T&D POWER Direct

Welcome to the November issue of T&D POWER Direct, a monthly e-newsletter from POWER magazine that provides important news and information focused on transmission and distribution (T&D) topics, including articles on new technology, operations and maintenance best practices, industry trends, innovative projects, and much more.

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$3B in Transmission Substation and Line Projects Proposed in Pacific Northwest | The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) has identified 13 new transmission substation and line projects designed to reinforce the Pacific Northwest’s electric grid. If constructed, these projects would accommodate regional load growth and enable the BPA to add thousands of megawatts of new wind and solar generation, and battery storage to the federal grid. Combined, the projects are estimated to cost approximately $3 billion. The projects would add to a list of other projects the BPA announced in July 2023, bringing the total to more than 20 with an estimated cost of approximately $5 billion.

A Breakdown of Cuba’s Grid Collapse and Recovery Efforts | Cuba is in the throes of a severe energy crisis, driven by fuel supply disruptions and compounded by obstacles in securing vital technologies and supplies needed to modernize and operate its aging power plants. The situation, exacerbated by U.S. sanctions, has left the nation’s energy system teetering. At the same time, the island nation is grappling with recovery efforts in the aftermath of Hurricane Oscar, which ravaged the eastern region, leaving seven dead and devastating infrastructure across four municipalities in Guantánamo province.

New Command Center Supporting African Power Grid Will Use GE Vernova Software | An initiative aimed at connecting more of Africa’s population to the continent’s power grids will use GE Vernova’s GridOS orchestration software. A newly completed Information and Coordination Centre (ICC) in Abomey-Calavi, Benin, designed for the West African Power Pool (WAPP), is considered “a groundbreaking initiative aimed at transforming the region’s energy landscape,” according to an Oct. 24 announcement from GE Vernova.

In Case You Missed It: $1.5B Federal Boost for Four Major Transmission Projects as DOE Unveils National Grid Study | The Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded capacity contracts of up to $1.5 billion to?four major transmission lines under its Transmission Facilitation Program (TFP) to aid the transfer of 7.1 GW of new capacity throughout Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas.

3 Steps for Utility Companies to Get Started with Undergrounding | The U.S. electric grid is under more strain than ever to support exponential electricity demand due to artificial intelligence (AI), data centers, electric vehicles, and hotter temperatures. Its infrastructure is made up of 180 million power poles spread out over 5.5 million miles that are frequently bombarded with increasingly severe storms and weather.

Microsoft Announces $1 Billion Investment in Ohio Data Centers as Officials Ponder Power Demands | Tech giant Microsoft announced an initial investment of $1 billion to support three new data centers in Licking County, Ohio. The company on Oct. 28 confirmed construction of campuses in New Albany, Heath, and Hebron that will support the company’s Azure cloud computing platform as demand for cloud technology and data storage increases.

The Other Side of Safety—Litigation and the Expert Witness | What happens when you suffer a catastrophic injury at work and can’t continue in your career? Workers compensation begins. Those payments last until you reach the maximum medical improvement point. How long will you receive those benefits? It varies from state-to-state. In California, for example, benefits pay up to 104 weeks for most injuries and up to 240 weeks for severe conditions. Workers comp ends when you return to work, but you can do modified-duty work while getting benefits as long as you follow your doctor’s restrictions.

Why Data Center Developers Should Think ‘Power First’ | You don’t need me to tell you how artificial intelligence (AI) is impacting the power grid; you can just ask AI. Claude, an AI assistant created by Anthropic, told POWER, “AI training and inference are driving unprecedented demand for data center capacity, particularly due to large language models and other compute-intensive AI workloads.” It also said, “AI servers, especially those with multiple GPUs [graphics processing units], require significantly more power per rack than traditional servers—often 2–4x higher power density.”