The Pacific Northwest, which produces huge amounts of hydroelectric power, can meet its own demand this summer but will have no extra power to sell to California because of drought conditions and could face its own shortages next winter. It has to be transported by tanker, pipeline or wire. President George W. Bush is to release recommendations Thursday on how to expand the nation's energy supply formulated by a task force headed by Vice President Dick Cheney. The report is likely to propose incentives for private companies to invest in the country's overstretched electricity infrastructure. The North American electric power system is comprised of an interconnected network of generating plants, transmission lines and distribution facilities that allow electricity companies to buy and sell power from one another.
Most experts identify the lack of transmission capacity as the biggest weakness in the system.
A stronger national electricity grid would make it easier to ship surplus electricity from one area to another. However, investment in new lines has lagged badly in recent years, putting increasing strain on the system, according to NERC general counsel David Cook. Cook told the committee his organization projected that the network of high voltage transmission lines would grow at a rate of less than 0.5 percent per year over the next decade. Right now we have about 200,000 circuit-miles of those lines. And 10 years from now we are projecting that we will have just a little over 200,000 circuit-miles,'' Cook testified.