DOE on the health and EJ benefits of expanding transmission

Cross-posting this from the Nerd Corner 🤓

The Department of Energy (DOE) has a new Transmission Impact Assessment report. They found that we're currently in a ‘restricted transmission growth’ scenario, but if we can improve things (for example, by passing the Energy Permitting Reform Act), we could build significantly more transmission lines and thus connect a lot more clean power to the grid. This would yield a lot of benefits, including for health, environmental justice, grid stability, and the economy.

By enabling access to low-cost generation and sharing reliability resources over broader regions, electricity consumers could save $320 billion in present-value costs through 2050 relative to a future with restricted transmission growth.

  • Added transmission would be beneficial during periods of grid-system stress when the reliability of electricity supply is at risk.
  • If cost savings from enhanced transmission lines are reinvested in reliability improvements, 5.5 million fewer households are estimated to lose power for an hour each year.
  • 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.
  • Clean electricity will grow more rapidly, reducing cumulative power sector carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2 e) emissions by 3,420 million metric tons through 2050. Cumulative emissions are 18% lower in an enhanced transmission scenario than they are in a restricted transmission scenario.
  • Climate and human health benefits through 2050, when monetized, sum to $730 billion and $50 billion in present-value terms, respectively, relative to a restricted transmission future.

One key point is that there are a lot of ‘peaker’ gas plants located disproportionately in historically disadvantaged communities. It's a point I always try to make when discussing the Energy Permitting Reform Act – the more transmission and clean energy we can build, the less we'll need these polluting peaker plants, and the healthier people will be in these frontline communities. The DOE study estimates that we could avoid up to 6,800 premature deaths through 2050, predominantly in these communities, by building more transmission lines and reducing power sector air pollution by up to 21%.

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It's also important to bear in mind that these arguments will be more effective in some Congressional offices than others. Democrats will tend to be more persuaded by the phasing out of fossil fuels and associated environmental justice benefits, while Republicans probably won't be happy to hear about the reduction in gas power generation, but are more likely to be persuaded by the points about a more reliable and secure grid with fewer blackouts and cheaper electricity 🤓

2 Replies
Joanne Leovy
457 Posts

@Dana Nuccitelli thanks for sharing this excellent and readable report, both here and in the ERPA training. Controversial new gas peaker plants are proposed/planned for my state, and it’s helpful to see the pollution, health and justice harms quantified in this way (both for Democratic MOC offices and for other groups working on state-level issues).

Is it possible to say whether EPRA would result in building transmission that lines up with “Enhanced Transmission” 1, 2 or 3 scenarios discussed in the report?

Does CCL staff suggest sharing this report with MOC staff?

It's closest to Scenario 2, @Joanne Leovy. More inter-regional transmission, sooner. There's no transmission investment tax credit, so it's not scenario 3. It might be somewhere between 1 and 2, but probably closest to 2, I think.

I'd say if your MOC is worried about EJ concerns around the Energy Permitting Reform Act, this is a good resource to share with the office.

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