The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) awarded $100 thousand to fund PESD's research project on "Transmission Planning to Support Renewable Energy at Scale and Enhance Wholesale Electricity Competition."

At present, the lack of adequate transmission infrastructure makes it difficult to connect generators in regions with rich wind or solar potential to major population centers, thus a major barrier to least-cost renewable energy deployment.  The current transmission planning and expansion processes, incentives for vertically integrated, regulated monopoly regimes versus wholesale market regimes for renewable energy, ambitious state-level renewable energy goals, and the geographic concentration of the major renewable energy sources obstruct the ability for low cost renewable energy for consumers, healthy competition, least cost transmission, and the expansion of renewable energy generation.

A major goal of this research project is to quantify the differences in the least cost transmission network configuration between the vertically-integrated regime and wholesale market regime and quantify the differences in the cost of serving load associated with using a transmission planning and expansion process not suited to the wholesale market regime. 

The TomKat Center for Sustainable Energy has awarded four research grants totaling $1.2 million to Stanford University researchers for smart power grid related studies.  One of the four grants went to a PESD-led project that will help regulators overcome barriers to the development of electricity transmission lines needed to facilitate renewable energy deployment.  At present, the lack of adequate transmission infrastructure makes it difficult to connect generators in regions with rich wind or solar potential to major population centers.

One of the biggest challenges in the current transmission planning process is accurately characterizing the benefits of transmission lines to build a case for their development.  "Our research will develop key analytical tools to help regulators and policymakers assess the economic and environmental benefits of transmission expansions to support renewable generation," Wolak said. Such tools can ultimately be built in to grid planning, expansion, and pricing methodologies.