› Biden plan for cleaner power system faces daunting transmission challenges,
If the nation is to meet President Joe Biden’s goal of cutting America’s greenhouse gas emissions in half by the end of the decade, it will have to undertake a vast transformation toward renewable energy.
And to achieve that, the near-impossible will be required: A broad network of transmission lines will have to be built to carry solar and wind power across the continent to deliver electricity to homes and businesses — something the administration envisions accomplishing by 2035.
What’s more, utility-scale batteries on a widespread scale, to store renewable energy for peak-use periods, would be needed.
The financial and technological tasks of linking cleaner power sources to an aging electric grid pummeled by climate change are daunting enough. Add to them the legal fights that states and localities will likely mount to fight the build-outs of transmission lines in their areas, and the challenges become extraordinary.
It normally takes years to win authorization to build new transmission lines. Because many such decisions are made at the local level, critics across the country who oppose having wires strung through their landscapes could further prolong the battles.
“I’m very worried,” said Larry Gasteiger, executive director of the transmission industry trade group WIRES. “Given the timeframes we’re looking at, it’s almost hard to see how we meet them. We really need to have everyone pulling on the oars at the same time and in the same direction, and unfortunately, we’re not seeing that, to be honest.”
The idea behind the Biden plan for cleaner power transmission is to transform the fuel for America’s power grid from mostly coal and natural gas to wind, solar and hydroelectric power. The U.S. electricity system relies on about 600,000 miles of transmission lines that carry electricity from power plants or dams to communities and 5.5 million miles of local distribution lines, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers.
As one of the largest transmission systems in North America, the Tennessee Valley Authority maintains 16,200 miles of line — enough to span the United States six times over. But five years ago, TVA balked at a plan to link to a $2.5 billion transmission line proposed by Clean Line Energy to bring wind-generated power to Tennessee from Oklahoma and Texas where wind power is more abundant.
The 700-mile-long direct current transmission line had obtained federal approval. But given opposition from landowners and politicians in Arkansas and Tennessee, it couldn’t win all the rights of way and TVA was reluctant to contract for the wind-generated power with plenty of its own generation at the time. After a decade of planning, investing and efforts for approvals, the firm that was developing the transmission line accepted defeat and shut down.
Even projects that ultimately succeed tend to consume far longer than expected. A 730-mile transmission line to carry wind energy from turbines in Wyoming to the electricity-hungry Southwest, begun in 2005, took 15 years to gain all the required federal and local permitting. Final approval ultimately paved the way for the construction of the TransWest Express Transmission Project to begin.
“It’s mostly local, not federal, authority,” Verleger said. “Is this administration going to issue rules that override the states? Will the Supreme Court approve them? How many years will that take?”
A fossil fuel power plant can be built near the populations that will use its energy. By contrast, wind and solar power is often developed in the Great Plains. Wind turbines in Texas, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas and Illinois provide more than half of the nation’s wind-generated electricity, according to the Energy Information Administration. Yet that power is most needed by bustling cities along the coasts.
“You have to build a lot of transmission lines, and people have made that very, very difficult,” said Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy and Economic Research. “You’ve got the ‘Nimby’ [Not In My Back Yard], the ‘Numby’ [Not Under My Back Yard], and ‘Banana’ [Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone]. Those are still very powerful political drivers around the country.”
Many steps and players are involved in building inter-regional transmission lines. The transmission system, which includes high-voltage lines that bring electricity from power sources to communities, is regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. It approves rates for transmission lines.
But permitting and siting for transmission is typically approved at the state and local level, Gasteiger said. The distribution system, which strings power within communities, is regulated by a myriad collection of state and local agencies.
“It’s the nature of transmission that it takes an awfully long time to get it from start to finish to get it built and put into service,” Gasteiger said.
The cost of decarbonizing the power sector is yet another hurdle. Using the technology available then, Wood Mackenzie estimated in 2019 that to fully decarbonize the U.S. power grid, including eliminating all fossil fuels and building the new generation and transmission sources, would cost $4.5 trillion. That would cost every U.S. household about $35,000, or $2,000 a year for 20 years.
The expense of building or repairing transmission lines is often borne by utilities, which, in turn, generally pass the costs on to customers. Thousands of utilities dot the country. Building transmission lines requires coordination among those companies and the cities, states and private properties where the lines must cross.
To spur investment in transmission, Congress directed the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in 2005 to begin providing incentives for transmission projects. The commission, though, began scaling back those incentives in 2012.
“I’m hearing a lot of happy talk,” Gasteiger said. “I’m not seeing actions that match up with the talk about how much transmission is needed.”