PJM planners expect to recommend construction of a $1.2 billion double circuit 345 kV line to address a short circuit problem in the PSEG zone, ruling it less expensive than other alternatives.
The 2012 Regional Transmission Expansion Plan identified several busses where fault currents exceed 80 kA.
Planners evaluated several alternatives, including rebuilding stations to a 90 kA standard, installing current limiting reactors and installing fault current limiters.
The solution chosen will isolate the Hudson 230 kV from the 138 kV at Marion and 345 kV at Farragut by converting the 138 kV buses and transmission facilities between Linden and Bergen to a double circuit 345 kV capacity.
It is projected to cost $1.2 billion but will incorporate more than $1 billion in existing baseline projects, resulting in an “avoided cost” of $160 million.
Planners rejected a recent stakeholder proposal to build parallel 700 MW HVDC converter stations. That would have cost $614 million but would not have addressed the reliability problems to be fixed by the other baseline projects.
As a result, the double circuit project “is significantly less expensive than the HVDC alternative,” PJM’s Paul McGlynn told the Transmission Expansion Advisory Committee Thursday.
An independent consultant, Burns & Roe, will validate costs and schedules and identify risk areas in the project before planners recommend it to the PJM Board of Managers.
The project, which will be constructed by PSEG, will take about four years and will require acquisition of additional underground and underwater rights of way and land acquisitions for expansion of several substations.
