Industry engagement with DOE’s Draft National Transmission Needs Study reinforces the importance of turning identified needs into timely solutions
In July, CTC Global published Advancing the Conversation on Transmission Modernization, our perspective on the U.S. Department of Energy’s Draft 2026 National Transmission Needs Study. At the time, we welcomed DOE’s comprehensive assessment of the challenges facing the nation’s transmission system and, perhaps more importantly, the opportunity it created for utilities, transmission organizations, regulators, manufacturers, technology providers, researchers and other stakeholders to participate in the discussion.
We concluded that article with a simple observation: “The conversation has begun. We look forward to being part of it.”
That conversation is now moving forward.
CTC Global was pleased to see WIRES submit thoughtful and substantive comments to DOE as part of the public consultation process. WIRES represents a broad cross-section of the transmission industry, including investor-, publicly- and cooperatively-owned transmission providers, incumbent transmission owners, competitive transmission developers, transmission customers, regional grid managers, and equipment and service companies. Its participation brings valuable practical experience to a discussion that will influence how America approaches one of its most significant infrastructure challenges.
From Identifying the Need to Delivering the Solution
DOE’s study makes clear that the transmission challenge is substantial. The Department identifies accelerating load growth as a primary driver of future transmission need, alongside aging infrastructure, resource retirements, new generation interconnections and reliability requirements. DOE also recognizes that transmission development involves lengthy timelines, making it necessary to plan not simply around current conditions but around anticipated future requirements.
The magnitude of the emerging demand is particularly noteworthy. DOE cites projections indicating that U.S. electricity consumption could increase substantially over the coming decade, driven by data centers and artificial intelligence, domestic manufacturing, large commercial and industrial loads, and broader electrification. The report notes that NERC projects U.S. electricity consumption increasing 25% between 2024 and 2034, while other forecasts cited by DOE suggest different but similarly significant growth trajectories.
This is not simply a question of how much transmission America will eventually need. Increasingly, it is a question of when that capacity can become available.
That distinction was central to our earlier discussion of what CTC Global calls time-to-capacity. We suggested that implementation time deserves consideration alongside cost, reliability and ultimate transfer capability because a project capable of delivering meaningful capacity in two or three years can create substantial value while larger projects requiring a decade or more continue through planning, permitting and construction.
WIRES’ comments add an important economic dimension to that argument.
Among the research cited in its submission is an estimate that for every $1 billion invested in well-planned, large-scale transmission that is delayed, consumers can lose approximately $150 million to $370 million in net benefits for each year of delay.
That is a powerful way of looking at transmission development.
Delay is not simply an inconvenience. Delay has an economic cost.
The Existing Grid Is Part of the Answer
This does not mean America should choose between building new transmission and modernizing existing infrastructure. The scale of projected electricity demand makes clear that both will be necessary.
DOE itself recognizes this broader range of options. The study defines transmission needs in terms of capacity constraints and congestion and explicitly identifies new, upgraded and uprated transmission facilities – including alternative solutions – as means of improving reliability and resilience, alleviating congestion, increasing transfer capability, delivering cost-effective generation and meeting future electricity demand.
Elsewhere, DOE is even more explicit. The report states that the capacity of the grid can be expanded through new infrastructure, rebuilds, or Grid-Enhancing Technologies, and specifically identifies advanced conductors among technologies that can improve grid efficiency and enable power delivery at lower cost.
That recognition is important because America’s existing transmission corridors are themselves enormously valuable infrastructure assets.
Rights-of-way, towers, substations and established corridors represent decades of planning, engineering, permitting, environmental review, land acquisition and investment. In many cases, expanding the capability of those existing assets can be accomplished substantially faster than developing entirely new transmission corridors.
This is where advanced reconductoring can play an especially important role.
Replacing conventional conductors with high-performance advanced conductors can substantially increase the capacity of existing transmission lines while making use of existing structures and rights-of-way where engineering conditions permit. Properly selected conductor technologies can also reduce electrical resistance and line losses, improve thermal sag performance and increase the amount of useful power that can be delivered through an existing corridor.
The objective should therefore not simply be more transmission infrastructure. It should be a more productive transmission system.
Congestion Makes the Economic Case Even Stronger
DOE’s analysis provides another compelling reason to increase the productivity of the transmission system: congestion.
The study estimates nationwide transmission congestion costs at approximately $21 billion in 2022, $11 billion in 2023 and $12 billion in 2024. DOE notes that insufficient transmission capacity can prevent lower-cost generation from reaching customers, requiring higher-cost generation to be dispatched closer to load and thereby increasing wholesale electricity costs.
Perhaps even more revealing is when that congestion occurs. DOE reports that roughly half of potential transmission congestion value is concentrated in just 5% of operating hours – the periods when the transmission system is under greatest stress and additional capability can be exceptionally valuable.
This reinforces an important point about transmission modernization. Additional capacity does not have to be valuable during every hour of every day to produce substantial system benefits. Its greatest value may emerge precisely when the system is most constrained – during extreme weather, unexpected outages, high-load conditions or other periods when the ability to move additional power becomes critical.
Those benefits extend beyond economics. DOE’s review of Winter Storm Uri notes that MISO had adequate supply during portions of the event, yet transmission constraints prevented power from moving to where it was needed. During Winter Storm Elliott, the Southeast experienced rolling blackouts while energy was being curtailed in neighboring regions; DOE cites research estimating that modest additional interregional transmission capacity could have saved the Southeast nearly $100 million during the five-day event.
Capacity, efficiency, affordability, resilience and reliability are therefore not separate transmission objectives. They are increasingly interconnected.
Modernization and Expansion Belong in the Same Plan
One of the most important ideas in CTC Global’s original July article was that modernization and expansion should not be treated as competing strategies.
That conclusion is even stronger today.
America unquestionably needs substantial new regional and interregional transmission. DOE’s review finds that long-term national studies point toward significant transmission investment over the next 20 years to support increasing electricity demand and new generation while maintaining reliability and controlling costs.
But those projects will take time.
Meanwhile, utilities are confronting load growth today. Data centers are requesting service today. Manufacturers are evaluating locations today. Generators are waiting for interconnection today. Existing equipment is aging today. And consumers are paying congestion costs today.
This creates an increasingly strong case for evaluating transmission solutions on two parallel tracks: what infrastructure does the system ultimately need, and what can we do with the infrastructure we already have while we build it?
Advanced conductors, dynamic line ratings, topology optimization, power-flow control, advanced sensing, substation improvements and other Grid-Enhancing Technologies can each address different constraints. New high-voltage transmission can provide large-scale regional and interregional transfer capability. These technologies should not be forced into an artificial competition with one another.
The better question is how they can be deployed together to deliver the greatest amount of useful capacity, reliability and customer value in the shortest practical timeframe.
From Speed-to-Power to Infrastructure Productivity
For more than two decades, CTC Global has worked with utilities around the world to increase transmission capacity using existing corridors. ACCC® Conductor was developed specifically to address many of the physical limitations that constrain conventional overhead conductors, including thermal sag, electrical resistance, weight and usable transfer capability.
That experience helped shape CTC Global’s broader Speed-to-Power perspective: when electricity demand is accelerating faster than traditional infrastructure can be developed, implementation speed becomes an important component of infrastructure value.
But speed alone is not the objective.
The larger goal is infrastructure productivity – extracting greater capacity, efficiency, resilience and long-term value from every transmission investment.
DOE’s draft study supports that broader way of thinking. It encourages planners to consider multiple transmission benefits together rather than evaluating them solely on an incremental, project-by-project basis, noting that holistic, multi-value planning can lead to a more efficiently planned and cost-effective transmission system.
That is an important evolution in the conversation.
A conductor upgrade that increases capacity may also reduce electrical losses. Reduced losses can lower operating costs and free additional generation capacity. Improved sag performance can increase usable transfer capability. Greater capacity can reduce congestion. Existing rights-of-way can shorten development timelines. Faster deployment can support economic development sooner.
The value of a transmission investment is rarely confined to a single metric.
The Conversation Is Working
When DOE released the Draft 2026 National Transmission Needs Study, it did more than publish another assessment of America’s grid. It invited the transmission industry to participate in determining how the needs identified in that study should be addressed.
WIRES’ submission is exactly the kind of constructive engagement that process was designed to encourage.
CTC Global extends its appreciation to Larry Gasteiger and the entire WIRES team for contributing their expertise to this important discussion, and to the U.S. Department of Energy, its national laboratories, utilities, regional transmission organizations, researchers and other industry participants working to advance the conversation.
There will never be a single technology, policy or project capable of solving America’s transmission challenges. We will need new transmission corridors. We will need to rebuild aging infrastructure. We will need greater regional and interregional coordination. And we will need to make substantially better use of the infrastructure already in place.
The encouraging news is that many of the technologies needed to begin doing that are available today.
When we published our original article in July, we said the conversation had begun.
It has. Now the challenge is turning that conversation into capacity.
