The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources held ‘Hearing to Examine Opportunities for Congress to Reform the Process for Permitting Electric Transmission Lines, Pipelines, and Energy Production on Federal Lands” on July 26.
During the hearing Senator Angus King (I) of Maine, in a question and answer exchange with Jason Stanek, former Chairman Maryland Public Service Commission, brought to the Committee’s attention that many utilities prefer making larger capital investments over reconductoring or other Grid Enhancing Technology (GET) deployments because FERC currently does not provide sufficient incentives. Reconductoring with Advanced Conductors or “Advanced Reconductoring” is nevertheless becoming a mainstream solution to increasing grid capacity, efficiency, reliability and resilience – which is especially important as the U.S. strives to connect hundreds of thousands of new renewable generation assets – many of which are currently held up.
Senator King stated: “One of the things that bothers me is that the incentive towards building as opposed to non-wires alternatives or reconductoring… that can minimize the capital costs.” With a sample of ACCC® Conductor in hand, Senator King went on to say: “Here’s a new conductor that will double the volume of power that will be carried, its more expensive but it will cut line losses, double the amount – you don’t have to build new towers.” Mr. Stanek responded: “State regulators have been looking at that carbon core fiber technology as well – you can do it at a fraction of the cost of building a green line transmission.” Mr. Stanek added: “So you take down the old lines and put up the new line. At the end of the day State regulators want to be cost effective because I could tell you that the only thing customers hate more than their utility bill is not having reliable electricity.”
The discussion continued and both gentlemen confirmed that individual states have mechanisms in place to encourage cost-effective transmission solutions. Several of CTC Global’s customers have seen ACCC® Conductor deployments quickly approved by their States as it offers the lowest cost and fastest means of improving grid reliability, mitigating sag infractions, and future-proofing their State’s grid.
