Few recent articles have captured the evolving transmission policy debate as thoughtfully as Devin Hartman’s “The Missing Transmission Voices Emerge,” published by the R Street Institute. At a time when the electricity industry faces mounting pressure from accelerating demand growth, aging infrastructure, affordability concerns, and political polarization, Hartman reframed the transmission conversation around something refreshingly practical and bipartisan: delivering reliable electricity to consumers at the lowest reasonable cost.
That shift matters.
For years, transmission policy discussions have largely been dominated by two primary constituencies: incumbent utilities and climate-focused advocacy organizations. As Hartman correctly observes, this dynamic has often caused transmission expansion to be viewed primarily through the lens of renewable energy integration rather than what it truly represents – a foundational issue of economic growth, industrial competitiveness, reliability, national security, and infrastructure modernization.
Perhaps most importantly, Hartman highlights the emergence of consumer advocates and center-right voices in transmission reform discussions. That development may ultimately prove essential to achieving durable transmission policy reform in the United States. Long-term grid modernization cannot succeed if it is perceived as ideologically partisan. It must be grounded in economic rigor, engineering reality, and demonstrable consumer value.
Yet while the policy conversation is evolving in important ways, the industry must now confront a second – and perhaps even more urgent – reality:
The North American transmission grid is rapidly running out of capacity.
And it is happening faster than many policymakers fully appreciate.
The Grid Was Not Designed for What’s Coming
For decades, electricity demand growth remained relatively modest. Utilities and regulators became accustomed to incremental load increases and localized infrastructure upgrades. But that era is ending rapidly.
Today, electricity demand forecasts are accelerating at levels not seen in generations. Artificial intelligence, hyperscale data centers, domestic manufacturing expansion, electrification, and population growth are fundamentally reshaping long-term load projections across North America.
Large AI-driven data centers are now requesting power levels equivalent to small cities. Utilities in some regions are confronting gigawatt-scale load requests concentrated within individual service territories. Meanwhile, electrification initiatives involving transportation, industrial processes, and buildings continue expanding the economy’s dependence on electricity.
This explosive growth is colliding with a transmission system that, in many cases, was designed decades ago under very different assumptions.
Across much of the United States, existing transmission infrastructure is already constrained by thermal limitations, congestion bottlenecks, stability requirements, and aging assets. Interconnection queues continue to grow at unprecedented rates, with many generation projects facing delays measured not in months, but in years.
Importantly, these delays are not simply the result of regulatory inefficiency or permitting complexity.
In many regions, the grid physically lacks the transfer capability necessary to accommodate additional power flows.
That distinction matters.
Transmission policy discussions often become consumed by procedural questions — who pays, who plans, who approves, and who benefits. Those issues are undeniably important. But ultimately, no amount of regulatory reform can substitute for actual transmission capacity.
At some point, conductors, substations, towers, composite materials, and physical infrastructure must carry more electricity.
Transmission Expansion Alone Is Not Enough
This is where the next phase of transmission modernization becomes critically important.
The industry must move beyond simply debating transmission expansion and place far greater emphasis on optimizing and upgrading the enormous transmission network already in service.
Hartman appropriately highlights Advanced Transmission Technologies (ATTs) as part of the solution. But increasingly, the industry must move beyond merely “considering” advanced technologies and toward deploying them systematically at scale.
Among the most impactful opportunities available today is reconductoring existing transmission lines using advanced composite core conductors such as CTC Global’s ACCC® Conductor.
This may be one of the most underappreciated infrastructure solutions available to utilities today.
For decades, increasing transmission capacity generally meant constructing entirely new transmission lines — a process often requiring years of permitting, environmental review, land acquisition, litigation, and public opposition. In today’s environment, developing new greenfield transmission corridors has become increasingly difficult, expensive, and politically contentious.
Reconductoring fundamentally changes that equation.
By replacing legacy steel-core conductors with advanced high-capacity composite core conductors on existing rights-of-way, utilities can dramatically increase transmission capacity while avoiding many of the challenges associated with new line construction or extensive structural rebuilds.
In many cases, existing towers and corridors can remain in service while line capacity increases substantially.
This is not theoretical technology.
Since 2005, ACCC® Conductor has been deployed on more than 1,500 projects across 30 U.S. states and more than 70 countries worldwide.
Advanced composite-core conductors can deliver:
- substantially higher ampacity,
- lower line losses,
- reduced sag,
- improved thermal performance,
- enhanced reliability,
- and significantly faster deployment timelines
compared to conventional steel-core conductor technologies.
Most importantly, these upgrades can frequently be completed in a fraction of the time required for entirely new transmission projects.
Speed Matters More Than Ever
That timing advantage is becoming extraordinarily important.
The grid does not have the luxury of waiting fifteen years for every major transmission expansion project. AI growth, manufacturing reshoring, electrification, and economic expansion are occurring now. Utilities increasingly need scalable solutions that can be deployed within existing infrastructure corridors and within realistic regulatory timelines.
This is why the future transmission conversation must increasingly become a discussion about optimization — not simply expansion.
In many cases, the lowest-cost megawatt of transmission capacity is the capacity that can be unlocked from infrastructure already in the ground.
That principle also aligns closely with the consumer-centered framework Hartman advocates.
Consumers do not particularly care whether transmission capacity comes from a new 500 kV greenfield corridor or from reconductoring an existing line. What matters to consumers is affordability, reliability, speed of deployment, and minimizing unnecessary cost burdens.
In many situations, upgrading existing infrastructure may provide the best balance of all four.
The Grid Is Now Strategic National Infrastructure
This reality becomes even more important as wildfire risks, extreme weather events, resilience concerns, and grid security increasingly dominate utility planning priorities.
Modern transmission upgrades must now accomplish multiple objectives simultaneously:
- increase capacity,
- improve reliability,
- reduce operational risk,
- minimize environmental impacts,
- and contain customer costs.
The transmission system can no longer be viewed solely as an energy delivery network.
It is rapidly becoming the foundational infrastructure of the modern digital economy.
That reality is also reshaping the political landscape surrounding transmission investment.
Reliable, abundant, and affordable electricity is fundamental to industrial competitiveness, domestic manufacturing, national security, technological leadership, and AI infrastructure development. Transmission investment should therefore not be viewed narrowly as a renewable integration issue. It should be recognized as core economic infrastructure — no different from interstate highways, ports, pipelines, rail systems, or telecommunications networks.
At the same time, the industry must remain disciplined. As Hartman correctly warns, transmission planning should avoid excessive centralization and politically driven investment mandates disconnected from economic value.
But there is an equally important danger in underinvestment.
For too long, transmission upgrades have often been deferred because the system continued functioning “well enough.” That margin is disappearing rapidly.
Congestion costs are rising. Reserve margins are tightening. Reliability risks are increasing. Interconnection delays are slowing generation development. Electricity affordability is becoming a growing public concern.
The industry now faces a narrowing window to modernize the grid before these pressures compound further.
The Future of Transmission Is Already Here
Modernizing the transmission system will require multiple complementary solutions:
- improved planning,
- better cost allocation,
- enhanced transparency,
- regulatory reform,
- strategic new transmission construction,
- advanced grid technologies,
- and greater deployment of high-performance conductors.
But perhaps most importantly, it will require far more aggressive modernization of the infrastructure already in service.
The future of transmission may not primarily belong to entirely new networks.
In many cases, it may belong to transforming the vast network that already exists.
That is why Hartman’s article is so important. It helps move the transmission debate toward broader political alignment, economic realism, and consumer value. The next step is ensuring that the conversation fully embraces the physical engineering realities now reshaping the electric grid.
Because ultimately, transmission policy is no longer simply an energy policy discussion.
It is an economic growth discussion.
An industrial competitiveness discussion.
A national resilience discussion.
And increasingly, an affordability discussion for every electricity consumer in America.
