Benchmarking in Action: Comparing the Costs of HVDC

摘要

The recent proliferation of utility-scale renewable energy projects, driven by legislative mandates, has created a need to transfer large amounts of electricity from distant rural areas, often in the middle of the continent, to urban load centers generally on the coasts. The long distances involved have led to a resurgence in interest in high-voltage direct current (HVDC) overhead transmission, a technology little used in North America in the last 30-40 years. A handful of 400 kV or bigger HVDC overhead transmission lines were built in North America in the 1970s and '80s, These included Nelson River, Quebec-New England, Pacific DC Intertie, Path 27, and the CU Line. While HVDC has been used in a number of undersea cable projects on the continent, since 1986 no new HVDC overhead line has been energized in North America.