1. Minnesota legislature passes bill requiring utilities to report on highly congested areas and evaluate the use of grid enhancing technologies (GETs).
2. Utilities must identify locations with 168 hours or more of congestion or the ten most costly congestion occurrences over the last three years.
3. The law also improves transparency by requiring utilities to explain current line rating methodology, accelerating implementation of GETs to save ratepayers money and improve reliability.
The Minnesota legislature recently passed a bill requiring utilities owning more than 1,200km of transmission lines to report on highly congested areas and evaluate the use of grid enhancing technologies (GETs) in those areas. The utilities must also present a proposed installation plan for these technologies. The bill aims to improve transparency by requiring utilities to explain their current line rating methodology and identify areas that experience significant congestion.
Representative Larry Kraft expressed excitement about moving forward with the GETs provisions, noting that the bill will help accelerate the implementation of these technologies to save ratepayers money and improve reliability. Hilary Pearson, chair of the WATT Coalition, commended the law for aligning utility behavior with customer interests and providing a model for other states to evaluate low-cost GETs for economic efficiency and reliability applications.
In addition to requiring the state public utilities commission to maintain a list of certified high voltage transmission line and GETs projects, Minnesota-based Great River Energy has begun expanding its deployment of Heimdall Power’s Neuron dynamic line rating sensors. Following a successful pilot, the utility cooperative plans to install more than 40 of these sensors across its network in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and North Dakota, using an autonomous drone system to install the sensors on live transmission lines.