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Carnegie Mellon University's College of Engineering and Tepper School of Business

Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center  ›  Research and Publications  ›  Consortium to Expand Transmission Capacity

Consortium to Expand Transmission Capacity (ExTx)

As electricity demand grows—driven by data centers, electric vehicles, heat pumps, industrial decarbonization, and other factors—expanding transmission capacity is essential to deliver electricity from where it is produced to where it is needed. While improvements, such as distributed generation and local efficiency help, essentially every credible study (e.g., National Transmission Needs Study of U.S. Department of Energy) finds that the nation must roughly double its regional and interregional transmission capacity before about 2050. Most current regulatory frameworks and incentives favor local upgrades over larger-scale transmission expansion, which creates bottlenecks that incremental policy changes have alleviated only marginally. ExTx Consortium is studying the legal and regulatory reforms that are needed to unlock the transmission grid’s full potential and enable a resilient, decarbonized energy future.

Since about 2007, U.S. electricity consumption has been almost flat. However, consumption has begun to grow again (Figure 1). Contributors to this observed and anticipated growth include a combination factors, including the growth of data centers, electric-vehicle charging, adoption of electric heat pumps, decarbonizing heavy industry, and production of electrofuels.

fig-1.png

To decarbonize the energy system, while assuring that electricity supply remains resilient, we must break the logjam that makes it difficult (often impossible) to build new lines to move power from locations where it is produced (e.g., remote solar, hydroelectric, wind, and other generators) to the locations where it is used.

Distributed generation, end-use efficiency, and locating new loads next to generation (e.g., as Microsoft is doing in restarting the undamaged reactor at Three Mile Island) can help. However, U.S. Department of Energy argues that if the nation's economy remains strong and seeks to make serious progress in reducing CO2 emissions, by 2050 the nation will need to more than double its existing regional and inter-regional high-voltage transmission capacity.

At the same time, it has become difficult (often impossible) to build new transmission. The incentives that the electricity industry receives from regulators and policymakers tend to incentivize local upgrades of regional and interregional transmission capacity (Figure 2).

fig-2.pngFERC and regulatory and policymaking bodies are working to address this problem. However, most of these efforts are incremental and marginal. To solve the underlying problems, we believe that much more fundamental legal and regulatory changes are needed.

Solid technical and economic underpinning will be essential to address these issues. However, we see the following three as being key challenges.

  1. Assessing legal, regulatory, institutional, and political obstacles to expanding transmission capacity along with those arising from interest groups.
  2. Examining the sources of public resistance to new transmission and improving public understanding of the need for expanded transmission capacity.
  3. Proposing and promoting actively needed fundamental structural, legal, regulatory, public communication, policy, and other changes.

The following table summarizes the initial scope of work that ExTX Consortium will undertake. The goal is to develop fact-based foundations for the solutions that the consortium develops and promotes.

Lay Key Foundations and Background Expand Capacity Using Traditional Rights of Way Develop Non-Tradition Rights of Way Improve Understanding of Public Knowledge and Perceptions
  • Identify and analyze past siting and upgrade failures and successes
  • Develop engineering/economic models of capacity-expansion strategies
  • Use electricity system and other models to assess impacts of expansion options
  •  Identify obstacles to the use of:
    • reconductoring
    • HVAC to HVDC conersion
    • other technical solutions
  • Develop and promote legal, regulatory, and other strategies to align incentives to overcome obstacles
  •  Identify obstacles to the use of:
    • highway rights of way
    • railway rights of way
    • water (e.g., lake, river, canal) rights of way
    • other non-traditional rights of way
  • Develop and promote legal, regulatory, and other strategies to align incentives to overcome obstacles
  • Conduct "mental-model" studies of public beliefs about transmission and the need for capacity expansion
  • Develop, evaluate, refine, and disseminate communication materials to improve public understanding

The ExTX Consortium team consists of the following faculty and postdoctoral researchers at CMU and at other universities, and a group of external advisors.

CMU Investigators

Investigators at other institutions

  • Ahmed Abdulla, Associate Professor, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Carleton University
  • Seth Blumsack, Professor, John and Willie Leone Family Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering, Pennsylvania State University
  • Wändi Bruine de Bruin, Provost Professor of Public Policy, Psychology, and Behavioral Science; Price School of Public Policy and Dornsife Department of Psychology, University of Southern California
  • Duncan Callaway, Professor, Energy and Resources Group, University of California, Berkeley
  • Jeff Dagle, Chief Electrical Engineering, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
  • David Victor, Distinguished Professor; School of Global Policy and Strategy, University of California, San Diego

External Advisors

  • Terry Boston, Former CEO, PJM Interconnection LLC, Former Vice President, Tennessee Valley Authority
  • Jeanne Fox, Adjunct Professor, Columbia University, Former Chair, New Jersey Board of Public Utilities
  • Michael Howard, CEO Emeritus, Electric Power Research Institute
  • Donald Jessom, CEO, Transmission Developers, Inc.
  • Trey Ward, CEO, SooGreen, Inc.

The initial work of ExTx Consortium is organized into the following 11 focal areas, each of which has a team of leading investigators.

Area Number Focal Issue Leading Investigators
1 Systematic identification, review, and summary of conditions under which past capacity expansion efforts have succeeded or failed. This includes “clearance point” analysis of selected transmission projects and a focus on projects that involve multiple jurisdictions. Yozwiak, Morgan, Apt, Victor, and Blumsack
2 Technical, economic, and regulatory analysis of, and impediments to, the use of non-traditional rights of way (e.g., railway and highway corridors), as well as DC cables under lakes and rivers, to site new transmission. Melanie Huq (CMU EPP PhD student), Morgan, Yozwiak, Sioshansi, and Victor
3 Technical, economic, and regulatory analysis of, and impediments to, expanding the capacity of existing transmission corridors by reconductoring with conductors that have low coefficients of thermal expansion. Callaway and student team
4 Assessment of conditions under which more expensive solutions (e.g., an HVDC cable, which has a high probability of successful deployment) would be preferable to conventional transmission projects. Analysis of how to promote such solutions successfully to regulators and policymakers. David Rodriguez (CMU EPP PhD student), Sioshansi, Morgan, and Blumsack and student team
5 Exploration and development of alternative efficient and equitable strategies for financing and engaging in cost recovery and cost allocation for new transmission projects. Victor, Blumsack, and Morgan
6 Studies of public understanding and development of materials to improve that understanding of the need for transmission and its expansion. Bruine de Bruin and Morgan
7 Assessment and development of strategies to assure that cost recovery for transmission expansion for narrowly focused commercial activities (e.g., data centers) does not burden other ratepayers. Nock, Yozwiak, Jaramillo, and Victor
8 Analysis of strategies to alleviate supply-chain (e.g., cables and large high-voltage transformers and circuit breakers) and skilled-labor constraints on the expansion of transmission capacity. Fuchs and Karplus
9 Reviewing and assuring that all consortium work is technically consistent with the needs of electricity-system operations. Pileggi, Kar, Callaway, and Dagle
10 Examination of issues that are related to international electricity-system coordination and the power flows between U.S. and Canada. Abdulla
11 Integration of consortium activities. Development and aggressive promotion of legal, regulatory, and other changes and strategies to accelerate the expansion of transmission capacity. Full TxEX Consortium team with Morgan and Victor coordinating
Initial support of ExTx Consortium has been provided by a generous grant from Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. ExTX Consortium members continue to seek additional support for the proposed work.

At the request of the board and president of National Academy of Sciences, academy member Granger Mogan organized a two-hour symposium about expanding transmission capacity during the 2025 annual National Academy of Science meeting. A recording of the symposium is available.