With electricity demand surging and aging infrastructure under strain, the U.S. power grid faces a pivotal moment.
Recent federal policies, including FERC Orders 1920 and 1977, aim to modernize and expand the transmission system, clearing bottlenecks and preparing for unprecedented growth. Industry experts agree: proactive planning, streamlined permitting, and innovative approaches are essential to meet the energy needs of tomorrow while maintaining reliability and affordability.
A recent webinar hosted by POWERGRID International, Can these policies change transmission’s trajectory?, featured perspectives from transmission utilities, developers, and regional grid planners on the future of U.S. transmission development.
Rob Gramlich, president of Grid Strategies, highlighted unprecedented forecasts for power demand, driven by data centers, manufacturing, and electrification. “The five-year growth forecast has increased by almost a factor of five from two years ago,” Gramlich said, referencing data from FERC utility filings. Regions like Texas and PJM are facing acute pressure, hosting high concentrations of data centers and seeing double-digit growth percentages.
Despite this clear demand, transmission deployment has plateaued, a concerning trend given aging infrastructure and the push to integrate new clean energy resources. “We’re also trying to decarbonize, trying to interconnect a lot of remote, low-cost resources,” Gramlich said. “And we also have now severe weather, events that are causing increased interest in transmission, particularly inter-regional transmission.”
FERC Orders 1920 and 1977: Planning and permitting
FERC Order 1920 mandates nationwide, best-practice transmission planning, shifting utilities toward long-term, holistic, and proactive planning strategies. Kristen Williams Golden, chief legal officer at Grid United, acknowledged the progress but emphasized that Order 1920 primarily benefits regional projects, leaving interregional development largely unaddressed.
“(Order) 1920 was just a really exciting first step to where we think FERC needs to go to encourage projects like ours to get built,” Golden said. “It’s helpful that it does identify benefits, so that there’s kind of a common understanding of what good transmission planning looks like that we hope will be used later on for regional or inter-regional projects like ours.”
FERC Order 1977 aims to tackle permitting delays by streamlining federal review processes and granting the commission authority to act on backlogged projects. Shawn Adderly, director of PG&E’s Transmission Performance Center, praised the reforms.
“I think it’s going to streamline the permitting process for us, in many ways,” Adderly said. “And I think it’s welcomed for people that are looking to connect large generation projects, particularly wind and solar because a lot of the hold-ups are technically trying to figure out the siting.”
However, Adderly cautioned that utilities face internal challenges in managing the sheer influx of projects.
“I think the biggest constraints are actually on the utility side to be able to manage the influx – the amount of projects that we’re seeing,” Adderly said. “So I’m actually less concerned with the FERC orders at this point and more concerned about the ability of utilities, our vendors, our contractors, our suppliers to actually keep up with the demands.”
Congressional action and future uncertainty
Complementing FERC’s efforts, Congress has introduced a permitting reform package, a critical step for large-scale interregional projects. Golden pointed to the applicant-driven approach, cost allocation mechanisms, and focus on interregional projects as “huge benefits” not addressed in the FERC orders but warned of political uncertainty: “We frankly need federal support,” Golden said.
Gramlich offered cautious optimism, noting that a Republican-led Congress may struggle to get Democratic members to cooperate to avoid a filibuster.
“More and more people have come around to the idea, ‘well, this may be the moment,'” Gramlich said. “Maybe we lock in the progress that’s in this bill now. And, you know, anybody can come back and try to do more next year.”
Trump’s re-election, and the impact on transmission
Golden noted that transmission development aligns well with Trump’s “all-of-the-above” energy approach. “We have always been generation agnostic,” she said. “We couldn’t prevent certain generation from coming on to our line even if we wanted to.” Golden, however, expressed concern over potentially low staffing levels at the Department of Energy under the new administration, especially regarding ongoing DOE grant negotiations.
From a utility perspective, Adderly said he is hopeful to see bipartisan recognition of infrastructure needs.
“We could see that our infrastructure is aging in the United States,” Adderly said. “We have distribution, transmission, and transformers that are well above the expected lifespan. So I think that hopefully, folks will agree that we do need to upgrade our infrastructure. And I’m really hopeful – especially with the incoming administration campaigning on removing a lot of bureaucracies – that they would encourage the permitting reforms to continue, and encourage streamlining the processes when it comes to regional planning and actions siting.”
Gramlich offered a measured take, citing the stability of FERC as a bipartisan commission with fixed terms for commissioners.
“One thing people love about FERC, including me, is that individuals get appointed to be commissioners, and those individuals vote their conscience, and they have five-year terms and they can’t get fired,” Gramlich said. “Which I think really helps with industry stability, and companies like Shawn’s and Kristen’s are trying to build infrastructure that’s going to last 40 or 50 years.”
Will these policies change transmission’s trajectory?
From DOE’s Transmission Facilitation Program to FERC reforms, policy momentum is hard to ignore.
“I think [the FERC Orders] will have a huge impact,” Gramlich said. “If this permanent bill passes Congress, that will be another huge incremental step.”
Golden underscored the importance of government programs like the Transmission Facilitation Program, citing Grid United’s South Line project, which secured DOE capacity contracts after years of delays.
As demand accelerates and bottlenecks persist, the question remains whether policymakers can maintain this momentum. For now, federal reforms appear poised to unlock new transmission pathways, offering a glimmer of hope for a grid straining under 21st-century pressures.
