IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - March/April 2016 - 33

When It's Time
HVdc and FACTS Renovation
in the Western Power System
By Wayne Litzenberger, Karl Mitsch,
and Muklesur Bhuiyan

T

THE WESTERN UNITED STATES AND CANADA, BOUNDED ROUGHLY
by the Continental Divide and the Pacific Ocean and Mexico, form a large interconnected power system overseen by the Western Electric Coordinating Council
(WECC). This interconnected system of approximately 210,000 MW has five highvoltage dc (HVdc) transmission systems dating from 1970 to 2014. Two new HVdc
transmission schemes have been completed recently in Alberta, and several HVdc
lines are being planned for the southwest to move power to southern California.
There are also eight back-to-back converters that tie the western system to the eastern interconnection and to Texas. Other power electronic installations include a
number of large transmission scale static var converters (SVCs) and two thyristor
controlled series capacitors (TCSCs). These installations date from 1970, when the
Vancouver Island HVdc transmission was installed.
Aging equipment and changing needs have prompted a variety of renovation and
upgrade projects. A few old schemes have also been removed from service due to aging
equipment or changing system conditions. For example, although the TCSC located in
the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) system at their Slatt substation is only 22
years old, it has been removed from service because of changing system conditions.
This article is about renovation of HVdc and flexible ac transmission system
(FACTS) projects in the western (WECC) power system (see Figure 1 and Table 1).
It is also interesting to note that some older systems have not been renovated, and
this will be discussed briefly after the systems that have been updated.

Intermountain Power Project
The Intermountain Power Project brings power from two 950-MW coal-fired generating plants at Delta, Utah, to the Los Angeles basin at Adelanto, northeast of

IMAGES LICENSED BY GRAPHIC STOCK

HVdc Transmission Systems

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MPE.2015.2501178
Date of publication: 18 February 2016

32

ieee power & energy magazine

1540-7977/16©2016IEEE

march/april 2016



Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - March/April 2016

IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - March/April 2016 - Cover1
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IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - March/April 2016 - Cover3
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