Reply #7: There are four major "Grids" in North America, [View All]

[Throckmorton]

and about a dozen small ones in Alaska and Mexico.

"The problems would be compounded, engineers warned, as independent power producers added new generating units at essentially random locations determined by low labor costs, lax local regulations, or tax incentives. If generators were added far from the main consuming areas, the total quantity of power flows would rapidly increase, overloading transmission lines."

The above statement is another reason the Northeastern Region of the Eastern Grid has become so unreliable. Small IPP's are allowed to connect to it where even they chose. They also have no interest in generating reactive power, only real power, so in many areas of the Northeast transmission voltages are near, or at, their design minimums. This degraded voltage condition makes it difficult to move energy, as all of the fault protection schemes for over-current of the cables, will automatically protect the cable.

Joule's law at work, P=E*I, lower E, with a fixed I, lower P.