As the Biden Administration works to open markets and create pathways to 100% clean energy, the state of transmission in the country has taken on an elevated role.
There are a couple reasons for the increased attention on transmission. First, a lot more transmission will need to be built to bring the energy created from large-scale clean energy power plants to load centers. That generation capacity, which will be mostly provided by wind and solar, has a different profile, explained Rob Gramlich in a DISTRIBUTECH+ session that took place last week. Gramlich is founder and president of Grid Strategies LLC where he provides economic policy analysis on electric transmission and power markets in pursuit of low-cost de-carbonization. He also spent twelve years at the American Wind Energy Association (now the American Clean Power Association). He explained that often when the wind stops blowing in one region, it picks up somewhere else and transmission lines must carry it where it’s needed. A vast increase in wind and solar will demand an increase in transmission, too.
Further, transmission provides “flexibility and optionality” said Gramlich. With giant storms and natural disasters happening more frequently and taking the power grid down with them, “transmission saves the day by bringing power from neighboring regions,” said Gramlich.
And then there’s the interconnection queue. In some regions, developers are waiting up to two years (sometimes longer) to connect their clean energy projects to the grid. They are waiting for grid engineers to study how their new projects will impact the grid and inform them about any grid upgrades that will be required due to their interconnection requests and how much the developers will have to pay for them. For example, PJM has so many interconnection requests in front of it that the grid operator announced a two-year moratorium on any new requests.
In his presentation, Gramlich showed areas of the grid with transmission constraints and said much of those constraints could be alleviated if the U.S. had a more robust transmission system in place.
The good news according to Gramlich is that major transmission lines have been built recently and can be done. He showed a checklist of how transmission developers should go about building new projects to minimize friction between stakeholders.
“The winning formula is a focus on proactive multi benefit planning,” he said.
In addition, 2021 was the biggest year for transmission policy in history, said Gramlich. He reviewed some of the recently passed or proposed legislation surrounding the buildout of more transmission in the country and how it will benefit grid operators and developers.
The presentation took place on the new and improved DISTRIBUTECH Plus platform and is a must-see for anyone involved in transmission planning, development, or any other type of stakeholder engagement. View it here.
