Sweeping changes to America's aging power grid are on their way to help bypass NIMBY roadblocks and state infighting

Anton Petrus

• It can take a decade to build transmission lines, and construction fell to an all-time low in 2022.
• The delays make the US's aging power grid more vulnerable to extreme weather and blackouts.
• New federal rules could help break logjams over funding and environmental permits.

America's power grid is old and stressed.

Blackouts are on the rise as the climate crisis fuels more-powerful storms and as electricity demand booms from electric vehicles, data centers, and manufacturing.

The main problem: It takes way too long to build towering high-voltage power lines that carry electricity across state lines and to hook up new power to the grid. Long transmission lines can take more than a decade to build, and federal regulators have said their construction declined to an all-time low in 2022. Some 2.6 terawatts of new power — more than twice the size of the entire US grid — are backed up in yearslong connection queues in part because of a lack of capacity. The vast majority of that power comes from renewable-energy projects.

The delays threaten the transition to cleaner energy and make residents more vulnerable to extreme weather. States also could miss out on new business opportunities if they don't solve the power crunch.

To help break the logjams, the federal government in the last month has made sweeping changes to how grid upgrades are planned, paid for, and permitted. Energy regulators, developers, and lawyers say that while the changes won't immediately solve every bottleneck, they should make the US more prepared for skyrocketing energy demand and extreme weather.

"The grid as it exists now is essentially tapped out. There's no headroom left on the system," said Brett White, a vice president of regulatory affairs at Pine Gate Renewables, an energy developer with projects in 30 states. "But if I zoom out and take a long view, I'm optimistic about the future reliability of the grid."

'Nobody wants to see it, and nobody wants to pay for it'

Federal data indicates that while 2,000 miles of transmission lines were built on average each year from 2012 to 2016, that figure dropped to 700 miles from 2017 to 2021. Last year, just 251 miles were completed.

A group of researchers led by Princeton University found in 2022 that to meet its goals for cleaner electricity, the US would need to more than double the previous decade's pace of transmission expansion. That's because many of the places with the most wind and solar potential are in parts of the country without the infrastructure to carry the electricity to homes and businesses.

But upgrading the power grid gets bogged down by several issues.

Many regional authorities that oversee the grid aren't doing much long-term planning to make sure there's enough transmission capacity. They tend to be reactionary, acting only when, for example, a solar developer wants to connect to the grid or a reliability issue pops up. Securing permits for transmission projects involves a patchwork of state and federal agencies, and locals often oppose energy infrastructure in their backyards. States with clashing priorities also fight over who pays for the costly power lines.

"This is a gross oversimplification, but to summarize the problem succinctly: Nobody wants to see it, and nobody wants to pay for it," said Larry Gasteiger, the executive director of Wires, a trade group that advocates for transmission development.

A new rule issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission this month is aimed at tackling some of the problems.

The commission directed regional grid operators, states, and utilities to develop 20-year transmission plans to support rapidly growing electricity demand and provide a fair way to pay for it. The rule also makes it harder for states to opt out. The goal is to make the grid more reliable and keep costs down for customers in the long run.

Allison Clements, a Democrat on the commission, noted that the agency recently approved nearly $1 billion in "last-minute" transmission spending to avoid reliability issues when a single coal plant in Maryland closes in 2025. She said the regional grid operator — an entity known as PJM Interconnection that spans 13 states from Pennsylvania to West Virginia — could have found a more cost-effective solution if it had planned for that retirement earlier.

Jeffrey Shields, a spokesman for PJM, said in an email that the organization is studying the impact of the FERC rule. Before it was issued, PJM was working on "long-term scenario planning" and last year authorized a record $6.8 billion in transmission projects.

Regarding the coal plant in Maryland, Shields pointed to a letter that PJM's CEO Manu Asthana's letter to Sierra Club in December. Asthana said it wasn't "reasonable to expect PJM to have anticipated the imminent" closure because the owner of the coal plant, Talen Energy, had said it would stay online with oil as a fuel source. It wasn't until April 2023 that PJM was notified about the closure.

The region illustrates why states can clash over who pays. Maryland and New Jersey are aiming for 100% renewable energy by 2035, but Pennsylvania and West Virginia are doubling down on gas and coal.

States and utilities reliant on fossil fuels don't want to pay for transmission projects that unlock cleaner power to compete with, and they worry their residents will unfairly get stuck with a multibillion-dollar tab. Mark Christie, a Republican commissioner, endorsed that view, arguing that the agency's rules "fails to protect consumers" and would transfer wealth to "for-profit special interests" like wind and solar developers.

Proponents of the commission's rule said that view was short-sighted. A well-planned grid has benefits beyond ushering in more renewable energy. Numerous power-hungry data centers and factories are coming online, and the climate crisis is fueling more frequent and destructive storms. If the US doesn't invest in regional transmission lines, customers will pay the price in the form of congestion and more life-threatening outages.

"Grids are being pushed to the brink," Neil Chatterjee, a former chairman of the FERC, said. "Climate change doesn't care about state politics and market design."

Chatterjee added that it could take years for the rule to have an effect and that the commission would likely face legal challenges. But he expects it to be upheld because it falls under FERC's traditional authority to keep the grid reliable in an affordable way.

No silver bullet

While that process plays out, the federal government is also trying to more quickly grant environmental permits for transmission lines.

The Department of Energy this month said it would take the lead on applications and aim to issue decisions within two years — about twice as fast as its current average. By DOE being the main point of contact, project developers won't have to navigate different processes with eight different federal agencies in some cases. The department also identified 10 regions of the country where some 3,500 miles of transmission lines should be prioritized because customers are facing higher utility bills and power disruptions from extreme weather.

If that list is finalized, FERC would also be able to step in and approve permits for projects stalled or denied at the state level in those priority regions.

Christine Powell, a deputy managing attorney of Earthjustice's Clean Energy Program, said that collectively these actions would help expand transmission on a "pretty large scale."

But federal regulators still have few tools to resolve local environmental and property-rights disputes in vast swaths of the country — another major obstacle to the switch to cleaner energy.

In a 2023 survey by the University of Chicago, 56% of Americans said they supported building transmission lines to carry renewable power where it's needed, but that dropped to 48% when they were told the project would be built in their neighborhood.

Congress and federal regulators also haven't addressed transmission projects designed to connect the country's fragmented regional grids — such as carrying Wyoming's wind power into California, where rolling blackouts are on the rise.

Congress is working on broader reforms, but Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, recently suggested lawmakers wouldn't reach a deal anytime soon.

"The path forward is going to be one of incremental improvements to processes rather than one silver-bullet fix," Gasteiger said. "There are further problems that need to be dealt with."

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