Full Title: Mind the Regulatory Gap: How to Enhance Local Transmission Oversight
Author(s): Claire Wayner, Kaja Rebane, and Chaz Teplin
Publisher(s): Rocky Mountain Institute
Publication Date: November 7, 2024
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
Amid the combined challenges of load growth and a changing generation mix, the US transmission grid is in urgent need of expansion and upgrading.
However, while spending by US utilities on transmission has quadrupled over the past two decades, spending has moved in the opposite direction of what we need — from high-voltage regional lines to lower-voltage local projects. This is an inefficient way to expand the grid. In addition, the lack of robust review of local projects means they may be costlier and have greater land use and environmental impacts than larger, well-planned regional projects.
In this report, RMI shows how a regulatory gap is enabling billions of dollars in local transmission spending annually to escape scrutiny by federal and state regulators. This gap is a crucial contributor to the recent shift in spending by utilities to lower-voltage local projects. The exhibits below illustrate some of the causes of the regulatory gap and how the lack of a robust review process for local projects compares to the robust process for regional projects.