The U.S. Department of Energy on Oct. 3 announced an investment of $1.5 billion in four transmission projects and released a final national transmission planning study.
Details on Four Transmission Projects
DOE’s investment in the four transmission projects is being made through the Transmission Facilitation Program, a revolving fund program that helps overcome the financial hurdles facing transmission development.
These four projects will enter capacity contract negotiations with DOE:
- Aroostook Renewable Project will construct a new substation in Haynesville, Maine and a 111-mile transmission line with a capacity of 1,200 MW to connect the new substation to the Independent System Operator-New England (ISO-NE) system at a substation in Pittsfield, Maine. (up to $425 million potential contract value)
- Cimarron Link is a 400-mile high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) transmission line from Texas County, Oklahoma to Tulsa, Oklahoma. The line will transmit 1,900 MW of firm, point-to-point capacity to deliver low-cost wind and solar energy to growing load centers in eastern Oklahoma and elsewhere in the Southwest Power Pool. (up to $306 million potential contract value)
- Southern Spirit will construct a new 320-mile HVDC line connecting the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) grid for the first time with electric grids in the southeastern U.S. power markets, including Midcontinent Independent System Operator South (MISO-S) and Southern Company (SOCO), which will enhance reliability and prevent outages during extreme weather events, like Winter Storm Uri that hit Texas in 2022. This line across Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi will provide 3,000 MW of bidirectional capacity. (up to $360 million potential contract value)
- Southline will construct a new 108-mile transmission line that will deliver 1,000 MW of new, bidirectional capacity between Hidalgo County, New Mexico and Las Cruces, New Mexico, helping meet energy needs of industries investing in the region, including semiconductor, battery manufacturing, and data center facilities. (up to $352 million potential contract value). The new selection is for Phase 2 of the Southline Project, following the prior selection of Southline Phase 1, a 175-mile line from Hidalgo County, New Mexico to Pima County, Arizona in the first round of the Transmission Facilitation Program.
With the Oct. 3 announcement following prior selections of Southline Phase 1, the Southwest Intertie Project-North, and the Cross-Tie 500kV Transmission Line Project, nearly all of the legislated $2.5 billion of TFP funding is now committed.
DOE’s Grid Deployment Office will continue to evaluate the TFP revolving fund balance as projects advance in construction and relieve DOE of its current obligations.
The program intends to open future funding opportunities when there are sufficient uncommitted funds available.
National Transmission Planning Study
DOE also released the final National Transmission Planning (NTP) Study, a set of long-term planning tools and analyses that examine a wide range of potential future scenarios through 2050 “to identify pathways to maintain grid reliability, increase resilience, and reduce costs, while meeting local, regional, interregional, and national interests and supporting the changing energy landscape.”
The study finds that the United States will need to approximately double to triple the 2020 transmission capacity by 2050 in order to meet demand growth and reliability needs, and hundreds of billions of dollars of cost savings can be achieved through substantial transmission expansion and interregional planning.
The NTP Study was developed in partnership with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) to be used as a long-term planning tool.
Key takeaways include:
- A substantial expansion of the transmission system throughout the entire contiguous United States will deliver the largest benefits and could lead to national electric system cost savings of $270 billion–$490 billion through 2050.
- Significant return on investment, with every dollar spent on transmission meaning approximately $1.60 to $1.80 in system costs is saved.
- When transmission regions coordinate to achieve resource adequacy, system costs through 2050 are lowered by $170 billion–$380 billion.
The NTP Study is designed to enhance and encourage interregional planning efforts. It does not replace industry planning or identify a specific set of transmission lines that should be built, DOE noted.
Rather, the NTP Study identifies potential opportunities for industry planners to consider projects that would benefit customers under a wide range of future scenarios.
The NTP Study development included the expansion and creation of transmission planning tools—including open-source software, new modeling capabilities, and free research licenses—that DOE now is making available to planning entities, regional transmission operators/independent system operators, utilities, and states to help advance planning of interregional transmission across the nation.
The findings and tools will be explored in a public webinar on Wednesday, October 16th from 3:15 to 4:30 pm ET. Register here.
