Meeting Growing Demand with the Grid We Have Today
America’s electricity demand is growing at a pace the transmission system was not designed to accommodate. Data centers and artificial intelligence, expanding domestic manufacturing, electrification, and new generation resources are all creating tremendous pressure to add grid capacity – quickly, reliably and affordably.
A new report from ClearPath, Amping Up the Grid: The Role of High Ampacity Conductors in Transmission Expansion, offers an important perspective on how the industry can meet this challenge. Authored by Casey Kelly and Will Bryant of ClearPath, with technical modeling performed by Ryan Jones, Ben Preneta, Jeremy Hargreaves, Ben Haley, Alexandra von Meier and Jim Williams of Evolved Energy Research, the study examines how high-ampacity conductors can complement new transmission development to meet rapidly growing electricity demand.
Its central conclusion is compelling: America needs to build new transmission, but we also need to make substantially better use of the transmission infrastructure we already have.
Build Where We Must. Reconductor Where We Can.
Using ERCOT as a test bed, Evolved Energy Research developed a proof-of-concept model that integrates long-term capacity expansion with power-flow and reliability analysis. Rather than treating reconductoring and greenfield transmission as competing strategies, the study evaluates where each approach can deliver the greatest system value.
The results demonstrate why both are important.
In the study’s High Demand Growth scenario, nearly 75% of the capacity added to the grid by 2030 comes from reconductoring existing transmission corridors. By 2040, reconductoring reduces transmission investment by an estimated $20 billion compared with a greenfield-only strategy and avoids approximately 6,500 miles of additional greenfield transmission.
At the same time, the report makes clear that reconductoring cannot solve every transmission constraint. New transmission remains essential for creating new pathways, strengthening network topology, accessing new generation resources and maintaining reliability as electricity demand grows.
This is an important distinction. The objective should not be to choose between new transmission and reconductoring. It should be to determine where each can deliver the greatest value – and then use the best available technology to maximize that investment.
Composite-Core Conductors Emerge as a Near-Term Workhorse
One of the report’s most significant conclusions is stated plainly: “Composite Core Conductors are the workhorse of near-term grid expansion.”
The modeling found composite-core conductors to be the most frequently deployed conductor technology across the scenarios evaluated, reflecting their performance advantage relative to conventional conductors and their cost advantage relative to emerging high-temperature superconducting technologies.
The report also explains why.
Replacing a conventional steel core with a lightweight composite core can create room for additional conductive aluminum while reducing thermal expansion and sag. This combination allows substantially more power to be carried over existing transmission corridors while potentially avoiding extensive structural modifications.
For reconductoring projects, that can translate directly into speed-to-power.
Instead of waiting years for a new right-of-way to be identified, permitted and developed, utilities can often leverage transmission corridors and structures that already exist.
ACCC® Conductor: From Advanced Technology to Proven Infrastructure
For CTC Global, the findings are particularly encouraging because they align closely with more than two decades of real-world experience with ACCC® Conductor.
ACCC Conductor was developed specifically to help utilities increase transmission capacity, improve efficiency and reduce thermal sag while making greater use of existing infrastructure. Its hybrid carbon-fiber composite core is substantially lighter than conventional steel cores and exhibits very low thermal expansion. This enables the use of additional conductive aluminum without necessarily increasing conductor diameter or weight.
Depending on the application, ACCC Conductor can provide substantially greater capacity compared with conventional ACSR while maintaining required ground clearances at elevated operating temperatures.
More importantly, this is no longer an emerging technology proposition.
ACCC Conductor has been selected for more than 1,600 projects in 30 U.S. states and 70 countries, supporting utilities facing challenges ranging from congestion and load growth to renewable integration, resilience, clearance limitations and difficult rights-of-way.
Those projects represent a substantial and growing body of engineering, installation and operating experience.
Existing Rights-of-Way Are Valuable Grid Assets
Another important implication of the ClearPath study is the value of infrastructure that already exists.
Transmission rights-of-way are extraordinarily difficult to obtain. Towers, poles, substations and transmission corridors represent decades of investment, engineering, permitting and community engagement.
Advanced reconductoring can increase the productivity of those assets.
ClearPath’s modeling found that meshed networks with redundant transmission paths can be particularly attractive candidates for reconductoring. In these locations, higher-capacity conductors can relieve thermal constraints and increase power-transfer capability without requiring an entirely new transmission corridor.
This suggests that utilities and grid planners should increasingly view existing transmission infrastructure as a resource to be optimized – not simply maintained.
Advanced Conductors Belong Earlier in the Planning Process
The ClearPath report also highlights an important limitation in traditional transmission planning.
Historically, specific conductor technologies have often been considered relatively late in project development. But if conductor selection can materially affect capacity, cost, efficiency, structure requirements, right-of-way needs and future system headroom, then conductor technology should be evaluated much earlier.
The authors recommend improving transmission planning tools so that advanced technologies can be evaluated alongside conventional transmission solutions. They also suggest that regulators consider establishing rebuttable presumptions favoring high-performance composite conductors under appropriate system conditions while allowing utilities to demonstrate when alternatives are preferable.
Regardless of the particular regulatory approach, the underlying engineering principle is sound: transmission technologies should be compared based on the value they deliver to the system over the life of the asset – not simply their initial purchase price.
Better Conductors for New Lines, Too
While reconductoring receives considerable attention because of its potential speed and permitting advantages, advanced conductors should not be limited to existing lines.
Greenfield transmission projects are enormous long-term investments. Once a utility secures a corridor, completes permitting and constructs new structures, the conductor selected will influence the capacity, efficiency and future flexibility of that infrastructure for decades.
The same attributes that make ACCC Conductor attractive for reconductoring – high capacity, low thermal sag, high strength and improved electrical efficiency – can also create substantial value on new transmission lines.
If the industry is going to undertake the difficult work of building new transmission corridors, it makes sense to maximize the productivity of those corridors from the beginning.
Turning Transmission Technology Into Transmission Capacity
ClearPath and Evolved Energy Research deserve considerable credit for advancing this discussion.
Their work reinforces an increasingly important point: meeting America’s electricity needs will require much more than simply building more of what we built in the past.
We need new high-voltage transmission. We need better planning tools. We need faster and more predictable permitting. And we need technologies capable of extracting substantially more capacity and value from both existing and future transmission infrastructure.
Composite-core conductors are already demonstrating that capability.
After more than 1,600 ACCC Projects worldwide, the question is increasingly moving beyond whether advanced conductors can work.
The more important question is where can we put them to work next?
