In Search of a Perfect (Inter)Connection
(Room Grand Ballroom B)
22 Oct 19
3:45 PM
-
5:00 PM
Speaker(s):
James Bennett, Program Manager and Chief of the Office of Renewable Energy Programs, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management; Steven Herling, Executive Consultant, PJM Interconnection ; Seth Kaplan, Director of Permitting and Development, Mayflower Wind, EDP Renewables North America LLC; Matt Beaton, Senior Vice President, Renewable Energy and Emerging Technologies, TRC Companies Inc.
A number of Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic States have announced aggressive clean energy goals which, in the aggregate, envision the construction of over 17 GW of offshore wind generation capacity by the year 2035. At the same time, these states are also offering incentives for the development of onshore distributed wind and solar generation, and encouraging the wide-spread use of electric vehicles. These activities, in combination, have the potential to create substantial stress on the existing onshore electric transmission system in ways that are not evaluated by the traditional transmission expansion planning process, and further complicate efforts to interconnect offshore wind to the mainland. This panel will evaluate these issues in the context of offshore wind,and discuss the opportunities and challenges that arise in the context of offshore transmission system planning.