The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) have struggled for almost two decades to take advantage of a 2005 law designed to help speed up transmission projects needed to move solar and wind energy across U.S. states and regions. Now, thanks to provisions in the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), the agencies are gaining the authority needed to spur that growth. August will open the door to tests for both these efforts as a new report is released on national transmission needs and a finalized rule to help address shortfalls.

Electrical planners say today’s transmission shortfalls must be addressed if the country is to meet the clean energy goal to decarbonize the electrical grid. Getting wind and solar energy from remote areas to population centers requires more wires, especially across the borders of the three major interconnections and between the regions within those interconnections where wholesale power is directed to individual utilities and their grids. State regulatory authorities currently have the power to block these lines, which has become a contributor to the current backlog of more than 2,000 gigawatts of new capacity waiting for approval.

Changes in legislation

The IIJA includes language outlining FERC’s authority to approve transmission projects along the national interest electric transmission corridors (NIETCs). It does this by amending a section of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 to address ambiguities in the original legislation that judges have used to decide against proposed projects. The 2021 legislation called on FERC to outline new procedures for enforcing their backstop siting authority—that is, their authority to force approval of new lines that states have either rejected or neglected to address—within NIETC boundaries. The new FERC rule on this process is expected to be released in August.

Among the major changes in the legislation is the elimination of the one-year delay between when a transmission company first files for state permissions and when they can begin prefiling activities with FERC. The new rule enables developers working within an NIETC to begin both activities simultaneously. To trigger a FERC intervention, permit applicants must demonstrate that state regulators have denied their application, failed to act in a timely manner or conditioned approval in a way that makes a proposal economically infeasible or undermines the developer’s ability to significantly reduce transmission capacity constraints or congestion.

Comments to the new rule closed in April, paving the way for a final rulemaking in August.

Concurrently, the DOE is shifting how it defines NIETCs, providing added relief to developers. Previously, corridors were defined in broad geographical terms. To qualify for FERC backstop protection, transmission projects needed to fall within those boundaries, with multiple environmental and other reviews as project routes were developed. Another DOE proposed framework, the National Transmission Needs Study, is also expected to be finalized in August. It will outline regions where added interconnections are now or anticipated to become necessary. Plans addressing those needs can be submitted for approval as NIETCs on a “route-specific” basis. Once the DOE greenlights a project, FERC approval should be much easier than under previous guidelines.

Considering future transmission needs

These DOE studies have, in the past, focused on existing studies and data. With the August publication, the agency is also considering future transmission needs as identified through modeling where clean energy resources could expand. For example, in a draft of the study released in March, officials cited significant low-cost generation potential in the nation’s midsection that could provide low-cost resources with improved transmission. 

The report notes opportunities for boosting connections between Texas, which has previously maintained limited ties to resources outside its borders, and the Western and Eastern Interconnections, the two other major U.S. and Canadian grids. Significant value could be realized through further transmission improvements between them.

These efforts are unrelated to moves made during this spring’s debt limit negotiations to speed energy-project permits. That legislation included provisions to update the National Environmental Policy Act to ensure environmental impact statements can be completed within two years. However, it didn’t address transmission-siting issues. Proposals requiring regions to have the capacity to transfer at least 30% of peak electricity demand between each other were scrapped. Instead, lawmakers called on the North American Electric Reliability Corp. to study how much transfer capacity is needed to strengthen grid reliability. The report on the study’s results could take more than two years to get back to Congress.

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