Mike Smart likens the major new transmission line built by Sierra Pacific Power in eastern Nevada to extra cylinders in a vehicle engine a boost when a hill approaches.
As the utility's biggest hill of the year approaches the demand for power on the hottest summer days it will be relying heavily on the 180- mile line that runs between Carlin and Ely.
The 345,000-volt line allows for delivery of an additional 250 megawatts of electricity to northern Nevada.
That's a critical margin for Sierra Pacific Power, which expects to deliver about 1,700 megawatts on peak days this summer.
With the new line, Sierra Pacific can import about 1,000 megawatts.
(A megawatt is roughly enough to serve 650 homes.) The line is important, too, because it allows the region better access to the hydroelectric facilities of the Pacific Northwest.
Although this summer appears to be a scant year for Northwest hydropower, Smart said those facilities typically provide the least expensive power in the West.
As Sierra Pacific is able to import that power into the state, it relies less on more expensive power from other suppliers including its own generation.
Carolyn Cowan, transmission executive for Sierra Pacific Power, said the new line also will improve the reliability of the power grid in northern Nevada.
Typically, she said, utility officials like to see a system in which one major piece a generating plant, a big transmission line can go down without causing widespread outages.
Already, Smart said, the new line across eastern Nevada picked up the slack when another major line went out of service in recent days.
The new line connects at the Nevada-Utah border with electric systems operated by PacifiCorp and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.
The $110 million transmission line was completed two weeks ahead of schedule.
Smart said cooperative weather played a large role in the early completion, and Sierra Pacific staff members still are calculating the savings from the early completion.
The line includes 735 steel towers ranging in height form 75 to 130 feet.
Each of the towers weighs between 13,000 and 23,000 pounds.
The power line, meanwhile, includes about 1,100 miles of aluminum wire.
The project also involved expansion of a substation near Ely.
That work included the installation of two transformers built by Va Tech Elin, an Austrian firm.
Each of the transformers weigh 332,000 pounds.
The new transmission line is the first for Sierra Pacific since 1998, when it began using a 165-mile line between Reno and Alturas, Calif.
