Boosting Grid Function Without Paying for New Power Lines

Boosting Grid Function Without Paying for New Power Lines

Grid-enhancing technologies can maximize the capacity, efficiency and safety of existing transmission lines.

Grid-enhancing technologies-hardware or software that boosts the capacity, efficiency, reliability or safety of existing transmission lines-can help solve the energy demand problem. (Ralf Hoppe/Getty Images)

There's a looming dilemma for electrical utilities.

So says Anna Lafoyiannis, program lead for transmission operations and planning at the Electric Power Research Institute, at a session during NCSL Base Camp 2025.

"Decarbonization and general growth requires that we integrate new supply (of electricity)" to meet rapidly rising power demands, she says. "By our analysis, it is a significant amount of new supply. In the last two years, the increase of electrification, especially from data centers and this AI wave, has astronomically increased pressure. In totality, it might grow by about 40% by 2050."

"This is an affordability issue. Let's start saving folks money."

-Kelt Wilska, Grid Strategies LLC

Lafoyiannis says the demand problem can't be solved by building new transmission and generation alone. Grid-enhancing technologies-hardware or software that can increase the capacity, efficiency, reliability or safety of existing transmission lines-need to be part of the strategy.

With new transmission lines taking at least 10 years to build, grid-enhancing technologies, or GETs, "are a bridge that can help you along the way," she says. "They're about taking those transmission lines and getting more juice out of them."

She adds, "What you get from them is reduction in congestion and an increase in capacity, and you can also build them a lot faster than the 10 years it's going to take to build a transmission line."

GETs Primer

The Electric Power Research Institute is evaluating different GETs to catalyze industry adoption, with a focus on four types, says Alberto Del Rosso, EPRI senior project manager:

• Advanced power flow controllers:devices that control the way power flows through a transmission network "so that you can have a better utilization of the existing circuits," he says.
• Advanced conductors:power lines with carbon cores, which can operate at a higher temperature than the reinforced steel cores of traditional conductors, increasing transmission capacity by 50% to 60%, Del Rosso says. "You can get the benefit of a boost on the capacity with moderate investment."
• Dynamic line ratings: a method for determining how much power can flow through overhead lines for a given operating temperature. On hot days, sagging lines cause safety issues and diminished capacity. "Traditionally, transmission utilities have determined the capacity of the lines based on conservative assumptions, just to be safe," Del Rosso says. DLRs use data from sensors to get more accurate calculations and get more power out of existing lines.
• Transmission topology optimization:software that uses switching actions to manage the flow of power through the grid to avoid congestion and save costs. It uses a "sophisticated algorithm to determine the best switching action possible," Del Rosso says.

Incentivizing Action

Kelt Wilska, a senior manager at Washington, D.C.-based Grid Strategies LLC, says that adoption of GETs has been slow, despite their many benefits. "We've learned about how great these technologies are. We've seen that they can improve reliability, efficiency, capacity, safety. Why the heck aren't they absolutely everywhere?"

Industry logistics and inertia are the primary roadblocks, Wilska says, but state legislatures can encourage the adoption of GETs. "We've got misaligned incentives as a barrier," he says. "Utilities are incentivized to build really big stuff, because then they can pass that on to the ratepayers and then make the money back for the shareholders and earn a sufficient rate of return. We can tweak those incentives legislatively to make sure that utilities are incentivized to build grid-enhancing technologies."

As of June 2025, 12 states had passed legislation involving GETs, Wilska says. "Some of them focused on studies, some planning, some siting, one focused on mandating the implementation of this technology, and many focused on cost recovery."

Based on the support from both sides of the aisle, he calls GETs "the definition of a bipartisan issue if I've ever seen one ... almost as bipartisan as having traffic lights and stop signs."

Grid Strategies has developed a legislative playbook and model legislation that will be released soon, Wilska says.

"We need teeth to this legislation," he says. "Instead of just studying, let's have the utilities in the state do something after that. Let's do the study, and then maybe do a pilot project to really get the conversation rolling and see what we can learn from this."

One case study: Maine passed legislation in 2024 to review dynamic line ratings and implement a pair of pilot projects. For a project to better utilize wind power, new lines would cost more than $900 million, while dynamic line ratings would be $1.3 million and $277,000 in annual operating costs. While the benefits are smaller, the cost comparison makes implementation of the latter a relatively easy task.

"This is an affordability issue," Wilska says. "Let's start saving folks money."

Eric Peterson is a Denver-based freelance writer.