Transmission Planning for the 21st Century: Proven Practices that Increase Value and Reduce Costs

Transmission Planning for the 21st Century, a report by The Brattle Group and Grid Strategies LLC, produced with funding from the American Council on Renewable Energy, and with support from the Macro Grid Initiative and the Natural Resource Defense Council, examines how a suite of transmission planning reforms could reduce system costs, enable more low-cost renewable energy, and create a more robust and efficient electricity grid. The analysis shows that while most grid planning processes are failing to address diverse 21st century needs, there are examples of effective and holistic efforts that have led to well-documented, highly beneficial transmission investments across the U.S. Such practices include proactively planning for future generation and load, accounting for the full range of transmission projects’ benefits, using comprehensive transmission network portfolios to address system needs and cost allocation more efficiently, and jointly planning across neighboring systems to take full advantage of interregional scale economics and geographic diversification benefits.

Transmission Planning for the 21st Century: Proven Practices that Increase Value and Reduce Costs