MIT report: Modern technologies, supporting regulations needed to support grid capacity

Increased adoption of advanced transmission technologies (ATTs) — including dynamic line ratings, high-performance conductors, advanced power flow control devices, and topology optimization — can help expand the capacity of the electric grid quickly and cost-effectively, according to a report released by the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research.

“These technologies may not be appropriate in every setting, but researchers, regulators, and policymakers increasingly recognize that they are widely under-adopted,” write the MIT authors of A Roadmap for Advanced Transmission Technology Adoption , which examines both grid enhancing technologies (GETs) and High Performance Conductors under the umbrella of ATTs.

Julia Selker, executive director of the Working for Advanced Transmission Technologies (WATT) Coalition, which advocates for policy that supports wide deployment of GETs to accelerate the clean energy transition and lower energy costs, said the MIT report “concisely explains” the urgent need for modern technologies on the transmission system and the benefits these tools will bring.

“The past decade has shown us that U.S. utilities and grid operators won’t move ahead with [GETs] without explicit support and requirements from policymakers and regulators, as suggested in the report,” said Selker in a statement.

The paper notes there are currently three barriers to ATT deployment: utility profit structures, current regulatory practices, and misalignment in planning for generator interconnection and transmission expansion.

“The United States has reached a pivotal moment for its electric grid. After decades of low growth in electricity demand, demand growth has begun to increase due to new data centers, increased domestic manufacturing, and electrification,” says the report. “However, long-standing barriers are set to limit the generation and transmission of affordable clean energy to meet this demand growth, raising costs for consumers and hampering the clean energy transition.

“While it is too soon to evaluate the precise pace of electricity demand growth, it is not too soon to begin identifying — and enacting — solutions,” the report says.

The MIT authors propose five categories of regulatory and legislative action to overcome these barriers, including recommendations for action by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the U.S. Department of Energy and its national laboratories, regional transmission organizations and independent system operators, state legislators, and state regulators.

For example, transmission providers could be required to use ATTs in certain contexts, according to the report, and transmission providers and regulators could be required to conduct robust analyses of the value of ATTs for their current footprint.

Additionally, financial incentives could be created for transmission providers to adopt ATTs where they can provide significant net benefits, the report says.

Transmission providers could also be required to release additional data on the grid and build digital tools to inform ATTs adoption, and to release data to a third-party entity that takes on the responsibility of planning ATT adoption.

At the same time, although these solutions will support increased adoption, they will not eliminate the underlying incentives that discourage ATTs adoption, write the MIT authors.

“More transformative change, such as by shifting the responsibility of ATT planning altogether to a third party, could,” they write, noting that this would enable the rapid buildout of transmission and the connection of new clean energy generation sources to the grid — lowering electricity prices, reducing U.S. emissions, and facilitating continued innovation in energy-intensive industries.

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