Document Type

Project

Publication Date

Winter 2020

Instructor

Tugrul Daim

Course Title

Capstone Project

Course Number

ETM 506

Subjects

Electric power distribution -- Technological innovations, Wind power -- United States, Wind power industry -- United States, Electric power transmission -- Technological innovations, Decision making

Abstract

The purpose of this project is to obtain stakeholder views on a range of aspects relating to a proactive planning process to build transmission facilities in coordination with development of floating offshore wind (OSW) in southern Oregon and northern California. In the event that a transmission planning process to examine the potential need to assess and build transmission facilities to connect these wind resource areas is launched at a future date, the results of this study will assist planners by obtaining initial stakeholder views on the breadth of choices that should be considered, and more importantly, provide key insights on relationships between the perspectives of stakeholders and their expressed preferences between choices. The scale and nature of the offshore wind opportunity present in a relatively narrow geographic region allows for a compelling case to be made for a targeted transmission planning framework to achieve dual objectives: connecting offshore wind energy to load centers, and also providing increased connectivity between Oregon and California.

  • Add renewables to the grid. Interconnection of large quantities of offshore wind generators to provide both the high quantity of renewable energy desired by state policies and high-quality generation profiles and capacity factors.
  • Increase inter-regional transmission network strength. Increasing the electricity transfer capability between the Pacific Northwest and California in pursuit of economic and reliability benefits across many future decarbonization scenarios in light of the synergies between regions in terms of load and resource diversity.

The purpose of this study is to assess the extent to which stakeholders seek to pursue these objectives and obtain further insight into how they may be accomplished given that any such project will likely encounter a wide range of support and opposition from a wide range of perspectives. This study identifies non-technical, policy-oriented perspectives and employs a multi-criteria decision analysis to quantify stakeholder assessments of the impact of these perspectives on prioritizing alternatives. The results will inform a future need statement for OSW planning.

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Persistent Identifier

https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/34557

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