Federal energy regulators on Monday directed U.S. electricity grid operators to plan new transmission infrastructure that can deliver more renewable energy and defend against extreme weather.
Adivided Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said grid planners and transmission owners must look 20 years ahead to expected shifts in how electricity is produced and consider a range of long-term benefits to building and upgrading power lines. The vote for the rule, Order 1920, was 2-1.
FERC also established new requirements for how the costs of building high-voltage power lines should be allocated among customers, pulling states deeper into issues around regional infrastructure. Also Monday, FERC unanimously passed a separate rule, Order 1977, that gives it the authority to grant permits to electric transmission lines in certain instances where states do not act first.
The development of long-distance power lines that cross multiple states is increasingly dividing red and blue states. Many led by Democrats are adopting clean energy and climate goals that will require a larger grid, while some Republicans wary of a transition away from fossil fuels have questioned the costs of projects that may cross into their borders.
Monday’s FERC decision seeks to change federal and state approaches to regional planning that has made it harder to shift the nation to low-carbon technology. In areas where grid planning isn’t well coordinated among states, projections for rapidly expanding demand from data centers and the electrification of homes and vehicles is raising concern about grid reliability.
FERC Chair Willie Phillips called both new rules “giant steps” and said the transmission planning and cost allocation rule “cannot come fast enough.”
“Combined, these two new rules make the first significant FERC action on transmission policy in more than a decade,” Phillips said during Monday’s meeting.
New transmission projects spanning hundreds of miles are crucial if more renewable energy is to move from prime wind- and solar-producing areas of the Great Plains and Southwest to urban centers. Seeking to expand the economic and political argument for a bigger and more resilient power grid, the Department of Energy has stressed the crucial role transmission lines can play in preventing or recovering from grid emergencies caused by weather assaults like Winter Storm Uri that rocked the Texas system in 2021.
I don’t fully understand the jurisdictional and distributional relationships among power plants, grid operators, utilities, and municipalities.
Austin Energy, for example, maintains supplies to my neighborhood, and after a six-day outage following an ice storm, they provided an abundance of work for a tree-trimming contractor to cut large clearances around the lines.
AE gets it power from the ERCOT grid, but also maintains power plants and is construction community solar (in part to protect itself from ERCOT’s).
The US transmission system is old and is in dire need of upgrading anyway. I seem to remember an average age of 40 years and a quarter or so over 50 years. New York is even worse.
It is all very Nice to have personal freedoms, aka desires, but!
In wartime and similar situations many are rightly suspended for the Greater good.
CAGW is an analogous situation where personal/local desires should not supersede the needs of the bluddy planet.
Of course there is the minor detail of the competence, honesty, etc, of the decision makers.