New DOE National Transmission Needs Study
Dana Nuccitelli
Dana Nuccitelli
Staff Action Team Leader Congressional Liaison
1854 Posts

I'm cross-posting this from the Nerd Corner 🤓

The Department of Energy (DOE) published its latest National Transmission Needs Study (here's also the last version from a year ago). It's basically DOE's effort to identify how much more transmission (and planning) we need around the USA. Some key findings:

  • The total transmission system of the contiguous United States will need to expand to 2.1 to 2.6 times the size of the 2020 system by 2050 and interregional transmission needs to grow 1.9 to 3.5 times.
  • Interregional coordination to meet resource adequacy, using both existing and new transmission, can save the U.S. electricity system hundreds of billions of dollars.
  • Accelerating transmission deployment beyond historical rates reduces power system CO2 emissions by 10 to 11 billion metric tons (43% to 48%) through 2050.
  • More electricity demand (from electrification, data centers, AI, etc.) means more need for transmission and more emissions savings.

And in a scenario where we meet our net zero emissions by 2050 Paris commitment:

  • Accelerated transmission expansion leads to national electricity system cost savings of $270–490 billion through 2050.
  • Approximately $1.60 to $1.80 is saved for every dollar spent on transmission.
  • And again, more electricity demand means more benefits from transmission expansion.
  • In this case our transmission system expands 2.4 to 3.5 times between 2020 and 2050.
  • Future inter-regional transfer capacities for many regions exceed 30% of the region’s peak demand and total interregional transfer capacity increases to 2.6 to 4.6 times the 2020 capacity by 2050.
  • Constraining transmission growth results in higher cost portfolios with more nuclear generation, hydrogen, and carbon capture capacity required.

So basically we're going to need to more than double our existing transmission capacity by 2050, and to reach net zero probably triple it. Inter-regional transmission capacity will similarly need to at least double and maybe more than quadruple by 2050. The more transmission we can build, the easier and cheaper it will be to deploy clean energy and reduce climate and air pollution. If we're too slow to build out our transmission system, we'll have to rely on more expensive solutions to curb emissions.

It also shows that the BIG WIRES target of reaching around 30% of peak demand inter-regional transfer capacity is a good one, and many regions should try to exceed that number.

Most importantly, it shows that as we've been saying, the transmission provisions in the Energy Permitting Reform Act are very good and important in meeting our climate commitments and saving money! 🤓

27day(s)
2 Replies
Dana Nuccitelli
Dana Nuccitelli
Staff Action Team Leader Congressional Liaison
1854 Posts

One other point worth making, noted in this report:

Peaking power plant capacity could be reduced by 68 GW by 2041 relative to a restricted transmission future, reducing pollution that disproportionately impacts disadvantaged communities across the country.

In other words, if we can build more transmission lines, we can connect more clean power to the grid and rely less on natural gas ‘peaker’ plants that produce relatively high pollution, and that are located disproportionately near historically disadvantaged communities. That means the Energy Permitting Reform Act would significantly improve environmental health and justice in these historically disadvantaged communities 🤓

23day(s)
Joanne Leovy
Joanne Leovy
State Coordinator Group Leader Congressional Liaison
420 Posts

@Dana Nuccitelli thank you as always for the amazing work you do to identify pertinent new information and present it to us in a format we can digest and understand! This report is highly pertinent to my state right now, and will be useful to share with our members, other groups working in the energy space, and grasstops leaders. CCL staff providing volunteers with this type of information really helps our “brand”.

22day(s)

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