Electric Transmission Policy in the United States
This research paper outlines the prevailing narratives, discussion, and news coverage at the state and local level around investment in transmission, provides a review of the regional and federal policy and history of transmission systems, and proposes a framework for analyzing and understanding transmission policy from the federal to the local level. It then provides a deep dive into three core areas of transmission policy – state-level siting, regional-level multi-party cost allocation, and grid modernization incentive structures – and presents a comparative analysis of two states representing two ends of the broad spectrum of approaches to transmission policy.