Bipole III? More like II.V

Alarming story on Global News tonight about how a massive forest fire near Grand Rapids is threatening Manitoba Hydro’s major transmission lines (Bipoles I and II).

Not only are the flames a danger, but large amounts of soot are collecting on the lines, causing technical failures. The situation is bad enough that Hydro is already cutting back on exports and looking at options like importing power from neighboring jurisdictions in the event of a major malfunction.

So it’s a good thing we’re going to build that new transmission line, right? Ah, not so fast.

I was curious, so I took a quick peek at Hydro’s Bipole III Routing Study, and learned that the Province’s chosen route for the new line might not be of much help in a situation like this. To quote the report (emphasis is mine):

Routing the Bipole III Line along the West Corridor…would also be the longest, most expensive and least useful for emergency operations in the event of the loss of one of the transmission corridors…if the Bipole I and II Lines (Interlake) were lost, the new Bipole III (West) would only be able to carry its rated load (about 50% of the available output). Together with imports from tielines, this may be sufficient to meet current peak load requirements for southern Manitoba but would require the advancement of a fourth HVdc Line and converters (Bipole IV) to meet load growth expectations.

Contrast this with the emergency capacity of a line along the east side of Lake Winnipeg:

This configuration would provide for the needed emergency parrallel connection of existing converters, enabling transmission of almost all the output from existing converters in the event of the complete loss of transmission on any one of the corridors.

So the Province’s long, expensive and wasteful route for this new transmission line also won’t provide adequate power under emergency conditions, and might trigger the development of yet another line. Brilliant.