Solutions for the Surge: New Report on Reducing Energy Costs with Grid-Enhancing Technologies and High-Performance Conductors

April 22, 2025

Technologies Offer Options for Meeting Growing Electricity Demand, Keeping Costs Down

WASHINGTON, D.C. – A new report released today highlights the important role Grid-Enhancing Technologies (GETs) and High-Performance Conductors (HPCs) can play in ensuring the U.S. transmission grid can meet the surging near-term power demand from growing economic sectors while keeping costs down for consumers. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC’s) recent transmission planning and cost allocation rule, Order 1920, mandates transmission providers develop scenario-based, long-term transmission planning that includes the consideration of GETs and HPCs.

Prepared by The Brattle Group on behalf of the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE), the report, titled “Incorporating GETs and HPCs into Transmission Planning Under FERC Order 1920,” highlights the many benefits of these technologies. The report also addresses how: (1) current planning processes may be inadequate for their consideration; (2) Order 1920 can remedy these deficiencies; and (3) relevant state entities can encourage transmission providers to fully integrate these technologies into transmission planning and selection processes.

“GETs and HPCs are proven tools that can add critical grid capacity in less than a year in some instances,” said Elise Caplan, ACORE’s Vice President of Regulatory Affairs. “FERC’s directive in Order 1920 sets the stage for transmission providers to cost-effectively address rapid load growth and other challenges to the grid through careful consideration of these technologies.”

As demonstrated through on-the-ground deployment and various studies, these technologies are well-established, cost-effective technologies that can be quickly deployed in the near term on the existing system and complement the longer-term buildout of transmission. The report finds that cost savings associated with the seven benefits FERC laid out in Order 1920 can range from tens to hundreds of millions of dollars annually per region – totaling several billions of dollars per year for all U.S. consumers if they become widely adopted.

“GETs and HPCs are mature, proven technologies, and our analysis found that these tools can provide all seven benefits outlined in FERC Order 1920,” said Bruce Tsuchida, Principal at The Brattle Group and lead report author. “Transmission providers can use a holistic evaluation method when assessing various benefits and comparing potential transmission solutions. These technologies will likely shine through as a lower-cost option to ensuring reliable, affordable power for ratepayers.”

In addition to planning for future needs, transmission providers account for various uncertainties — including investment costs and the trajectory of future changes to load. Improved long-term transmission planning processes can better evaluate all available solutions within multiple scenarios. FERC’s directive also presents significant opportunities for states to work with transmission providers to enhance the technologies’ consideration and promote broader adoption.

“In finalizing Order 1920, FERC directed transmission providers to revamp their planning processes to better plan and prepare the system for future challenges. But it will take some time before Order 1920 is fully effective,” said Rich Glick, Principal at GQS New Energy Strategies and former FERC Chair. “In the meantime, action is needed to address more immediate threats to reliability and affordability. This report shows that GETs and HPCs offer a near-term capacity solution while grid operators continue to plan the regional transmission lines needed to meet future challenges.”

To download a copy of the report, click here.

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About ACORE:
For over 20 years, the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) has been the nation’s leading voice on the issues most essential to clean energy expansion. ACORE unites finance, policy, and technology to accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy. For more information, please visit https://acore.org/.

Media Contacts:
Dylan Helms
Manager, Communications
American Council on Renewable Energy
communications@acore.org
202-935-6491

Ellie Potter
Senior Public Affairs Manager, Macro Grid Initiative
American Council on Renewable Energy
potter@acore.org
202-505-5589

The post Solutions for the Surge: New Report on Reducing Energy Costs with Grid-Enhancing Technologies and High-Performance Conductors appeared first on ACORE.

https://acore.org/news/solutions-for-the-surge-new-report-on-reducing-energy-costs-with-grid-enhancing-technologies-and-high-performance-conductors/

Renewable Energy

Forcing Our Teachers to Toe the Line on Communism

Published

11 hours ago

August 24, 2026

Alice Rush

The substance of the meme here is correct; Florida public schools require comprehensive K-12 instruction on the history and dangers of communism, following a series of legislative moves and curriculum standards. The updated “History of Communism” curriculum is rolling out for the 2026–2027 school year, mandating that students learn about the “brutal realities” and (the catastrophic) global impact of communist regimes.

When I was a schoolboy in the 1960s and early 1970s, we came to learn that all efforts to establish a viable communist nation had failed, but our teachers were not shackled as to what they could teach and how they could teach it. As a result, we came to a variety of helpful viewpoints, and these are what I offered my own kids as they were growing up, e.g.,

“Men are not angels,” as my sixth-grade social studies teacher explained. Those who do not need to work in order to survive can simply goof off.
Yet idleness is averse to most people’s psychological needs to be an active and productive person, and member of society.
Power corrupts, and absolutely power corrupts absolutely. Democracy prevents the accumulation of a pathological amount of power on the part of any one leader. (This was assumed to be true until Donald Trump’s second term.)
If Lenin (a butcher) hadn’t had Trotsky (a compassionate intellectual) assassinated, the entirety of the USSR would have turned out completely differently.
If the U.S. hadn’t, through its embargoes, made it impossible for Cuba to offer its people a decent quality of life, their revolution may have succeeded and brought forth a new way of thinking.
There are examples of smaller scale societies in which the ideals of communism work out very nicely, e.g., the Israeli kibbutz.
We read and discussed at length a book called “Social Ideals and Ideal Societies” in which these concepts were analyzed fairly and in great depth.

Now, will the typical American schoolchild turn out better if he’s cut off from thinking critically about all this and forced to accept the mantra that “communism = evil?” The typical Florida Republican would say the answer is an obvious yes, but most intelligent people would dispute that.

Producing educated people who can think for themselves is an idea quite opposed to the ongoing control of a population.

Forcing Our Teachers to Toe the Line on Communism

Renewable Energy

Trump Supporters Stupid?

Published

13 hours ago

August 24, 2026

Alice Rush

To the author of the meme here, I say: It’s safe to say that most folks in Trump’s MAGA base are stupid, though one needs more than a low IQ to fit into this segment.

In particular, we mustn’t omit mean-spiritedness. People who are kind, compassionate, decent and tolerant of others are grossly unqualified to be rank-and-file Trumpers.

Trump Supporters Stupid?

Renewable Energy

Why Trump Works So Hard to Divide Us

Published

14 hours ago

August 24, 2026

Alice Rush

Trump appeals to two groups of constituents: a) a small group of billionaires who lavish him with campaign contributions in exchange for huge financial favors, and b) a large number of poorly educated white people who call themselves Christians–the so-called MAGA base.

Trump has little if any appeal to everybody else: honest, fairly well-educated people of a variety of ethnicities and religious affiliations.

For Trump, staying in power means making sure that there is a minimum of leakage away from the MAGA base. That requires barraging these people with messaging to the effect that the president is the only thing standing in the way of communism/socialism, open borders, the invasion of Muslims, godlessness, teaching our little children about LGBTQs, critical race theory, choking environmental regulation, and whatever else may be on the radical left’s agenda.

Maintain this chasm means not letting up on the propaganda for a single minute. No nuance, no critical thinking, no considering what we’ve learned from history–just constant bombardment.