The lack of an adequate transmission grid, combined with a surge in renewable energy projects and slow review process, has caused backlogs in getting clean energy projects online.
A high-voltage transmission line in York County, PA. Watch Tower
A technician works on a power grid update along Route 50 in Cambridge, MD.
Sections of electric towers lie in a staging yard operated by AUI Power in Cambridge, MD. They will be used for a power line project between Cambridge and the town of Vienna, about 15 miles away. (Dave Harp)
High-voltage transmission lines march through farmland in Lancaster County, PA.
A transmission line tower and wires leading from a hydroelectric dam in Lancaster County, PA.
The lack of an adequate transmission grid, combined with a surge in renewable energy projects and slow review process, has caused backlogs in getting clean energy projects online.
As Chesapeake Bay drainage states and the nation move to fulfill bold commitments to convert to renewable energy in the next few decades, an inconvenient truth has become apparent: It can’t be done without many more transmission lines.
Through neighborhoods, along roads and across mountains, the nation’s network of power lines needs to double or triple in the next decade if the clean energy revolution is to succeed, warn the U.S. Department of Energy, scientists, environmental groups and many policymakers.
Thousands of miles of new lines are needed nationwide to get energy from solar panels, inland and offshore wind turbines, and battery storage facilities to the places where people live in large numbers.
High-voltage transmission lines march through farmland in Lancaster County, PA.
Think of the electric grid system like a network of highways. Until recent years, major transmission lines were the super highways that connected the grid with a relatively few coal and natural gas power plants. But now, more highways are needed to reach smaller but more numerous renewable energy sources, many of which may be located far from population centers.
But the needed buildout is off to a slow start and Congress, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and Biden administration are stepping in to jumpstart the work and require interstate sharing of electricity.
“We must improve and expand national transmission capacity to meet the challenges of more frequent and intense weather, provide access to diverse sources of clean electricity and fulfill electrical demands driven by increased electrification of homes, businesses and vehicles,” said Maria Robinson, director the U.S. Department of Energy’s Grid Deployment Office.
A technician works on a power grid update along Route 50 in Cambridge, MD.
Despite the clear need for an expanded grid, building largescale transmission projects in the U.S. has declined in the past decade. And few of the new high-voltage transmission lines connect different regional grids — which will be needed to send electricity from largescale solar and wind projects in the Midwest back to feed East Coast demand.
The lack of an adequate transmission grid, combined with a surge in renewable energy projects and an overwhelmed review process, has caused massive backlogs in getting clean energy projects online.
In PJM Interconnection, which operates the grid serving Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and District of Columbia, the backup has averaged seven years, according to the American Council on Renewable Energy. In 2020, more than 3,000 energy projects were in line.
PJM recently announced reforms to its review process, including studying projects in batches rather than individually, but it did not address the transmission line shortage.
“The development of new transmission is key,” said Noah Strand, author of a new report on PJM’s interconnection woes for the American Council on Renewable Energy.
So, even with reforms in place, states such as Maryland and Virginia could face problems in meeting their aggressive clean-energy goals, warns a recent study by the Natural Resources Defense Council.
A high-voltage transmission line in York County, PA.
“Maryland has the most aggressive goals in the nation to reduce carbon emissions. The only way to meet the goals is to move the energy from where it is produced to where it is needed, and that’s going to mean more [transmission] lines,” said Kim Coble, executive director of the Maryland League of Conservation Voters.
Dominion Energy, with 300 million customers in Virginia and North Carolina, agrees that grid improvements are needed, said Gregory Mathe, manager of electric transmission communications.
“We are squarely focused on ensuring the grid in Virginia is reliable and meets energy demands while ensuring the conversion to renewable resources,” he said. “We will invest in the transmission grid to ensure those components are able to move forward.”
The backup also threatens to keep utilities and other developers of renewable energy from taking advantage of massive clean energy incentives being offered by the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act.
Sections of electric towers lie in a staging yard operated by AUI Power in Cambridge, MD. They will be used for a power line project between Cambridge and the town of Vienna, about 15 miles away. (Dave Harp)
Expanding the grid would not only bring more renewable energy online, but also result in a more resilient reservoir of power needed to avoid blackouts during extreme weather events. It could also mean cheaper electricity for consumers.
More electricity is also needed to power the growing ranks of electric vehicles and to power data centers that have become especially concentrated in northern Virginia.
The necessary planning for such growth, especially to bring in power that originates beyond a regional grid’s service area, has been mostly absent.
Disagreements over who should pay for regional transmission upgrades, a project approval system that allows state authorities in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia to nix projects and set conditions, as well as public opposition on the local level, have hindered new transmission lines.
PJM has come under criticism for its lack of proactive transmission planning and its long interconnection backlog for renewable energy.
“We need to blow up the grid,” added Dana Ammann, policy analyst of the Natural Resources Defense Council. “PJM is pretty behind on this. We need to be proactive and identify the larger lines that could do the work better than a scattered piecemeal approach.”
The widespread call for more power lines has attracted strange bedfellows, including influential environmental groups that in the past might have viewed new swaths of power lines across the landscape as a massive environmental threat.
“People are coming to grips with a new fact. We cannot consume energy without having impacts,” said Coble, of the Maryland League of Conservation Voters.
Groups such as the Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Fund, Earthjustice, Natural Resources Defense Council and Union of Concerned Scientists sent a letter to Biden last December, urging him to expand transmission infrastructure to achieve the nation’s climate goals.
The groups favor an approach called “Smart from the Start”: early engagement with affected communities on concerns about environmental impacts, public health and environmental justice.
Though not part of the coalition, the National Audubon Society, known for its emphasis on protecting birds, released a paper in August titled, Birds and Transmission: Building the Grid Birds Need. Yes, transmission lines kill birds, the group observed, but climate change could wipe out 389 species of American birds.
But a big challenge going forward is getting communities to allow, if not embrace, new power lines in their midst.
In 2017, PJM authorized the construction of a new high-voltage power line through York and Franklin counties in Pennsylvania and Harford and Washington counties in Maryland to ease electric congestion in the Baltimore-Washington area and to carry future power from renewable energy sources.
The Maryland Public Service Commission approved the Maryland portion of the power line in 2020. But later that year, the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission denied permits to build the line, siding with more than 200 property owners who stood to lose portions of their land to eminent domain.
The Pennsylvania commission said the line offered no benefits to state residents and cited detrimental economic and environmental impacts on real estate, farming practices and tourism.
“PJM has shown this project is a necessary investment to address market inefficiencies and reliability issues,” argued Todd Burns of line contractor Transource Energy after the decision. “These problems do not go away with today’s action, and ultimately they will need to be addressed. Pennsylvania will play an important role in transmission grid expansion given the evolving electrical needs in this region and the growing influx of new generation that is expected.”
For all the headwinds pushing against a pivotal transmission buildout, the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Ammann thinks change is happening and will increasingly be driven by a public demanding action on climate change.
“I feel there is more energy and openness to what we need to do in order to achieve the aspirations that we’ve laid out,” she said. “I think people are feeling the impacts of climate change more clearly every single season and are motivated to push their representatives in the right direction and demand accountability from agencies involved in permitting and siting.”
The transmission capacity shortfall has prompted an emerging federal intervention.
Biden is pushing Congress to pass legislation to streamline permitting rules for clean energy projects. In the meantime, he issued an order in August directing federal agencies to ease siting and permitting steps for interstate transmission lines.
A transmission line tower and wires leading from a hydroelectric dam in Lancaster County, PA.
The same month, the U.S. Department of Energy announced its intention of designating “National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors.” Selection of priority corridors would open up transmission line funding under the Inflation Reduction Act and could overrule state energy commissions that haven’t acted promptly on siting power lines or have denied permits for them. Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania all have such independent commissions.
During the protracted budget reconciliation process in Congress this summer, Democrats tried to include the “Big Wires Act” that would have expanded the federal government’s role in approving interstate transmission lines. But Republican legislators objected and it was not included.
Now, Sen. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat from Colorado, is preparing to introduce a bill that contains those initiatives. It would require regional transmission organizations like PJM to share at least 30% of their peak electricity with neighboring regions. The intent is to encourage more transmission lines as well as to bolster grid reliability during extreme weather to enable the movement of power to where it’s needed when solar and wind generation wanes.
In July, FERC announced a generator interconnection reform rule. One thrust is to restructure how utilities and regional grid operators plan and weigh the benefits of long-range transmission projects. FERC also is requiring that regional grid operators adopt a first-ready, first-served study process to weed out speculative clean-energy projects that often never get built.
Some industry analysts are critical that the reforms do not address the root cause of permitting backups: lack of adequate transmission capacity to hook the renewable energy projects to the grid.
With a lethargic response so far to new transmission lines, some are urging that existing power lines be rewired with new higher-voltage lines or that high-voltage lines be restrung with new, state-of-the-art materials that can double the current.
There also are smart technologies that can more efficiently regulate the flow of electricity. Others suggest private contractors be given permission to build transmission lines on speculation, then sell electric capacity.
Some of these grid-enhancing technologies are being put into use. In its Pittsburgh service area, Duquesne Light has rolled out dynamic line ratings, which can expand the amount of electricity carried through lines by moving it away from overloaded lines detected using real-time sensors.
But multiple industry analysts say that many utilities are wary of new technology because the standard business model provides guaranteed revenue returns by charging ratepayers for new infrastructure projects.
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