WATCH: Padilla Unveils New Effort to Lower Energy Costs, Strengthen Transmission Lines

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources (ENR) Committee, joined an ENR hearing to discuss critically needed improvements to the grid and unveil his new legislative effort to modernize transmission infrastructure, reduce skyrocketing energy costs, and meet surging electricity demand.

The draft transmission bill - co-led by U.S. Senators Padilla, John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), and Angus King (I-Maine) - would improve how the United States builds next-generation transmission lines while strengthening existing systems to make them more cost-effective, efficient, and reliable. Building on the bipartisan Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024, the draft legislation includes new additions to support implementation of advanced grid upgrades and high-voltage direct current (HVDC) lines, planning for demand growth, improving interconnection procedures, and reauthorization of grid resilience grant programs.

During today's hearing, Padilla stressed the urgency of the "State of the Bulk Power System" discussion as families pay high prices for an outdated, overworked, and increasingly vulnerable electric grid. He questioned Dr. Liza Reed, Director of Climate and Energy Policy at the Niskanen Center, about the significant ratepayer and reliability benefits of interregional HVDC transmission lines and procedural roadblocks preventing these lines from being established. He asked Todd Snitchler, President & CEO of the Electric Power Supply Association, about the importance of strengthening interconnection procedures to speed up the connection of power generators to the grid.

Video of Padilla's questioning is available here.

Full text of the discussion draft is available here.

Key Excerpts:

• PADILLA: We know that families and businesses, for that matter, are paying the price for an aging and overworked grid that's delivering not just higher bills, but more frequent outages and missed opportunities, frankly, for significant investments in job creation. I'd like to think both sides of the aisle here agree when I say that America cannot lead the next generation on a grid built in the past and using older technologies. So this week, I was proud to work with Senator Hickenlooper and other colleagues from this committee to build on the bipartisan Energy and Permitting Reform Act from last Congress and develop new legislative language to tackle these issues and lead us towards the construction of a next-generation electrical grid. I believe our effort represents not just a commonsense plan, but one that will build a cheaper, stronger, more reliable electrical grid that protects ratepayers, respects communities, and keeps our economy competitive.

• PADILLA: Since the era of Edison and Westinghouse, there's been talk about the potential promise of high-voltage DC transmission. But now these technologies are not just proven, they're ready to provide efficient transfer of power over long distances. I think that's important to recognize. My first question is for Dr. Reed: if we built out the backbone of an interregional high-voltage DC transmission line over the next couple of decades, what would be some of the benefits in terms of ratepayer bills, reliability, particularly during extreme weather events?

• REED: Thank you, Senator, for the question, and I'm happy to discuss the benefits of high-voltage direct current, because this need for a backbone to our alternating current system is particularly clear when we see severe weather such as winter storms and even extreme heat because HVDC can dispatch power long distances very quickly and directionally. In our alternating current system, electrons flow where there is the least resistance; HVDC can move it exactly where it needs to go, and so it works very well with that alternating current system to move around congestion and provide economic power. Where you have excess power, you can move it to an area that needs power, while also providing reliability benefits. There's tremendous opportunity for building this type of transmission, particularly across regional lines, for economic and reliability reasons that will ultimately save hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

• PADILLA: Are there any key regulatory or procedural barriers that you think are holding us back?

• REED: Thank you, Senator. There are very specific barriers that are holding us back from adopting HVDC technology. One of them is the siting constraints on interstate and interregional transmission lines. These types of lines face the most number of siting and permitting barriers because even though they are participating in interstate commerce, they are subject to the specific rules and regulations of each state individually. That's an incredible burden for a utility or a merchant developer to take on that risk and that timeline to complete. We also … do not have the expectation in markets - FERC has not set the expectation - that these technologies can receive compensation for the benefits that they provide. They are providing the same benefits. They are built on the same semiconductor technology of the products that we do allow to be remunerated in the markets.

• PADILLA: Mr. Snitchler and Dr. Reed, could each of you please explain where interconnection procedures may be best improved to expedite the connection of generation to the grid?

• SNITCHLER: Thank you, Senator, for the question. I think it's clear that the interconnection process has been slow. I think at FERC's direction, all of the regions have worked to modify their interconnection queue process in an effort to try and accelerate that and we have seen improvement to the interconnection process. I don't think it's complete. I don't think anyone would agree that that's the case, but I think there has been improvement. And so we are going to need to accelerate that process to make sure that studies are done in a different approach than has been used in the past. In fact, FERC recently approved the [Southwest Power Pool]'s model, which is taking a more innovative approach to try and look at interconnection of generation and transmission at the same time in an effort to accelerate it more quickly and was very enthusiastic in their order about what it could do for the system. I think thoughts and approaches like that are going to be incredibly helpful to accelerate the need to meet the moment and move speed to power.

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