The High-Wire Act of Unlocking Clean Energy | Jason Huang | TED

One of the greatest inventions of all time

is our transmission and distribution grid.

It connects electricity generation to electricity consumption,

safely, reliably resilient against extreme weather conditions,

and keeps our lights on.

But if we were to facilitate the electrification of everything ...

this most sophisticated and largest machine on Earth

is not quite large enough to take on all the renewable generation

from where the Sun shines and the wind blows

to where people actually live.

It does not have the capacity to handle the two-thirds energy

that we consume not yet in the form of electricity.

Without transmission, we have no transition.

The real bottleneck in our power grid is actually the conductors.

Those wires that are carrying electrons

are based on outdated technology invented in 1908.

It has limited capacity and also poor efficiency.

The next generation of advanced conductors exists.

It has been invented leveraging

the best materials science today has to offer,

to build the best conductors.

This is what the company I cofounded, TS Conductor, is working on.

It can triple line capacity,

and, at the same time, reduce line loss by 50 percent.

The best part is it comes with a green discount,

saving the utility and their customers money from day one.

There aren't many things in our lives that are over 100 years old.

So why are we still using and relying on those old-fashioned power lines?

This is because our utility companies are regulated monopolies

with a very conservative culture.

To understand today's advanced conductors, let's take a look at yesterday's wires.

The original century-old technology, the ACSR conductor,

which is still dominant today in our power grid.

It has steel wire as a core for structural support

and layers of aluminum for electrical conductivity.

The steel wire at the time, 100 years ago, wasn't strong enough,

so we had to use hard aluminum for strength contribution.

The problem is hard aluminum cannot handle high temperature.

This limits capacity.

In the 1970s, our steel industry was able to deliver stronger steel,

which then can be combined with annealed aluminum.

That forms the ACSS conductor,

which is capable of high-temperature operation for high ampacity.

The problem is steel expands when hot.

This causes excessive sagging.

You probably have noticed that our power lines

droop on a hot summer day,

and that is why.

This sag caused its own set of challenges.

In the 1990s, advanced conductors emerged.

Instead of the steel core in the traditional conductors,

composite materials with lower thermal expansion,

such as a ceramic fiber composite or a glass carbon fiber composite,

are used to replace steel and reduce sag.

Unfortunately, our utility industry experience

with this group of first-generation advanced conductors

hasn't been positive.

They are known to be delicate, difficult to work with,

easy to break, with longevity concerns,

and they are also very expensive,

used for niche applications at best.

By 2016, TS technology was developed and commercially deployed.

We solved all the problems

associated with the first-generation advanced conductors,

at [their] source.

We designed in safety, reliability, longevity,

easy installation and maintenance from the start,

by leveraging effective protection for the pre-tensioned carbon core

with a continuous, seamless, thick aluminum sleeve

that is also fully conductive.

This technology shifted three conductor paradigms.

We can run this conductor at high temperatures

for very high ampacity,

without the conductor sagging problem,

because the carbon core has virtually no thermal expansion.

We also maximized the aluminum content in the conductor

for optimal ampacity ...

without the weight penalty in the conductor.

This is because the carbon composite core

was able to eliminate 80 percent of the weight of steel.

And we can also incorporate the annealed aluminum

for best conductivity in the conductor

without compromising on conductor strength,

because the carbon core is twice the strength of steel.

And furthermore, this solution is also corrosion-proof.

The heat-tolerant, sag-proof feature in this solution

makes it much better in terms of surviving wildfires

compared to traditional conductors.

The strong and compact design also makes it more resilient

against extreme wind or ice storms due to climate change.

Doing this, we can triple the line capacity

with the same structures in the power-line corridors.

At the same time, we can reduce line loss by 50 percent,

while essentially eliminating thermal sag.

And the best part is this technology comes with a green discount,

in addition to the green dividend

that's associated with line-loss reduction.

This saves the grid operators and their customers money from day one,

even though this advanced conductor has a modest premium

compared to traditional conductors.

Here's how.

When you build new transmission lines,

the cost of conductors in the overall project is very minor,

about a few percentage points,

but the cost associated with structure can be as much as 30 percent.

With the strong, less-sag TS conductor,

you can build these new lines with fewer and shorter structures,

creating substantial CapEx savings

that more than offset the modest premium associated with conductors.

There are numerous new transmission lines deploying TS technology

that can prove this point.

In reconductoring, we replace the wire but reuse the towers.

There's even better economics in that situation.

We can triple the line capacity without retrofitting any structures ...

for the lowest project cost.

If you were to use traditional conductors for reconductoring,

the required upgrade to the structure can be substantial.

Let me give you a real-world example.

In March 2021,

we reconductored an 11-mile, 230-kV transmission line in North Dakota.

The utility needed to increase line capacity

to accommodate wind farms in the area.

Traditional conductors, ACSS, [were] initially used,

which required an expensive and time-consuming structural retrofit

to 90 percent of the structures

because of excessive sagging.

When they later switched to the TS solution,

they were able to save 40 percent in total project CapEx,

because we avoided all the structural retrofit.

The project was completed 12 months ahead of schedule,

with 1.8 million dollars' CapEx savings.

Let's imagine what is possible if we thus upgraded our power grid

and its capacity around the world.

We could connect the renewable generation instantly,

versus the years-long wait that we're experiencing today.

No more bottlenecks holding back wind or solar projects.

We can electrify everything and meet the growing power demand

for electric vehicles, heat pumps,

industrial processes and data centers,

without grid reliability or transmission congestion constraints.

Here's a big one.

We can dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions

just with the reduced line-loss saving alone.

We can avoid as much as 500 million tons of greenhouse gas each year,

because we do not have to do as much compensatory generation.

Add to that the multigigaton opportunity,

if we are able to connect so much more solar and wind to the world's power grid.

You can make it happen.

For example, you can support legislation, policy-making and regulations

that require our utility companies to consider advanced conductors

in transmission, reliability, decarbonization

or grid-modernization planning,

while at the same time providing performance or other incentives

that are enabled by new technology like TS

so that they can improve grid performance by investing in this technology.

Conductors have a design life of 50 to 70 years.

Let's upgrade our power grid,

build it better for a clean energy future,

today.

We cannot afford to have another 50 to 70 years locked up

with century-old technology in our power grid.

I believe firmly that our power grid

can and should be the enabler for energy transition.

We have an opportunity to write that legacy.

We went from dial-up internet to 5G in a couple of decades.

We can do the same for our power grid.

We just need to start now,

with the right conductor technology available today.

Together, we can make a difference for humanity and for climate change.

Thank you.

(Applause)