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VELCO tells Senate committee transmission upgrades and better siting are needed as Vermont electrifies
Summary
Velco told the Senate Natural Resources & Energy Committee on Jan. 15 that Vermont’s transmission system must be planned and ‘‘right‑sized’’ to accommodate rising load forecasts from electrification, that siting of distributed generation affects costs and that non‑transmission solutions and new grid technologies are part of the toolkit.
Shana Winslow, a communications lead for VELCO (the Vermont Electric Power Company), told the Senate Natural Resources & Energy Committee on Jan. 15 that Vermont’s long‑range transmission planning work anticipates substantial load growth and will require a mix of transmission upgrades, non‑transmission alternatives and novel grid technologies.
Winslow described VELCO’s role as the statewide transmission operator and the differences between transmission and distribution utilities. She said VELCO manages roughly 14,000 acres of rights of way, operates a 1,600‑mile fiber‑optic network and is adding about 800 more miles of fiber to increase visibility into distributed energy resources. “We are importing most of the time into the state,” Winslow said, adding that expanded distributed generation (principally solar PV) has begun to…
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