By Andrew Evans

The lifeblood of the clean energy transition is electricity. We need more of it, we need a cleaner generation of it and we need it now. Thankfully, the United States has massive reserves of potential renewable generation projects like solar, wind and hydro located in economically beneficial areas of the country. However, creating the transmission we need that allows for bulk movement of electricity from such generating sites to places where electricity demand exists is encumbered by a series of barriers that makes it prohibitive to build.

Continuing to rely on the system we have today will destroy any chance of completing electrification goals prior to 2050, so the electric connection issue demands smart policy reforms. To solve this, we must address the main barriers to clean energy transmission: local opposition to projects, a byzantine permitting system encompassing all levels of government and uncertain answers to financial responsibility allocations.

Local communities in rural areas have a complicated history in renewable projects. On the one hand, these projects can provide essential revenue for cash-starved areas, yet projects face delays and objections that risk derailing policy goals in such areas.

While there is broad national agreement that a more connected grid is a good agenda, the methods for getting there are mixed. Approaches that aim for the creation of a new national transmission agency, or federal designation of nationally important transmission lines that will override local community objections, are misguided. Instead of shortening construction times, big government decrees will exacerbate urban-rural divides and create aggravated land owners. We can avoid these issues if we use incentives, create competition between states, and engage rural communities productively instead of punishingly.

Instead, communities should be incentivized to accept clean energy transmission projects using favorable financial agreements, in a way that will naturally bring the community on board by acting in their self-interest. This could potentially result in a situation where communities and states compete with one another to collect rent for the transmission lines, with incentives like lower land-use payments or quicker local zoning approvals.

Once the issue of local community approval is resolved in a cooperative way, addressing bureaucratic permitting delays is the next piece of the puzzle. According to a Net-Zero America by 2050 study by Princeton, we will need to triple the capacity of long-distance transmission to achieve net-zero, not to mention upgrading and building out even more short-range transmission.

This represents a massive challenge, and one that cannot be completed by using the current permitting regime. In a world of trade-offs, we must recognize that the construction of these transmission lines will green the grid faster, allowing for natural gas and coal electricity power plants to be taken offline faster, or perhaps be avoided altogether. This will reduce the total amount of carbon released in the atmosphere, allow access to ever-cheaper sources of electricity for consumers and promote American energy independence.

Functionally, how do we resolve these problems? First, transmission projects that cross state lines should be treated as natural gas pipelines currently are, with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) having permitting capabilities for new interstate natural gas pipelines. This means that Congress must revise the National Environmental Policy Act to give FERC this power as applied to transmission lines. Additionally, states and local governments must allow quicker and more standardized environmental assessments for these projects, which would also involve a cap on the amount of time that a project can be reviewed or number of environmental conditions applied, after which it would be considered approved. This process would allow for sensitive areas to be protected and overall damages mitigated.

The final challenge we must resolve to unlock a new era of renewable energy is that of capital allocation of transmission construction. While this may seem rather dull, it is at the heart of the issue, as without knowing who will pay for what, the private financial capital needed to build out a tripling of long-range transmission will not arise. FERC needs to take action to create a standardized method of allocating costs of long-range transmission construction in order to provide the certainty investors need. This will allow Wall Street to flex its financial muscles in the name of assured timelines and rate-guaranteed returns.

Building electricity transmission projects at the speed we need is the great barrier to America’s electrification goals. Any large transmission project today faces far too many obstacles to construction, and this presents a major issue for the future. We need to bring local communities along in local build-outs of electricity infrastructure, accept trade-offs in the name of construction speed, and provide financial certainty to investors. If we do all these things, transmission infrastructure will see construction nationwide, bringing cheap, clean, abundant and reliable energy to every corner of the United States.

Andrew Evans (MIA-EE ‘24) is a staff writer interested in energy policy, its future impacts, and its innumerable complexities.