New Report: Proactive, Collaborative, State-Led Transmission Development Can Reduce Costs and Help Achieve Clean Energy Goals
ARLINGTON, VA – Mid-Atlantic states have multiple avenues for developing critical transmission lines that they can act on today, highlights a new report from The Brattle Group. The report, commissioned by the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) and the Mid-Atlantic Renewable Energy Coalition (MAREC Action), identifies seven pathways for proactive transmission planning to reduce consumer, system-wide, and generator interconnection costs; create more certainty for generation development; and help states achieve clean energy goals, including offshore wind timelines.
“The benefits of expanding the U.S. grid to deliver affordable, clean power to all Americans are clear, and there are a lot of options to help plan and execute these upgrades,” said ACORE President and CEO Ray Long. “Time is of the essence, and our report lays out the opportunities for states to maximize the benefits of proactive planning, particularly for offshore wind.”
Pathways to Coordination: Proactive, State-Led Transmission Development to Reduce Costs and Achieve Goals in PJM explores the importance of state leadership in proactive planning and opportunities for multi-state collaboration, including:
- Benefits of proactive planning
- Pathways and legal authority for state-led transmission planning
- How to avoid the long timelines associated with the current reform efforts in the PJM region
“Coordinated transmission development can reduce the cost of achieving state policy goals,” said Joe DeLosa III, Manager at The Brattle Group. “Available options range from targeted single-state procurements to broader interregional opportunities, providing states several lower-cost pathways to more-effectively meet individual and collective near-term needs.”
Out of the seven scenarios identified, a multi-state, multi-driver approach to proactive planning would produce the broadest benefits, but according to the report, states will ultimately need to evaluate each option in their ongoing efforts to achieve their public policy goals. The report also evaluates potential options to extend planning collaboration beyond regional borders to further maximize its benefits, such as through the ongoing progress of the Northeast States Collaborative on Interregional Transmission. While the benefits from proactive planning are significant, the report emphasizes that these benefits erode as planning is further delayed.
“The goal of this report is to empower states to set their own direction on transmission planning to address multiple needs — reliability, economic growth, clean energy deployment, extreme weather resilience — in the most efficient way possible,” said Evan Vaughan, Executive Director, MAREC Action. “Building offshore wind at scale in the next decade is essential to meeting electricity demand in a clean and reliable manner, but transmission planning must start today. This report offers policymakers pathways to work more closely with neighboring states and to insist on proactive, multi-value transmission planning through PJM.”
To download a copy of the new analysis, click here.
Report author Joe DeLosa III will present the report’s full findings at the ACORE Grid Forum, happening today, October 10, in Arlington, Virginia. Please contact ACORE staff listed below if you would like to attend or receive a recording.
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About ACORE
For over 20 years, ACORE has been the nation’s leading voice on the issues most essential to renewable energy expansion. ACORE unites finance, policy, and technology to accelerate the transition to a renewable energy economy. For more information, please visit www.acore.org.
About The Brattle Group
The Brattle Group is an economic consulting firm with more than 450 consultants staffed from eleven offices across the globe. We provide clients with analysis, expert testimony and support in economics, finance, and regulation across the U.S., Canada, Europe, and the Pacific Rim. Our electricity and energy practice has been at the core of our consulting services for over 25 years and is Brattle’s largest industry practice, addressing issues related to regulatory economics, finance & rates; wholesale markets & planning; and litigation & regulatory disputes. Our consultants provide services to government agencies, regulators, grid operators, transmission owners, and market participants in every sector of the electricity industry, including fuels, pipeline infrastructure, electric generation, transmission, distribution, distributed resources, and customers.
Media Contacts
Dylan Helms
Manager, Communications, ACORE
helms@acore.org
202.935.6491
Joe DeLosa III
Manager, The Brattle Group
Joe.delosa@brattle.com
+1.202.419.3372
The post New Report: Proactive, Collaborative, State-Led Transmission Development Can Reduce Costs and Help Achieve Clean Energy Goals appeared first on ACORE.
https://acore.org/news/new-report-proactive-collaborative-state-led-transmission-development-can-reduce-costs-and-help-achieve-clean-energy-goals/
Weather Guard Lightning Tech
Australia’s $17B Grid Expansion, Recycling Blades to Steel
Allen covers Suzlon hitting 2 GW in a single Indian state, Nabrawind’s crane-free turbine install in Namibia, Antora’s South Dakota thermal battery, Australia’s $17 billion grid expansion, and Shimizu recycling old turbine blades into steel.
Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes’ YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!
GOOD MORNING.
The wind industry is not just getting bigger.
It is getting smarter.
And today … we have the proof.
Let us start in India.
SUZLON GROUP just crossed a milestone.
Two gigawatts of wind orders … in a single Indian state.
The latest deal … sixty-five turbines at three megawatts each
for a company called SUNSURE ENERGY.
SUNSURE is not a utility.
It is an independent power producer
building round-the-clock clean energy
for data centers … electric vehicles … and heavy industry.
Wind paired with solar and battery storage.
Power that does not stop when the sun goes down.
SUZLON is already building six hundred and sixty-four megawatts
of additional commercial and industrial projects in the same region.
And SUNSURE … backed by PARTNERS GROUP of Switzerland …
has seven gigawatts in development across India
with a target of ten gigawatts by two thousand thirty.
That is not government-led.
That is private capital chasing wind.
Now … across the ocean to Africa.
A Spanish company called NABRAWIND [NAH-brah-wind]
just solved a problem that has plagued remote wind farms for years.
How do you install a turbine
when you cannot get a crane to the site?
Their answer is a system called SKYLIFT.
No heavy-lift cranes. None.
A self-erecting tower combined with a blade installation tool
they call the BLADERUNNER.
They just put up a GOLDWIND six-megawatt turbine
at a wind farm in NAMIBIA.
And here is the part that changes the math.
Traditional crane installation needs calm air.
Six to eight meters per second. Maximum.
NABRAWIND’s system works in fifteen meters per second sustained …
with gusts up to twenty.
That site blows hard. All the time.
Which is exactly why they chose it.
When complete … seven turbines …
two hundred and thirty gigawatt-hours a year.
About six percent of NAMIBIA’s entire electricity demand.
NABRAWIND was acquired by Australia’s FORTESCUE last year
as part of its industrial decarbonization push.
So India is stacking private-sector wind orders.
Africa is installing turbines without cranes.
And in SOUTH DAKOTA …
they are storing the wind itself.
A California startup called ANTORA ENERGY
just built a five-gigawatt-hour thermal battery
at an ethanol plant in BIG STONE CITY.
More than two hundred solid carbon blocks.
When the wind blows at night and nobody needs the power …
the blocks absorb cheap electricity and heat up.
When the plant needs energy …
the blocks release heat or generate electricity
through special cells that capture light
from superheated material.
Think of it as a giant toaster oven battery.
Full power expected by October.
The plant’s president put it simply.
Nobody has got a switch for the wind.
It blows when it wants to blow.
Now … down under.
The AUSTRALIAN government just announced
the biggest single expansion of its electricity grid.
Nineteen renewable energy projects.
Seven-point-eight gigawatts of generation.
Seven-point-nine gigawatt-hours of battery storage.
Seventeen billion dollars in private investment.
Nineteen thousand construction jobs.
Power for four million homes.
Among the largest … RWE’s [arr-vay’s] THEODORE wind farm in QUEENSLAND.
One-point-one gigawatts. Up to one hundred and seventy turbines.
Three billion Australian dollars.
RWE … the same company building offshore wind
in England and Denmark …
is now building onshore in AUSTRALIA.
And the AUSTRALIAN government is not stopping.
They just opened the next round of tenders.
Another five gigawatts.
Finally … JAPAN.
Major contractor SHIMIZU [shee-MEE-zoo] CORPORATION
has developed a way to recycle old wind turbine blades.
Not into park benches. Not into landfill.
Into steel.
The blades are cut and crushed into a material
that goes into electric furnaces
to adjust the carbon content of steel …
making it harder and stronger.
JAPAN expects to replace one hundred to two hundred turbines a year
by the two thousand thirties.
That is two to three thousand tonnes of blade waste. Annually.
SHIMIZU has built about twenty percent
of the wind power facilities in JAPAN.
They see this technology as a way to grow
their entire wind energy business.
So … let us step back.
India stacks two gigawatts of private-sector wind orders.
Africa installs turbines in gale-force winds … without a crane.
South Dakota stores surplus wind in superheated carbon blocks.
Australia backs nineteen projects with seventeen billion dollars.
And Japan turns old blades into stronger steel.
From the factory floor to the scrap yard …
from the wind farm to the furnace …
the industry is solving problems
at every stage of a turbine’s life.
And that’s the state of the wind industry for the 25th of May 2026.
Join us for the UPTIME WIND ENERGY PODCAST tomorrow.
We’ve all heard ideas like the one being expressed here, though this one sounds extreme. Jail sentence? Education is exclusively an exercise in pounding in bad habits?
What’s the outcome for students in the very worst of our schools that make no attempt whatsoever to help its pupils learn to think critically? Well, their kids learn to:
- Read and write
- Do math, at least through algebra
- Understand some level of history and geography
- Make friends and get along with others
- Establish independence from the parents
- Gain the qualifications for employment
What’s the alternative? Illiteracy? Social isolation? Child labor? Poverty? Neurotic sloth? Being a burden on society?
Is it a coincidence that the countries with the best educated children are the happiest, sanest and most productive nations on the planet?
If you’re a competent woman working at the highest echelon in the U.S. government, better start packing your bags.
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