High voltage power transmission lines near Underwood, N.D. Installing new wires on the high-voltage lines that already carry power hundreds of miles across America could double the amount of power those lines carry. (Dan Koeck for The Washington Post)

Shannon Osaka, writing in The Washington Post, offers an unglamorous but effective-sounding story about the role that electrical transmission lines may play in upgrading our energy infrastructure:

How a simple fix could double the size of the U.S. electricity grid

Rewiring miles of power lines could make space for data centers, AI and a boom in renewables.

High voltage power lines run through a substation along the electrical power grid in Pembroke Pines, Florida. The grid is strained by increasing demand from electricity-hungry data centers and electric vehicles, as well as extreme weather events. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

There is one big thing holding the United States back from a pollution-free electricity grid running on wind, solar and battery power: not enough power lines.

As developers rush to install wind farms and solar plants to power data centers, artificial intelligence systems and electric vehicles, the nation’s sagging, out-of-date power lines are being overwhelmed — slowing the transition to clean energy and the fight against climate change.

But experts say that there is a remarkably simple fix: installing new wires on the high-voltage lines that already carry power hundreds of miles across the United States. Just upgrading those wires, new reports show, could double the amount of power that can flow through America’s electricity grid.

“This is something that could be a triple win,” said Brian Deese, an innovation fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who headed the White House National Economic Council under President Biden until early last year. “A win for the electricity system, a win for utilities and a win for consumers.”

Since Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act in August 2022 — pouring hundreds of billions of dollars toward the build-out of clean energy — experts have warned that without a dramatic increase in the size of the electricity grid, most of those new wind and solar farms won’t be able to plug in.

Many renewables are stuck in the “interconnection queue,” a long line of projects waiting to get connected to the grid. According to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, more than 1,500 gigawatts of power, mostly renewables, are waiting for approval to connect. (That’s more than one-third of all the power produced in the United States.)…

Read the whole article here.