Department of Energy report claims grid liftoff possible within five years

According to the Pathways to Commercial Liftoff: Innovative Grid Deployment report recently released by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), advanced technologies could support major peak demand growth, greater reliability and affordability, and in just a matter of years.

“The majority of the nation’s transmission and distribution lines are drastically overdue for an upgrade, which is why President Biden’s Investing in America agenda is so critical to bring the grid up to date,” U.S Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said. “DOE’s new Innovative Grid Deployment Liftoff report outlines the existing tools that can be deployed in less than 5 years to modernize the nation’s power sector making it more secure and reliable to deliver cheaper, cleaner power to American consumers.”

Within three to five years, the department proposed the country could achieve liftoff – when public and private sector engagement reaches critical levels to drive clean energy strategy forward. That would take between six and 12 large operational deployments, by DOE’s estimation, and comprehensive valuation and integration of advanced solutions into core grid investment, planning and operations.

Further, it proposed that these could transpire without increased costs to household ratepayers.

Advanced grid solutions could include advanced conductors, dynamic line rating or energy storage, for example, and DOE estimates these could support upwards of 20-100 GW of peak demand growth on the existing grid. It is an attractive possibility for the Biden administration, which remains committed to a net-zero emissions economy by 2050.

The report noted the multiple solutions commercially available today that could help utilities and regulators address near-term grid pressures, from rapid demand growth to reliability concerns and new generation connections. They could offer a bridge while new grid infrastructure capacity is built out and, by the DOE’s estimate, most are less than a quarter of the cost of conventional alternatives. Since they make use of existing infrastructure, they would also have the advantage of being quick to deploy.