{"id":24185,"date":"2024-08-05T10:15:27","date_gmt":"2024-08-05T15:15:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/?p=24185"},"modified":"2026-04-20T11:21:36","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T16:21:36","slug":"an-obvious-solution-for-building-electric-transmission-faster-use-railroads-and-highways","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/2024\/08\/05\/an-obvious-solution-for-building-electric-transmission-faster-use-railroads-and-highways\/","title":{"rendered":"An obvious solution for building electric transmission faster: Use railroads and highways"},"content":{"rendered":"

The U.S. needs to build a lot <\/strong>more high-voltage electric transmission lines. Our current system is disconnected in all of the wrong places, leaving bountiful renewable resources stranded, individual regions isolated, and disadvantaged communities with unreliable power and exorbitant costs. Even where we do have connections, many of the lines are outdated and can\u2019t accommodate all of the energy that is being produced.<\/p>\n

To ensure that our grid is resilient to severe storms and heat, capable of meeting our climate goals, and can deliver energy at reasonable cost, we will need to build or upgrade around 75,000 miles of transmission lines \u2013 the equivalent of building 30 transmission lines connecting Los Angeles to New York City<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Historically, building transmission lines over long distances has been an arduous and time-consuming process. Many lines have taken decades to reach completion, while others don\u2019t even make it to the construction phase. Since transmission lines typically pass through many separate state and local governments, transmission developers are required to apply for a permit with each of the individual states, and potentially the individual municipality that it crosses. Each of these state and local processes can take years, leading to potentially cascading timelines, particularly for longer distance projects. And of course, any of these permitting bodies could simply deny the project from being sited in their state or local jurisdiction, setting off further actions and delays that a transmission developer will need to respond to, if they don\u2019t simply throw in the towel.<\/p>\n

But there is a small exception to this sluggish process:<\/strong> a transmission line that is being built within a specific Department of Energy (DOE) designated \u201ccorridor\u201d <\/strong>and that did not receive a construction permit from a state or local agency within one year of filing their application may seek a federal permit from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to move forward with their project.<\/p>\n

In May, DOE proposed 10 National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors<\/em> (NIETCs, pronounced Nit-Sees)<\/a><\/strong>. These NIETCs represent areas where DOE has found that new interstate transmission could provide outsized benefits to consumers affected by high electricity costs and reliability concerns. Transmission lines built in these corridors will become eligible for additional financial support under the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. These proposed designations represent a necessary step forward in the process of getting more transmission lines in the ground. However, whether these corridors can deliver on their promise of removing barriers to building new transmission projects depends on where the boundaries are drawn, and whether they include the range of reasonable alternative routes that a developer may need to consider.<\/p>\n

An analysis commissioned by EDF found that the boundaries of the corridors were drawn far too narrow, unnecessarily excluding existing infrastructure corridors and their rights-of-way — such as highway and railway routes — that can create more pathways for delivering reliable and affordable power.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Background: What are rights-of-way and why do they matter for electric power?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Highways, railways, transmission lines and pipelines each operate on what is known as a \u201cright-of-way.\u201d Linear rights-of-way have their roots in 19th<\/sup> century federal land grants to encourage railroad development across the country. As the U.S. developed more infrastructure in the following years, federal and state governments earmarked millions of miles of linear tracts to build roads, highways, pipelines and power lines \u2013 forming a network of routes that move between population centers, natural resources and other points of interest.<\/p>\n

\"Railroad<\/a><\/p>\n

Rights-of-way don\u2019t have a universal shape or size. The width of a right-of-way largely depends on the type of infrastructure it is hosting (rail, highway, utility line etc.) and can range from a dozen feet to several hundreds of feet. While some overhead transmission lines may have sizeable width requirements for their footprints and clearances, buried transmission lines can be built in far narrower footprints, potentially enabling transmission lines to be built in narrower existing rights-of-way.<\/p>\n

The effort today to co-locate transmission around the country<\/strong><\/h3>\n

While it may appear obvious to look at ways to consolidate our public infrastructure, co-locating electricity with other linear development has not been a policy focus until somewhat recently. This is surprising given that co-location of broadband internet lines with rail had been relatively commonplace throughout the 1980\u2019s and 1990\u2019s. Co-locating transmission lines with other infrastructure did not arouse much attention until 2003, when policymakers in Wisconsin took up the issue and passed a first-in-the-nation law that required electric utilities to look at siting new transmission lines within existing transmission and transportation rights-of-way before considering other locations.\u00a0Other states are finally catching up to Wisconsin, with Minnesota recently passing a bill that would open all rights-of-way corridors to host transmission lines.<\/p>\n

At the federal level, efforts have been far more complicated. Although Congress first gave the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission \u2014 an independent agency that regulates the interstate transmission of electricity \u2014 the authority to permit interstate transmission in high-need areas in 2005, it was effectively blocked until the passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law in 2021 (16 years later) which cleared the previous legal hurdles. That process finally got underway last year when the DOE published its 2023 Transmission Needs Study<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Federal Power Act requires that after DOE completes a Transmission Needs Study that it designates areas as NIETCs if the areas, based on the Needs Study and other relevant sources, are found to have or are expected to experience significant transmission congestion or constraints that affect their ability to deliver power.<\/p>\n

\"Proposed<\/a>
The 10 National Interstate Electric Transmission Corridors (NIETCs) proposed by the Department of Energy.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In issuing its preliminary list of NIETCs, DOE made the decision to draw NIETC boundaries narrowly primarily to reflect areas where transmission developers are planning to build transmission lines. However, a transmission developer\u2019s planned transmission route isn\u2019t always where the line will end up being sited. A series of factors, including stakeholder input can impact a transmission line\u2019s final route. As a result, NIETCs should be drawn to reflect all<\/em><\/strong> of the places where a transmission line could reasonably get built, especially areas where siting transmission will minimize impacts.<\/p>\n

Since rights-of-way are often clear of natural resources and residential or commercial structures, co-locating a new transmission line on an existing right-of-way could limit the potential impacts of a project by reducing the need to remove trees, dredge wetlands, enter species habitats, and build on private land or near to residential neighborhoods. It could also speed up the development of the project. A transmission line built on an existing right-of-way would likely have fewer individual landowners to engage with, as large sections could be controlled by a single entity.<\/p>\n

It is therefore no accident that Congress amended the Federal Power Act to direct DOE to consider maximizing existing rights-of-way when determining the bounds of a corridor.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Our analysis reveals transmission opportunities in plain \u201csite\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n

While DOE conclusively states in its guidance document that many of the NIETCs \u201cwould maximize the use of existing rights of way including utility and highway rights-of-way\u201d, the agency glaringly leaves out an obvious and often used category: railroads<\/strong>. Spurred by this omission, EDF worked with Horizon Climate Group to compare the preliminary NIETCs against the locations of the dominant infrastructure categories\u2014highway, railroad and utility infrastructure\u2014to determine whether any of those existing rights-of-way were near to and running parallel to the corridors and should have been included in the designation.\u00a0Our results revealed an extensive network of existing rights-of-ways near to or parallel to the NIETCs, only a small portion of which were included in DOE\u2019s proposal.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here are two of the corridors that could be expanded using more rights-of-way, according to our analysis:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Plains-Southwest<\/strong>\"Plains-Southwest<\/a><\/h3>\n

DOE\u2019s proposed Plains-Southwest NIETC (orange highlight on the map):<\/strong><\/p>\n