Delivery to Utilities | Transmission

States, local jurisdictions, and customers have demanded enough energy supply to drive today’s grid transformation. But generation from dominant energy technologies, including nuclear and renewables, is not controllable. New renewables, mostly onshore wind and solar PV, produce variable output that changes the planning and operations paradigm. They are also not well placed at existing brownfield generator sites.

The cost-effectiveness of all types of bulk grid resources has become more subjective, and expansion of the bulk system is now the subject of deeply conflicting planning strategies. The industry is caught up in a bulk planning and spending frenzy, while customers suffer the greatest impacts from accelerating failures further downstream on the grid.

This next chapter in the GridIron dialogues will move grid transformation’s toughest issues down the line towards impacts on service to end use customers: the advantages and risks of a diversity of grid transformation strategies, how different approaches can impact rates and quality of electricity service, and how those impacts compare and interact with investment strategies further upstream and downstream on the grid.

Key Discussion Questions Include: How and to what extent should we leverage our existing generation and transmission infrastructure? What are the tradeoffs to building renewables in-state vs. remotely, to transmitting variable generation through space (transmission) vs. time (storage)? How much load growth do we expect, and how will it be met? How vulnerable is the bulk grid to natural hazards? Can ratepayers afford grid transformation? How do we balance the costs and benefits of climate mitigation with climate adaptation?