The average electricity transmission line in the U.S. is about 40 years old, with more than a quarter of them aged 60 or older. Couple this reality of aging infrastructure with ever-increasing energy demand, thanks to power-hungry data centers, the advent of AI, and the fact that we’re witnessing exponential increases in extreme weather events with each passing decade, and what we have on our hands is a perfect storm.

According to the latest Infrastructure Report Card, conducted by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), the U.S. scores a merciful C-. In the energy category, which earned the same grade, the report states that “among 638 transmission outage events reported from 2014 to 2018, severe weather was cited as the predominant cause.

Additionally, distribution infrastructure struggles with reliability, with 92% of all outages occurring along these segments.” In other words, what is commonly known as “the last mile” in the network, where electricity reaches homes, is failing on a massive scale. The report further cites the need for upgrades to distribution lines, “smart planning” and “improved reliability” to accommodate a changing energy landscape.

Regulating long-term planning

The need for transmission upgrades across the land is paramount, particularly as more renewables come online. In response, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has issued a transmission and cost allocation rule (Order No. 1920), which in the broadest possible terms requires the nation’s transmission providers to implement long-term planning in anticipation of next-generation energy systems.

Long-term transmission planning is a regional concern, according to FERC, and as such, transmission operators will now be required to consider a 20-year time horizon—with updated plans conducted at least once every five years—while accounting for emerging technologies, changing energy mixes, clean energy sharing, right-sizing transmission facilities, and interregional transfer capabilities, among other concerns.

“With the need for energy surging, we must plan for the long term,” says FERC chairman Willie Phillips, in a prepared statement. “We need to consider a broad set of benefits when planning for new transmission … to get the most out of our grid,” he adds, while stressing a stipulation in the new rule than grants individual states discretion in identifying, planning, and determining how to pay for new lines.

Phillips continues, “and while we’re on the subject of paying for transmission projects … if you do not benefit from a transmission project, you will not have to pay for it.”

Order No. 1920 is indeed designed to re-write the playbook for how power is transmitted and distributed throughout the country, but it’s by no means kicking existing transmission owners off the grid, so to speak. A key stipulation of the rule states that incumbent owners will have right of first refusal for building “right-sized” replacement facilities. Of course, such measures will come at significant cost, but then, no one ever said achieving a net-zero economy was free.

Moving power across states

The work of creating a more reliable grid has been the purview of many operating in the public and private sectors for decades. “It’s not like we haven’t been doing this. What the FERC order is going to do is make it a little easier,” says Otto Lynch, head of Power Line Systems, a software for the design of overhead transmission, distribution, and communication lines, at Bentley Systems.

Lynch, who was the energy representative on ASCE’s most recent infrastructure report card, observes that FERC’s “primary function is interstate commerce. That’s what they’re there for, to get the states to work together to transfer and move electricity across states. And sometimes that doesn’t go as well as they would like.”

As an example, Lynch cites wind farms that currently dot the landscape by the hundreds, predominantly along the prairied longitudes spanning North Dakota to Texas. “You’re trying to move all this renewable energy being generated out west to the east coast, where all the coal plants are being mothballed. To do that, we need to build the transmission lines to transfer that power from one place to another. And we may be crossing Missouri and nobody in Missouri is going to get power off that line. So, Missouri says, No, you’re not going to cross our state.”

Interestingly, he’s not citing a hypothetical. Lynch is based in Missouri, where a large portion of the Grain Belt Express is slated to reside. The ambitious 800-mile-long, high-voltage direct current (HVDC) line, proposed to stretch from Dodge City, Kansas to the Illinois-Indiana border, would be capable of transporting 4000 megawatts of electricity in either direction, roughly the amount required to power 1.6 million homes annually.

(The project has been mired in red tape for over a decade, but in October 2023 the Missouri Public Service Commission granted final approvals and several dozen municipalities in the state plan to purchase power off the new line; the line will also interconnect with the Callaway Nuclear Generating Station, which will enable Missouri to sell its electricity “when the wind’s not blowing,” says Lynch, and collect taxes on out-of-state sales.)

Projects on par with the Grain Belt Express, designed to transmit (mostly) clean power efficiently, cheaply, and with minimal line loss, tend to get stuck in permitting and other bureaucratic hold-ups. That is the “biggest bottleneck,” Lynch says. “The lines are already designed, the routes are planned, the studies have been done. They’re already in the can, as we say in the industry.”

Provided it works as designed, the FERC rule will give states and counties greater power to expedite permitting, which is typically the final clerical step to getting large infrastructure projects built, following environmental reviews, impact reports, and approval of design and budgets.

Better infrastructure = more renewables

Big transmission lines are, well, big! Some ascend upwards of 160 feet, towering well above neighboring grain elevators and even rural water towers. This fact is a sticking point for some, particularly for farmers who feel their rights as property owners are being overlooked in place of the public good.

For his part, Lynch largely dismisses claims that new, state-of-the-art transmission lines will create visible “scars” across the heartland. Such lines obviously alter the horizon, he admits, but aside from that, the agricultural impact is minimal. “Farmers can’t farm around the poles … but they don’t take up very much land.” In addition, farmers “get a lot of money in easements, so they’re getting well compensated for that line crossing their property.”

Lynch also points to the local construction jobs that are created as a result of building these lines, which “in turn impacts businesses and gas taxes. There’s a lot of local benefit from constructing transmission lines.”

Another big dividend that comes from updating the grid is the proliferation of renewable wind and solar power. “We’re ready to go,” Lynch says. “States have had renewable goals set up, but I don’t think any of them are going to make it because we don’t have the grid to interject that power.” (24 states plus Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico have 100% clean energy goals, according to the Clean Energy States Alliance; and many northern states on that list rely on interconnections with the Canadian grid, where FERC has the authority to operate, to a degree.)

Ideally, greater capacity to move electricity longer distances equals greater incentive to develop more renewable energy. The cost-benefit ratio is plain as day. Add to which, corporations operating in the smart grid tech space (e.g., smart metering, smart substations, battery storage, and more) are claiming an increasing share of the energy market, well in excess of $100 billion.

According to Lynch, “new technology isn’t going to do a thing” without the infrastructure to support it. “If there’s no highway across Kansas, how are you going to drive?”

The current war, revisited

A majority of U.S. transmission lines—approximately 98%—still use alternating current (AC) power. If the FERC rule is to have any noticeable impact in the coming decades, this number will need to come down dramatically. And the construction of bigger transmission projects may be the key.

Alternating current, which can only move in one direction, induces line losses when traveling long distances. “The problem with [direct current] lines is you need converter stations, and those are not cheap,” Lynch says.

They’re also not financially feasible over incremental distances of 100, 200, or 300-mile stretches. It’s more manageable to have line losses than it is to spend the money to build multiple AC–DC substations,” he observes. “But when you’re talking about a 1,000-mile line, then yes, DC is the way to go.”

While the FERC rule doesn’t exactly provide a roadmap for revamping the system, it does help streamline some of the regulatory burdens that have hindered modernization in recent years. “Reliability has changed … the public expects more,” Lynch continues, noting that the current make up of our grid, by and large, is grossly ill-equipped to support those expectations. “We need to rebuild!”

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