A new paper lays out a five-part framework for unlocking the potential of advanced transmission technologies.
The paper, A Roadmap for Advanced Transmission Technology Adoption, was authored by:
- Brian Deese, the current Institute Innovation Fellow at MIT and MIT’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, where he is focused on researching and developing strategies to address climate change and promote sustainable economic growth. Deese previously served as Director of the White House National Economic Council
- Rob Gramlich, President of Grid Strategies LLC, a Washington DC-based consultancy focused on transmission and power markets.
- Anna Pasnau, an MIT Research Associate working with Deese.
“U.S. electricity deployment is falling behind the pace necessary to meet projected demand growth -- posing risks for the United States’ ability to meet its clean energy deployment goals and raising costs for ratepayers,” the paper said. “In recent months, this challenge has become more urgent as the gradual shift of electrification has collided with a near-term increase in electricity demand brought on by the electrification of buildings and transportation, renewed domestic manufacturing, cryptocurrency mining, and data centers.”
The paper said that increased use of advanced transmission technologies, or ATTs, “can play a major role in meeting this demand growth quickly and cost-effectively. However, electricity market structures -- which disincentivize investment in innovation -- are impeding progress towards modernizing the electric grid.”
Policies that overcome these obstacles “to incentivize ATT adoption can expand grid capacity, lower costs for ratepayers, and help the U.S. meet its energy deployment and energy security goals.”
The report said that ATTs refer to a set of technologies that can increase physical line capacity and lists the following as a few of the most widely used technologies:
- Dynamic line ratings
- Advanced power flow control devices
- Topology optimization
- High-performance conductors
The paper further details how each of these technologies can yield positive grid benefits.
For example, the paper said that dynamic line ratings increase capacity by an average of 10-30 percent, take less than three to six months to deploy, and cost less than 5 percent of the price of building new transmission.
The incentives for transmission providers, information provided to regulators, and features of electricity markets slow the adoption of ATT technologies in the United States, the paper said.
Among other things, “the profit structure of electricity markets fails to incentivize transmission providers to adopt many forms of ATTs, despite their benefits to ratepayers and capacity,” the paper said.
The paper lays out reforms in five categories that can drive adoption of ATTs.
- Requiring transmission providers to use ATTs in certain contexts;
- Requiring transmission providers and regulators to conduct robust analyses of the value of ATTs for their current footprint;
- Creating financial incentives for transmission providers to adopt ATTs where they can provide significant net benefits;
- Requiring transmission providers to release additional data on the grid and building digital tools to inform ATTs adoption;
- Requiring transmission providers to release data to a third-party entity that takes on the responsibility of planning ATT adoption.
