The Value Of Interregional Coordination And Transmission In Decarbonizing The US Electricity System

In The Value of Interregional Coordination and Transmission in Decarbonizing the US Electricity System, MIT researchers Patrick Brown and Audun Botterud show that the U.S. electricity system can be completely decarbonized using technologies currently being deployed at gigawatt-scale. The authors demonstrate that coordinating power system planning and dispatch across state and regional boundaries along with a doubling of installed transmission capacity substantially reduces the cost of zero-carbon electricity – by as much as 46% when comparing a nationally coordinated system to a state-by-state approach. The authors note that the doubling of transmission capacity would not require a similar increase in transmission-line-miles, as high capacity lines can carry 7.5 times more power than smaller lines over a given distance. The study also demonstrates that given a choice between low-cost flexible nuclear, long-duration storage, or low-cost renewables (wind and solar) and Li-ion batteries, low-cost renewables and batteries lead to the lowest electricity cost when transmission expansion is allowed.

The Value Of Interregional Coordination And Transmission In Decarbonizing The US Electricity System