Friday 14 April 2023

‘US doesn’t have enough power lines for its renewables’

The US is not building power lines quickly enough to deal with its demand for new renewable energy.

According to a report by JPMorgan, the US has generated as much renewable energy in the past five years as it has in the last 20.

Although green energy is booming, the means of bringing it to American homes is not – with transmission line growth dropping to just 1% in the last five years.

In order for the trends of renewable demand and transmission to align, the growth of power lines will need to increase by 5.7% each year by 2048.

The report revealed that projects from the end of the last year have already been put into a queue, waiting to be linked to the grid.

The generation capacity of these renewable projects awaiting connection is 2,040GW – more than the 1,250GW of installed power plant capacity in the US at the same time.

One of the reasons suggested for the struggle to link green energy projects to the grid is that many are built far further away from towns and cities than natural gas or nuclear power plants; meaning more materials are needed to build longer lines.

The report reveals that with close to 1,500 miles of high voltage direct current lines, the US has a similar level of transmission to Denmark – which is 230 times smaller than it.

The US Department of Energy has been approached for comment.