No Way to Get There Without FERC Acting Now
Betsy Beck is director of transmission policy with the American Wind Energy Association.
FERC’s signature rulemaking on transmission, Order 1000, is foundational for anyone who wants to understand why needed transmission is (or is not) getting built in the United States.
One of the primary goals was simple, yet lofty: to identify more efficient or cost-effective transmission solutions to the individual needs identified in local and regional transmission planning processes. With that end in mind, the order requires neighboring transmission planning regions to coordinate planning, but stops short of requiring a joint process and evaluation of interregional solutions.
But looking back on the five years since it was originally adopted, the goals of improved transmission planning that many had hoped for have yet to be achieved.
At the time Order 1000 was issued, FERC agreed that “additional, and potentially significant, investment in new transmission facilities will be required in the future to meet reliability needs and integrate new sources of generation.”
That future is now the present reality. Renewable resources have grown faster than most predicted.
For instance, solar and wind have been two of the largest sources of new capacity added over the last several years, and that trend is expected to continue. By 2030, wind could supply twenty percent or more of America’s electricity.