Transmission

Transmission

Trump admin cancels $4.9B loan for biggest transmission line in US

The Grain Belt Express is over a decade in the making and would bring huge amounts of cheap wind and solar from the plains to the East. Its future is now murky.

By Jeff St. John . 23 July 2025
Wind

Is wind power finally coming to Maine’s remote north?

After more than a decade of fits and starts, developers are forming new plans for onshore wind and transmission lines to connect it to the New England grid.

By Sarah Shemkus . 7 July 2025
Energy storage

The Northeast just faced record heat. Batteries could’ve helped.

Grid storage can keep fossil fuel peaker plants dormant and prevent demand-induced outages like the Northeast saw this week.

By Kathryn Krawczyk . 27 June 2025
Transmission

How sensors, software, and other tech could help Ohio’s aging power grid

A new state law will require utilities and regulators to explore advanced transmission technologies before pursuing conventional grid expansion projects.

By Kathiann M. Kowalski . 10 June 2025
Fossil fuels

Federal regulators reject MISO’s plan to fast-track gas plants

FERC says the Midwest grid operator’s proposal would cause more problems than it would solve in a victory for clean power, reliability, and energy developers.

By Jeff St. John . 19 May 2025
Transmission

North Carolina eyes grid-enhancing tech to improve aging power lines

Regulators are prodding utility Duke Energy to deploy cutting-edge tools like dynamic line rating and carbon composite conductors to improve transmission.

By Elizabeth Ouzts . 15 May 2025
Emissions reduction

The country’s biggest grid operator has a new tool to track emissions

Utilities, states, and Big Tech firms want to know how dirty their grid power is. MISO and startup Singularity have rolled out a tool that can show them.

By Jeff St. John . 14 May 2025
Transmission

A shortcut to making the grid safer and more reliable: Beams of light

Prisma Photonics uses preexisting fiber-optic cables to detect disruptions across thousands of miles of high-voltage transmission lines.

By Jeff St. John . 7 May 2025
Transmission

How fast-tracking fossil gas could snarl the Midwest grid

MISO’s plan to let gas plants cut the interconnection line is unfair, costly, and counter to grid reliability goals, former federal regulators and advocates say.

By Jeff St. John . 6 May 2025
Clean energy

A new way to power data centers: pair clean energy and peaker plants

An RMI report finds that solar and wind energy could connect to rarely used gas plants to meet gigawatts of data center demand, and still share power with the grid.

By Jeff St. John . 18 March 2025