megawatt coal-fired generating complex near Ely.

Gathering all the necessary approval to build new transmission lines can take as long as 10 years, says Jim Kritikson, a former transmission manager for Southern California Edison who now works as a consultant based in Los Angeles.

"It is no secret that building new transmission can take longer than building a new generating plant," he says. "A new 500- kilovolt transmission line going through California can take 10 years. Utility planning processes, studies, the environmental impact assessment, rights of way and other issues take that long, history has shown us that."

Kritikson says it is much easier to get power transmission planning projects moving if existing rights of way can be used for upgrades. Such routes typically lie adjacent to existing transmission lines.

Ed Evatz, former Nevada director for the Bureau of Land Management, says in addition to the federal permitting process, projects must win approval at the state level, and each county involved must give its OK.

"It takes time to get permits, to conduct an environmental impact statement, go through all the public scoping that federal agencies require, complete intensive surveys archeological, biological, socio-economic all of which is linked to the environmental document," he says.

Still, Nevada fares much better than its neighbor to the west in seeing new transmission projects because of its large tracts of federal land, says Stu Russell, an environmental permitting consultant based in California who specialized in renewable power and related transmission projects.

"You don't have to go through a large number of private landowners," Russell says. "It would be much harder to do lines this length in California."

Due to the constraints of delivering power, Nevada Geothermal Power, which has one project under development 20 miles west of Winnemucca and three others in exploration stages, typically only looks at sites within 20 miles of a power line, says Brian Fairbank, chief executive officer.

"There is an abundance of (geothermal) resources in Nevada, and no question some of those sites will come online," Fairbank says. "But they need to be within economical reach of the power lines."

Total cost for Nevada Geothermal's Blue Mountain Project is roughly $125 million. The Blue Mountain generator lies 15 miles from power lines as the crow flies, but to hasten permitting the compan chose a 20-mile route that didn't cross the Humboldt River or Interstate 80.

"It's longer, but it's dead simple," Fairbank says.