Turning Transmission Reform into Real Grid Capacity
Across the United States and around the world, policymakers, regulators, utilities, and energy researchers are confronting a challenge that has been building for decades. Electricity demand is increasing, transmission congestion is becoming more costly, and the infrastructure needed to support economic growth, industrial development, and reliable electric service is struggling to keep pace. While substantial investments in new generation and transmission infrastructure will undoubtedly be necessary, there is growing recognition that we must also make better use of the infrastructure we already have. Fortunately, recent developments in transmission policy, independent research, and advanced grid technologies are helping move this conversation in a more productive direction.
For many years, transmission planning focused primarily on maintaining reliability, accommodating new generation, and expanding the grid when existing infrastructure reached its limits. While these objectives remain essential, the discussion is becoming considerably more sophisticated. Policymakers are increasingly examining how transmission investments can deliver multiple benefits simultaneously, including greater capacity, improved efficiency, reduced congestion, increased resilience, and lower long-term costs for electricity consumers. This broader perspective represents an important opportunity to reconsider how transmission projects are evaluated, prioritized, and ultimately implemented.
A Changing Policy Landscape
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s Order No. 1920 and subsequent Orders 1920-A and 1920-B represent important developments in long-term regional transmission planning. By establishing requirements for more comprehensive planning over periods of at least 20 years, these reforms encourage transmission providers to consider a wider range of future needs and evaluate the economic and reliability benefits associated with proposed investments. The expanded participation of state regulators also creates opportunities for greater collaboration among the organizations responsible for planning, approving, and financing transmission infrastructure.
These developments are particularly important because the value of transmission infrastructure extends well beyond its initial construction cost. A transmission line may remain in service for 50 years or longer, during which its electrical efficiency, capacity, reliability, and maintenance requirements can significantly influence the cost of delivering electricity. Evaluating investments through a longer-term perspective creates opportunities to recognize benefits that may otherwise receive insufficient consideration, including avoided infrastructure costs, reduced electrical losses, and the ability to accommodate future demand without repeatedly rebuilding the same facilities.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s 2026 draft National Transmission Needs Study further reinforces the urgency of addressing transmission constraints. The study identifies growing electricity demand, expanding industrial activity, and increasing congestion as significant challenges facing the nation’s grid. Importantly, it also provides a broader foundation for understanding where additional transmission capability is needed and why coordinated investment will be essential. While the study does not prescribe specific engineering solutions, its findings underscore the importance of considering every practical option for improving the performance of existing and future transmission infrastructure.
Perhaps one of the most encouraging recent developments is DOE’s Speed to Power through Accelerated Reconductoring and other Key Advanced Transmission Technology Upgrades (SPARK) initiative. In September 2026, DOE announced its intention to support 31 grid improvement projects across 26 states, representing approximately $5.25 billion in combined federal and recipient investment. The selected projects are expected to reconductor or rebuild more than 1,500 miles of transmission lines, deploy grid-enhancing technologies across nearly 21,000 miles, and make more than 23 gigawatts of additional electricity capacity available.
These figures are significant, but the broader message may be even more important. Advanced reconductoring and complementary grid technologies are increasingly being recognized as practical tools for addressing transmission constraints, rather than simply alternatives to conventional construction. By improving the performance of existing transmission corridors, utilities can often increase capacity while reducing the permitting challenges, land requirements, construction costs, and lengthy development schedules associated with entirely new rights-of-way.
Turning Research and Policy into Measurable Results
Independent research organizations, academic institutions, and industry associations have also played an important role in advancing this conversation. Organizations such as the Rocky Mountain Institute, Grid Strategies, WIRES, and researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have contributed valuable analysis examining transmission expansion, advanced reconductoring, economic benefits, and opportunities to improve grid performance. Their work has helped demonstrate that transmission modernization is not simply an engineering challenge, but also an economic and policy opportunity with implications for electricity affordability, industrial competitiveness, and long-term energy security.
These contributions deserve recognition because sound public policy depends on credible information and an objective understanding of available technologies. Transmission investments involve substantial financial commitments, and decisions made today will influence grid performance for generations. Independent research can help policymakers and utilities identify opportunities, understand tradeoffs, and establish more comprehensive approaches to evaluating infrastructure investments. However, translating these findings into meaningful results also requires practical engineering experience and a clear understanding of how technologies perform under actual operating conditions.
One area that deserves greater attention is the relationship between transmission capacity and electrical efficiency. Increasing the amount of electricity a transmission line can carry is clearly valuable, particularly where congestion limits the delivery of available generation. However, the electrical resistance of the conductor also determines how much energy is lost as heat during transmission. These losses accumulate continuously over decades of operation, creating additional generation requirements and costs that are ultimately borne by electricity consumers.
Advanced conductor technologies offer an opportunity to address both challenges simultaneously, although their performance characteristics can differ substantially. Some conductor designs primarily increase thermal operating limits, while others provide greater electrical conductivity, reduced thermal expansion, increased mechanical strength, or combinations of these benefits. Recognizing these distinctions is essential when evaluating the long-term economic value of transmission investments. Greater capacity is important, but greater capacity accompanied by lower electrical losses can provide additional benefits that extend throughout the operating life of the asset.
CTC Global’s experience developing and supporting ACCC® Conductor technology offers practical examples of how these benefits can be achieved. Since its introduction in 2005, ACCC Conductor has been deployed in more than 1,600 projects across approximately 70 countries, helping utilities increase transmission capacity, reduce electrical losses, improve reliability, and make better use of existing infrastructure. Its lightweight, high-strength composite core and increased aluminum content enable utilities to achieve substantial performance improvements while often retaining existing structures and rights-of-way.
Projects such as American Electric Power’s 345 kV transmission improvements in South Texas and Southern California Edison’s Big Creek transmission upgrades demonstrate the practical value of advanced reconductoring. These projects addressed substantial capacity requirements while taking advantage of existing transmission infrastructure. In the case of AEP’s South Texas project, the improvements also provided significant electrical loss reductions, illustrating how transmission investments can deliver multiple benefits beyond increased thermal capacity.
More recently, the selection of PPL Electric Utilities’ Montour transmission project under DOE’s SPARK initiative provides another example of how advanced conductor technology can contribute to emerging grid modernization priorities. The project includes improvements to approximately 29 miles of existing 230 kV transmission corridor using ACCC Conductor. It demonstrates how the engineering solutions developed and refined over the past two decades are becoming increasingly relevant to national efforts to improve grid capacity, reliability, and affordability.
Shaping the Next Phase of Transmission Policy
As the policy conversation continues to evolve, there is an opportunity to establish more comprehensive and consistent methods for evaluating transmission investments. Rather than focusing primarily on construction costs or maximum operating temperatures, planners and policymakers should consider the full range of benefits that advanced technologies can deliver. These include electrical losses, long-term operating costs, mechanical performance, reliability, construction requirements, environmental impacts, and the ability to accommodate future demand.
This does not mean that advanced reconductoring can replace every new transmission project or resolve every constraint facing the electric grid. New transmission corridors, substations, transformers, and other infrastructure will remain essential. However, recognizing the capabilities of existing assets and evaluating opportunities to improve their performance should become an integral part of responsible transmission planning. In many cases, the most practical solution may involve a combination of conventional infrastructure investments, advanced conductors, and grid-enhancing technologies.
The growing collaboration among policymakers, regulators, researchers, utilities, and technology providers is encouraging. Organizations contributing independent analysis are helping identify opportunities and establish a stronger foundation for investment decisions. Federal and state agencies are developing policies and programs that can accelerate implementation. Utilities are demonstrating what is technically and economically achievable, while technology developers continue improving the tools available to support these objectives.
At CTC Global, we believe that meaningful participation in this conversation requires more than advocating for a particular technology. It requires sharing engineering knowledge, supporting independent research, participating in technical standards development, and helping utilities understand the long-term implications of their infrastructure decisions. The experience gained through more than two decades of advanced conductor development, testing, manufacturing, and field deployment provides an opportunity to contribute practical evidence to an increasingly important discussion.
Ultimately, the success of transmission policy should not be measured solely by the amount of funding allocated, the number of projects approved, or the miles of infrastructure constructed. Those are important indicators of progress, but the more meaningful measures are the additional electricity delivered, the energy conserved, the reliability improved, and the long-term economic value created for consumers.
The policies we establish today will help determine how effectively our electric grid serves future generations. By connecting thoughtful policy, independent research, and proven engineering solutions, we can move beyond simply identifying transmission challenges and begin delivering the capacity, efficiency, and reliability our future demands.
