Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/109821
Clean Energy by geographic location as well as proximities to existing infrastructure and other sites. All options were inventoried in RODAT and ROMAP databases, and then were inputted into the IRP analysis, where the costs and impacts of the new resources were assessed on a systemwide basis. In total, ROMAP found more than 7,700 potential resource options in British Columbia in a spatially enabled GIS database. The resource options��� geometric locations and associated attribute information were publicly released in February 2012 at www.bchydro. com/etc/medialib/internet/documents/planning_ regulator y/iep_ltap/2012q1/gis_romap_dataset. Par.0001.File.gis_romap_dataset_20120224.zip. ROMAP The ROMAP database was constructed using Esri���s ArcGIS 10. Because this database format was interchangeable with other relational-database formats such as Microsoft Excel/Access and several other programs, the details about potential generation resources in ROMAP could easily be used with existing models and databases in other programs. Benefits of a spatial database include spatial awareness with respect to other resource options, access to roads and existing power infrastructure. To identify and capture a complete inventory of potential options in British Columbia, ROMAP assessed all resource types that could potentially generate electricity at a commercial level within the next 30 years, including economically feasible and infeasible sites. After that, BC Hydro was able to easily screen out options that were located in constrained or prohibited areas such as legally protected areas, salmon-bearing streams, parks and inaccessible areas such as glaciers. In addition, BC Hydro could examine possible site access and infrastructure. Access roads and powerlines are a significant portion of a project���s cost as well as its environmental and economic impact. In most cases, a lack of short, quality access will make a site economically infeasible. ROMAP allowed the mapping of new access roads and transmission corridors that were required to link potential sites to existing infrastructure. Individual site access and powerline routing, including interconnection costs, were estimated for each potential resource option based on least-cost routing found using GIS technology. This gave BC Hydro the high-level cost estimates required for ranking the considered resource options. ROMAP was further used to overlay the footprint of each resource option onto the British Columbia land base to the overall site area. This also was done for any new roads and transmission corridors required to operate and link the sites to existing infrastructure. Renewable Electricity Generation One requirement of the Clean Energy Act was to assess the potential for developing electricity from clean or renewable resources in British Columbia, grouped by geographic area. KWL helped BC Hydro conduct density analyses to identify geographic areas with high energy and/or capacity densities. All projects in the legally protected or undevelopable areas were excluded, along with Site C (see www.bchydro. com/energy_in_bc/projects/site_c.html), pumped-storage or natural-gas locations, resource locations large in size and flexible locations. Other resource options were excluded to avoid spatially skewing results. After the potential grouping of generation-resource options within a geographic zone were identified and assessed, KWL began the cluster analysis, which included the following: transmission-interconnection locations based on energy and capacity densities. tions and the selection of projects that would benefit from a new node as an interconnection point. ���A figure shows the estimated powerline costs within British Columbia. Factors such as proximity to existing infrastructure, slope and terrain were examined to determine a cost surface. 20 G E O W O R L D / F E B R U A R Y 2 O 1 3 potential new nodes to the existing bulk transmission region. Nine potential new nodes were selected through the cluster analysis, and, by using ROMAP, BC Hydro could see how the road and transmission components could benefit from economies of scale as well as shared transmission and road infrastructures.