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Conor here: The electrical grid is facing even more challenges following Trump’s August executive order prohibiting Chinese bulk-power equipment.
By Dana Nuccitelli, an environmental scientist, writer, and research coordinator for the nonprofit Citizens’ Climate Lobby. Originally published at Yale Climate Connections.
A significant crisis is on the horizon for the U.S. electricity grid – one that threatens to increase your electric bill substantially and hinder progress in combating climate change.
To grasp the issue at hand, envision transmission lines – the poles and wires responsible for carrying electricity from power plants to homes and businesses – as an interstate highway system for electrons. Just as excessive vehicle traffic can lead to congestion, so too can an overabundance of electrons on power lines create bottlenecks.
Historically, such congestion has not been an issue, but with the rapid rise of data centers and increased demand from electric vehicles, heat pumps, and air conditioning, the situation is changing.
Consequently, Americans’ electricity rates have already risen by more than one-third in the past five years and are set to continue escalating.
This increasing demand paired with insufficient grid capacity impedes efforts to reduce climate pollution. When clean energy sources struggle to connect to the grid due to congestion, existing fossil fuel plants are compelled to operate more frequently, burning natural gas and coal. Additionally, when data centers cannot connect to the grid, they often resort to constructing polluting on-site natural gas power generation.
While adding new transmission lines could alleviate this congestion, the process of permitting and constructing new lines in the U.S. typically takes a decade. Some major multistate projects have taken even over 30 years to complete. Moreover, the Trump administration recently halted Congressional efforts to expedite the permitting process.
A bipartisan group of senators recently introduced a bill aimed at reforming the permitting process for transmission lines and other large projects to accelerate the construction of new lines. However, time is of the essence in this Congressional session, and the implications of inaction are critical.
“Failing to pass permitting reforms would have dire consequences for all of us,” said Zach Zimmerman, director of research and policy for Grid Strategies, a power sector consulting firm, in an email. “Every year that major transmission projects are delayed translates to increased system costs and diminished capability to supply power where it’s needed during extreme weather. Without reform, we will continue facing higher grid costs.”
The U.S. Has Struggled to Modernize Its Grid
For decades, the demand for electricity on the U.S. grid remained relatively stable, with only a 5% increase between 2005 and 2023.
However, that trend is shifting: Analysts from consulting firm ICF predict that residential electricity rates in the U.S. could increase by another 15% to 40% within the next five years and potentially double by 2050, with grid congestion being a significant underlying issue.
U.S. electricity demand from 2000 to 2025 (blue) in terawatt-hours (TWh) and the range of forecasts (green) by various groups. (Image credit: created by Dana Nuccitelli with data from Ember, Princeton REPEAT, American Clean Power, Bank of America Institute, Enverus Intelligence Research, and McKinsey & Company)
In 2024, the Department of Energy concluded that the U.S. would need to double or even quadruple its transmission capacity by 2050 to meet growing power demand affordably while sustaining grid reliability.
To achieve this necessary capacity, an estimated build-out of approximately 5,000 miles per year of high-capacity regional transmission lines, alongside additional interregional lines, will be required, according to Grid Strategies. However, it took the U.S. nine years, from 2017 to 2025, to construct the last 5,000 miles of transmission lines, as estimated by Grid Strategies.
In fact, 2013 was the only year that approached the targeted build-out, when Texas constructed nearly 3,000 miles of new transmission lines. This achievement stemmed from a 2005 Texas state law incentivizing transmission development in regions with high wind power potential, termed “competitive renewable energy zones.”
However, U.S. transmission build-out has stagnated, averaging only 600 new miles per year since 2017.
Miles of new high-voltage transmission lines built in the U.S. per year between 2010 and 2025, compared to the Grid Strategies estimated need of 5,000 new miles per year. (Image credit: Created by Dana Nuccitelli with data from Grid Strategies and Americans for a Clean Energy Grid)
In contrast, China has been constructing over 1,000 miles of ultrahigh voltage power lines annually. These lines operate like high-speed rail for electricity, offering more efficient electron transport than America’s existing high-voltage lines.
Congress Has Failed to Streamline Transmission Line Permitting
Similar to Texas, Congress passed a law in 2005 intended to encourage more transmission lines, but with significantly less success.
A key hurdle faced by transmission projects is the necessity to obtain permits from every state and local government along the proposed route. This laborious and lengthy process includes numerous potential points of veto. Conversely, the 1938 Natural Gas Act authorized what is now the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to function as a one-stop shop for interstate natural gas pipeline permits.
Efforts were made to create a similar streamlined process for interstate transmission lines in the 2005 Energy Policy Act. This legislation directed the Department of Energy to establish “National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors,” where it would be beneficial for the nation to construct electrical transmission lines more swiftly, such as to alleviate grid congestion. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission would then have the authority to permit transmission lines in these corridors in consultation with states.
However, for over 15 years, the Department of Energy faced challenges in designating any corridors due to a series of court rulings favoring states, landowners, and environmental groups, which found the legislation’s language lacking clarity. Subsequently, Congress attempted to clarify its intent in the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
This initiative appeared to succeed: in December 2024, the Department of Energy finally advanced three proposed National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors in regions identified as having the greatest need for additional transmission capacity.
The Department of Energy’s “rough approximation for illustrative purposes” of its three retained proposed National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors in December 2024. (Image credit: U.S. Department of Energy)
However, in August 2026, Trump’s Energy Secretary Chris Wright announced the cancellation of these three proposed corridors. Despite recognizing the necessity of building new transmission lines, Wright characterized these proposals as part of “a climate-alarmist agenda” meant to further the Biden administration’s “Green New Scam” initiative and hasten decarbonization.
What’s Next?
Zimmerman from Grid Strategies has suggested several actions that could expedite domestic transmission permitting and development.
For instance, Congress could permit essential transmission projects to go directly to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for permitting, bypassing the need for the Department of Energy to first establish national interest corridors. This approach would also reduce political influence on the process, as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission operates with greater independence from the White House than the Department of Energy.
Zimmerman also identified a 2024 Federal Energy Regulatory Commission regulation called Order 1920. This rule mandates that utilities and regional grid operators factor in projections of power demand for the next 20 years during their transmission planning rather than focusing solely on immediate needs.
Furthermore, he emphasized the need for Congress to enhance permitting for large-scale transmission projects and address interregional transmission issues. Establishing a transmission investment tax credit could also be beneficial, he suggested.
To prevent prolonged disputes regarding financing for proposed transmission lines, Congress could establish a formula for equitably distributing costs among beneficiaries and clarify what benefits should be included in that cost allocation.
In 2024, Congress narrowly failed to pass the Energy Permitting Reform Act, which would have implemented many of Zimmerman’s recommendations. An analysis by nonpartisan energy system experts at RMI estimated that the provisions related to transmission permitting in that bill could have enabled enough clean energy to connect to the U.S. grid to significantly reduce the nation’s climate pollution.
This week, a group of senators introduced the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act, which incorporates many of Zimmerman’s recommendations. A preliminary analysis from the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions indicated that the transmission provisions in this bill could cut climate pollution by billions of tons in the next 15 years, while also lowering electricity bills for Americans by $19 billion and reducing the risks of widespread power outages.
“This analysis indicates that practical reforms to transmission planning and interconnection can enable greater access to clean energy, reduce dependence on natural gas, decrease consumer costs, and foster a more sustainable and reliable electric grid,” stated Nat Keohane, president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. “These benefits can be realized if we act quickly to modernize the systems powering our nation.”
