The Transmission Transition and the Electric Ratepayer, Part 2

Deck: 

Price Tag in Customer Rates?

Fortnightly Magazine - May 2024
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This continues our analysis of future electric transmission requirements based on the 2020 Princeton Net Zero (PNZ) report, which findings have found their way into official Department of Energy press announcements related to the 2023 Inflation Reduction Act.

The PNZ research found the net zero target will require that U.S. electricity transmission systems expand "~60% by 2030 and may need to triple...by 2050" to connect wind and solar facilities to demand. In percentage terms, tripling is a two hundred percent increase. The cost estimates for total capital invested in transmission are "$360 billion through 2030 and $2.4 trillion by 2050."

In Part I, we reviewed the history of electric transmission expansion from 1972-2016. In this part, we look ahead at what would be needed to meet the PNZ report projections.

In Part 1 we used Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Form 1 annual reporting data from 1972 to 2016, analyzed at the national level, to establish a historical context for annual growth in U.S. Investor-Owned Utility (IOU) investment in Transmission Plant in Service and annual transmission Operations and Maintenance (O&M) expenses.

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