National Transmission Needs Study Draft for Public Comment DEADLINE April 20, 2023

Business News/Analysis Energy (DOE)Federal Agency/Executive Branch Opinions Policy Public Comment Requests Closed

February 28, 2023

Print This Article Share it With Friends

(U.S. Department of Energy) Supported by the President’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (“BIL”), the National Transmission Needs Study (“Needs Study”) provides information about capacity constraints and congestion on the nation’s electric transmission grid. Formally known as the National Electric Transmission Congestion Study (“Congestion Study"), this report functions as DOE’s triennial state of the grid report.

Whereas previous Congestion Studies were limited to consider only historic congestion, BIL expanded the scope of this study to consider both historic and anticipated future capacity constraints and transmission congestion that could affect consumers. The Needs Study is an assessment of data and results from power sector reports published in the last several years and focuses on near-term future needs by 2030 and 2035. This report is not meant to be a long-term planning study and does not do any additional modeling to prescribe specific transmission solutions.

The Draft Needs Study is Now Available for Public Comment.

Comments are due within 45 days from publication of the Federal Register Notice.

Submit comments as email attachment (instructions below) to NeedsStudy.Comments@hq.doe.gov

The challenges facing America’s energy system have substantially shifted in the last one hundred years and will continue to evolve. Yet, today’s grid cannot adequately support 21st century challenges--including the integration of new clean energy sources and growing transportation and building electrification--while remaining resilient in the face of extreme weather exacerbated by climate change. The power grid is the backbone of the nation’s electricity system, and it must adapt to maintain reliability and resiliency.

OUTREACH AND ENGAGEMENT

The Needs Study was launched in January 2022 as part of DOE’s Building a Better Grid Initiative, which aims to catalyze the nationwide development of new and upgraded high-capacity transmission lines to create a more resilient electric grid. As part of the development of the Needs Study, DOE is required to engage with States, Tribes, and the regional grid entities to ensure regional, interregional, and national needs are met. A draft of the Needs Study was sent to these consultation entities in October 2022 and DOE received nearly 180 comments from 20 different consultation entities during the comment period.

The Needs Study was revised based on consultation entity feedback and released to the public for comment in February 2023. For more information on the comments received from consultation entities, see the Appendices of the Draft Needs Study. To see additional context, methodology, and data associated with information in the Draft Needs Study, view the Supplemental Material.

The public comment period closed on April 20, 2023 and the review process is underway.

Timeline of the National Transmission Needs Study

DRAFT NEEDS STUDY FINDINGS

Key findings of the draft Needs Study include the following:

There is a pressing need for additional electric transmission infrastructure. Nearly all regions in the United States will benefit from improved reliability and resilience given additional investments. Regions with high electricity costs—notably the Plains, Midwest, Mid-Atlantic, New York, and California—will also benefit from transmission that delivers cost-effective generation.

Increasing interregional transmission results in the largest benefits. Historically, the largest benefit in new interregional transfer capacity additions is between the three interconnection seams – between the Mountain and Plains regions and between Texas and all its neighbors (Southwest, Plains, and Delta regions). Large interregional transmission benefit is also found between the Plains and its two eastern neighbors, the Midwest and Delta regions.

Needs will shift over time. The clean energy transformation, evolving regional demand, and increasingly extreme weather events must all be accommodated by the future power grid. Significant transmission deployment is needed as soon as 2030 in the Plains, Midwest, and Texas regions. By 2040, large deployments will also be needed in the Mountain, Mid-Atlantic, and Southeast regions. The same is true for interregional transmission deployment; by 2040 there is a significant need for new interregional transmission between nearly all regions.

PREVIOUS CONGESTION STUDIES

Learn more about and read the previous National Electric Transmission Congestion Studies:

2006 Study

2009 Study

2015 Study

2020 Draft Study

SUBMITTING COMMENTS

DOE is requesting feedback from the public about analysis gaps or any other comments or suggestions. Public comments and questions can be by submitted by emailing NeedsStudy.Comments@hq.doe.gov. All public comments are due 45 days from publication of the Needs Study notification in the Federal Register. Please follow the following guidelines:

When submitting comments, please include “Comments on the Public Draft” in the subject line and indicate what part of the study your comments refer to (e.g. “Entire Study” or “I. Introduction”);

When submitting a request for more information, please include “Request for additional information” in the subject line;

When submitting a request for a meeting, please include “Meeting request” in the subject line.

Please submit any inquires on the Needs Study to NeedsStudy.Comments@hq.doe.gov. READ MORE

National Transmission Needs Study Draft for Public Comment (U.S. Department of Energy)

DOE touts grid expansion plans as operators raise concerns (E&E News Energywire)

Permitting Plan B: Democrats lean on FERC, DOE (E&E Daily)

The big problem: The U.S. needs thousands of miles of new transmission lines (E&E Daily))

Excerpt from E&E News Energywire:
Yet grid organizations in two major regions — Texas and the Southeast — signaled they aren’t eager for closer ties. And PJM Interconnection LLC, which manages the grid in swaths of the mid-Atlantic and Midwest, said the analysis needs to be stronger if DOE hopes to use it to implement new transmission authority under the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law.

PJM “stands ready to assist the DOE in that effort,” the grid operator said in public comments attached to the new report. “However, in reviewing the draft, it is hard to find the specific analysis that supports the study’s findings — an issue that could provide grist for later legal challenges to the [Energy] Secretary’s actions that are being taken in reliance upon the study.”

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said during a webinar last year that “we need more transmission, period, to deliver this cleaner and cheaper and more reliable and resilient energy.”

According to the needs study, building larger interregional transmission lines would open channels for more power flows into stressed states in emergencies, preventing blackouts and enormous price spikes like those that wracked Texas and other central U.S. states during Winter Storm Uri in February 2021.

Doubling or tripling the current transmission system could cost up to several trillion dollars by midcentury as electrification of transportation and heating grows and old lines are replaced, according to research cited in the DOE study. DOE said it is also preparing a National Transmission Planning Study with a detailed cost-benefit analysis of grid expansion.
...

But the study pointedly endorses greater interregional grid ties, highlighting an energy policy issue with a long, controversial political history with more chapters about to be written (Greenwire, Feb. 24).
...

The report comes as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is considering requiring transfers of power among regional electric grids, particularly during extreme weather events.
...

Major renewable energy resources tend to be located far away from major cities, so additional long-distance power lines could help deliver carbon-free power to where it’s most needed, it added.

As demand for electricity increases in the coming years, the greatest growth in power transfer capacity should occur between the Great Plains and Midwest, the Midwest and mid-Atlantic, and New York and New England, the study concluded. The document also touches on other issues being evaluated by FERC and considered priorities for renewable energy supporters — specifically, transmission planning and the grid connection process for new energy projects.
...

The study was warmly welcomed by Chicago-based Invenergy LLC, developer of the proposed $7 billion Green Belt Express line that could help carry up to 5,000 MW of Great Plains wind power to Great Lakes and mid-Atlantic population centers.

A key 530-mile segment of the line, running from Kansas to central Missouri, is a candidate for a federal loan guarantee, according to DOE — one of the new or strengthened transmission initiatives provided for DOE in the infrastructure act (Energywire, Dec. 19, 2022).
...

But the study has already brought criticism in its comments section.

A view from Texas was that closer interconnections could increase exposure to disruptions in neighboring grid systems, like a fast-moving disruption in January 2019 that arguably put the entire Eastern grid system “on the brink of a collapse,” ERCOT said.

At the time, an equipment failure at a Florida utility touched off an 18-minute grid disturbance that affected the eastern United States.

In its comments attached to the needs study, ERCOT said DOE hadn’t produced an adequate cost-benefit case for building additional lines into Texas.

“Without such an analysis, ERCOT questions whether the study can establish an independent economic ‘need,’” the Texas operator said.

Perhaps the sharpest pushback came from the Southeastern Regional Transmission Planning (SERTP) organization, a planning forum for utilities in the region.

...

SERTP said building more transmission links could allow some regions to “lean on” their neighbors, shirking their own power supply responsibilities.

It contended that DOE has greatly expanded traditional transmission policy that could lead to unlawful federal intrusion on state energy authority. READ MORE