ELECTRICAL GRIDHelping the Grid Keep Pace with a Power-Hungry Economy
After remaining nearly flat for almost two decades, America’s demand for electricity is growing, driven by data centers for AI, electric vehicles, production of electrofuels, and other factors. This rising demand is one of many reasons the U.S. needs to dramatically ramp up the grid’s capacity to move electricity.
After remaining nearly flat for almost two decades, America’s demand for electricity is growing, driven by data centers for AI, electric vehicles, production of electrofuels, and other factors.
This rising demand is one of many reasons the U.S. needs to dramatically ramp up the grid’s capacity to move electricity, explained M. Granger Morgan, Hamerschlag University Professor of Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University.
Morgan moderated a recent public symposium on the subject at the National Academy of Sciences annual meeting.
Other reasons to boost the grid’s transmission capacity are to improve its resilience, to support decarbonization of the economy, and to allow the inclusion of more energy from a range of sources — wind, solar, fossil fuel sources with carbon capture, and advanced nuclear, said Morgan.
He noted that in order to both keep the economy strong and make serious progress in reducing CO2 emissions, according to a 2023 DOE estimate, the nation will need to more than double its high-voltage transmission capacity over the next few decades.
“It’s very unlikely we’ll manage to do that if all we do is to continue to try to build new large overhead transmission lines using business as usual,” said Morgan.
The symposium explored why the business-as-usual approach falls short, and how novel technologies and policies could create new paths forward.
Why it’s Challenging to Build New Transmission Lines
One option for moving more electricity through the grid is building more high-voltage transmission lines, and the nation will do some of that, said Morgan. But its potential is limited because it involves establishing new “rights-of-way” — corridors of land where electrical companies have the right to build and maintain the power lines.
Establishing new rights-of-way to install high-voltage transmission lines is difficult, in part because many entities often must agree to make a project happen, multiple speakers at the symposium noted.
“We have lots of different jurisdictions, different interests, and they all need to sign on to your project,” said David Victor, professor of innovation and public policy at the University of California, San Diego. “So, it’s very easy to explain why you have lots of ‘veto points,’ and you end up with very small expansion of the grid.”
For example, each state generally has control over whether and where things are built within its own boundaries, explained Susan Tierney, chair of the National Academies’ Board on Energy and Environmental Systems.
