News Release
Contact: Barry Dillon
Phone: 770-270-7835
Email: barry.dillon@gatrans.com
Georgia Transmission, EPRI Release Power Line Siting Study
Report could help influence the way utilities locate power lines
ATLANTA -- Atlanta-based Georgia Transmission Corporation (GTC) and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) today released a report that could influence how many electric utilities site transmission lines.
GTC, a not-for-profit transmission cooperative, and EPRI, based in Palo Alto, Calif., conducted a two-year study of GTC's siting process and devised a new approach for planning, evaluating and selecting new power line locations. More than 200 officials from government agencies, utilities, environmental groups and neighborhood organizations from Georgia and surrounding states took part in the research and provided critical reviews. Four workshops were used to establish new siting procedures and site-selection criteria, values and other preferences.
The EPRI-GTC Overhead Transmission Line Siting Methodology Report presents a new siting approach by taking a sample transmission line project from initial planning through final route selection. The report proposes:
• Rigorous, step-by-step procedures for documenting and consistently applying planning assumptions, evaluation criteria and decisions.
• A new geographic information systems (GIS)-based software program that automatically defines large study areas, alternative corridors and a final route from multiple sets of data for roads, terrain, utility corridors, wetlands and other features, and
• Research techniques for reaching consensus on the relative importance of features, such as wetlands and housing density, and the ranking of environmental, manmade and engineering conditions.
The EPRI-GTC study has been presented at a number of industry conferences, and it was featured last year in Transmission & Distribution World. In addition, GTC has revamped its siting practice and the Kentucky Utilities Company has adopted the new siting approach. Other utilities, including a pipeline concern, are pursuing the new process.
"Seldom does the electric industry see a study with such potential to change the way we site power lines," said Nate Mullins, manager of transmission lines for Kentucky Utilities. "As we used this approach, we found that it ultimately produces more consistent decisions by forcing us to document and quantify the judgments we make. It helps us make decisions that are more objective, consistent and defensible."
Georgia Transmission's officials said the process creates more consistent decisions, improves productivity and reduces data collection costs. Data collection and analysis cost savings at Georgia Transmission range from $10,000 to $100,000 per project, according to Jesse Glasgow of Photo Science Geospatial Solutions Inc., Norcross, Ga., a GTC contractor that contributed to the study and developed the software tool.
"This report shows utilities how to deliver more consistent decisions, backed by standard, defensible rationale," said John Goodrich-Mahoney, EPRI program manager. "Professional judgment is still needed to rank routes, visual concerns, community concerns and construction accessibility, but this is the closest anyone has come yet to turning human siting decisions into data-assisted human decision-making."
"As we build more transmission lines to keep up with demand, our decisions are exposed to legal and public scrutiny," said Mike Smith, president and CEO of Georgia Transmission, a company that built 48 miles of new transmission lines in 2005 and 86 miles of new transmission lines in 2004. "This effort gives us more confidence, knowing our decisions are based on solid, standard rationale."
Georgia Transmission, a not-for-profit company, is owned by 39 of the state's 42 electric membership cooperatives (EMCs). The company recently revised its siting practice and uses the new process for planning its $100 million in construction each year. GTC owns and maintains 2,684 miles of lines.
Copies of the GTC-EPRI report are available at the Electric Power Research Institute at www.epri.com. Copies are available free to EPRI members and for a fee for non-members. Implementation consulting, including the software program, is being offered to electric utilities by Photo Science.