White House and 21 states to announce grid modernization program

The Biden administration is set to announce a new initiative with 21 states Tuesday to modernize the U.S. power grid, ahead of a summer likely to tax its capacity.

Under the initiative, the participating states will give priority to electric grid modernization efforts, including those aimed at increased capacity and efficiency. The states, all of which have Democratic governors, will also commit to exploring ways to expand transmission capacity through legislative and executive action.

The federal government, meanwhile, will commit to ensuring states have access to technical assistance and loan programs, according to a fact sheet from the White House.

The Biden administration has set ambitious goals for renewable energy deployment, with a target of a carbon-neutral grid by 2035. Reaching this point will require a major buildout in modernized electrical transmission lines to handle the expansion. In the absence of this buildout, the administration faces a bottleneck in adding that renewable capacity to the grid. The backlog comprises about 2,600 gigawatts of energy, increasing 30 percent last year due in large part to solar and wind demand, according to an April report from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Congressional action on transmission has come to naught, with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) saying earlier this month that “I’ve told [Sen.] Joe Manchin [D-W.Va.] it’s going to be virtually impossible to get something done” in 2024, specifically citing opposition to transmission reforms by the House’s GOP majority.

The White House has taken several actions at the executive level, announcing a plan in April to shake loose the backlog by reducing interconnection cost differences and wait times.

Around the same time as Schumer’s remarks, the independent Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved a rule aimed at clearing backlogs for regional transmission projects, which disproportionately but not exclusively affect renewables.

Grid reliability is top of mind for many Americans after storms knocked out power for about 750,000 households in the Dallas area, which is part of Texas’s independent power grid. Reps. Greg Casar (D-Texas) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) have introduced legislation that would add the independent grid, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, to the national grid.