Virginia's Electric Energy Net Generation by Fuel Type, 1990-2004
Source: Virginia Energy Plan, Figure 2-2
In Southwestern Virginia, as in other places, a grid of electrical transmission wires connect centralized power-production sites with decentralized customers. These are so common that most people just tune them out of their consciousness. We pay attention to the power distribution system only when a storm has dropped a tree across a line, or a city is trying to improve the "look" of downtown by burying the utilities out of sight, or if a new high-voltage transmission line is proposed across forested hillsides.
Because the grid connects multiple power sources, customers can not guarantee that the electricity used in a particular building is based on a particular form of generation. You may be paying for "green" energy, but another customer is using that energy and the electricity at your house/office was generated at a nuclear or coal-fired power plant.
Some high-tech management ensures the electrical power in the grid is sufficient to match demand, even when demand varies widely. "Base load" power plants, such as the Glen Lyn facility on the New River, run 24 hours/day to meet normal demand. Coal-fired nuclear facilities (present in the Tennessee River basin outside of Virginia) require heating boilers and maintaining constant temperatures for steam to turn generators. Temperatures can reach 2,400oF, so long delays are required for cooling and re-heating the pipes and fluids in the system when boilers are taken off-line. Not surprisingly, base load plants stay in operation constantly.
"Peak load" power plants are turned on when demand increases around breakfast and dinnertime each day. To generate peak power, it is more cost-effective to use hydropower, releasing water from behind a dam to turn a turbine. If enough hydropower is not available, then natural gas "peaking plants" are a second choice for cost-effective generation of electricity.
Wind energy plants generate power only when the wind blows, of course. To ensure electricity will be available to match demand, windfarms may be balanced by peak load plants fueled by natural gas.
You might be raising the water level in the New River, when you (and many other customers) flick a switch and trigger the power grid to release water at Littlr River/Claytor Lake dam to generate power. However, you are generating no air emissions - unlike users getting electricity from a power plant that burns a fossil fuel such as coal or natural gas.
There are few or no remaining sites for hydropower dams in southwestern Virginia, and the most viable proposals for a new nuclear power plant in Virginia is targeting an existing facility near Fredericksburg at Lake Anna. The potential for wind energy "windmills" on ridges in southwestern Virginia is high, but visual impacts (especially for transmission lines) may push most wind farms to sites off the Atlantic Coast.
The most significant new source of electrical generation in Virginia is expected to be a coal-fired power plant in Wythe County, the Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center. It will generate nearly 50% more electricity than the Glen Lyn plant, if built.
The Virginia Energy Plan assumes the state will need to generate 2,300 megawatts of capacity to provide additional electrical energy in the future, and must upgrade the transmission grid to distribute the energy. The state's voluntary renewable portfolio standardprojects that investor-owned electric utilities (primarily American Electric Power in Southwestern Virginia) will generate 4 percent of electricity from renewable sources by 2012, and 12 percent or more by 2022. In Southwestern Virginia, the Forest Service appropved a new 765kv transmission line route between Wyoming WV to Jackson's Ferry VA (near Pulaski), linking West Virginia electricity plants to consumers in Virginia. The line was energized in 2006.
Conservation is expected to reduce the rate of increase in generating electricity, but the fundamental assumption is that more people will live/work in the state and more power will be required. Virginia imports approximately 29 percent of its electrical requirements now,1 but the plan notes the potential for the state to shift from being a net importer of energy into an exporter to New Jersey/New York: "Virginia's electric generators also have the potential to sell excess off-peak generation in the northeast PJM markets where capacity margins are slim and prices are higher."2
The Virginia Energy Plan also assumes that "mountaintop removal" will not become a common practive as production of coal is increased: "The majority of Virginia's future coal production will come from small underground operations augmented by surface contour and high-wall mining operations."3
 hydropower dam at Little River |
 generator at Little River Dam |
 Radford City power plant at Little River Dam |
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