A proposed high-voltage transmission line running underneath the Strait of Juan de Fuca and connecting into the Bonneville Power Administration’s regional power grid could benefit Northwest power customers.
That’s what officials from Sea Breeze Pacific Regional Transmission System Inc. of Vancouver, British Columbia, said as they presented their Juan de Fuca Cable proposal to Port Angeles city officials Tuesday.
“We want to make sure we talk to everyone before we get too far along. That is the best project mitigation,” said Resja Campfens, the company’s vice president of environmental affairs.
Sea Breeze proposes to bury a direct-current, high voltage line carrying wind-generated electricity from Esquimalt, British Columbia, to Bonneville’s Port Angeles substation near Peninsula College.
According to its application with Bonneville Power Administration, or BPA, the company could “potentially” run a second line to its Fairmount substation near the junction of U.S. Highway 101 and state Highway 104 in Jefferson County.
The proposed transmission lines from Canada could mean that BPA might be able to defer building a second transmission line onto the Olympic Peninsula from the south, Campfens said.
Supplemental power
“The region is energy-constrained. The electric grid is aging,” she said. “This is an opportunity.
“Bonneville will not be able to meet the area’s peak power needs after 2007. Now it will have a new source of electricity.”
The company’s ambitious schedule calls for the onshore field studies through July, marine field studies through August, permitting through March 2006, and laying of the line from November 2006 through June 2007.
The 550-megawatt cable will use high voltage direct current “light,” a variation of high voltage direct current that is being used in cables already in the Strait, Campfens said.