The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is now reviewing a proposal to link three separate North American electricity grids with state-of-the-art switching terminals and superconducting cables.  Those three grids – the Eastern Interconnection east of the Rocky Mountains, the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) west of the Rockies, and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) – have tens of millions of customers (demand) and also tremendous wind and solar capacity.

“That region of the country has 80 gigawatts of renewable energy potential. It’s massive,” said Phillip Harris, architect of the Tres Amigas plan. Tres Amigas is the company who made the proposal.  ”And this nation needs that to meet all the climate issues, environmental issues and energy needs…”What I’ve done, I’ve engineered a solution to get the three large North American interconnections to move power in and amongst themselves in a credible way.”

The initial cost could begin at $300 million and rise to $1 billion as the station’s capacity expands, he said. Initially, it will have the capacity to move 5 gigawatts of electricity, with a top potential of 30 gigawatts. “We are going to build it in components, like a space station,” Harris said.

The co-owners of Tres Amigas are Ziad Alaywan, former head of market and grid operations for the California Independent System Operator, who now heads the Z-Global consulting firm; Alt Energy LLC, an equity fund, and American Superconductor Corp., which provides the DC transmission cable technology.  They say they have not requested any federal funding for the project.

Hat tip to Bounce Energy for the article.