National Interest Transmission Corridors: The Road to Recovery for Transmission Investment?

Over the next few years substantial transmission investment is needed to keep up with load growth, integrate the next round of generation, and meet renewable and environmental goals. However, the current siting and construction processes often result in substantial delays, higher development costs, and reduced incentives to invest. These delays stem from pancaked environmental impact requirements, parochial benefit cost assessment by state authorities, multiple jurisdictions for permitting, and other legal hurdles. To reduce these constraints the Energy Policy Act of 2005 empowers the Department of Energy to designate National Interest Transmission Corridors (NITC), and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission may issue permits for new projects if states do not have jurisdiction or have unduly delayed decisions on projects.

* CERA research shows that there is substantial potential to create NITC to better integrate wholesale power markets, support greater fuel and technology diversity for the next generation of power plants, and foster greater resilience and security in the power delivery system.
* The broad criteria laid down in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 will likely result in many competing transmission corridors being designated.
* Creation of NITC will benefit larger regional projects, which have the potential to substantially reshape wholesale power landscape and change power flows, power prices, and asset values.

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