25 Mar
Grid reliability and affordability are getting sustained attention on Capitol Hill. Last week, the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy held a hearing on lessons from Winter Storm Fern. This week, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee convenes to examine the state of the bulk power system. Both chambers are grappling with the same fundamental question: is America’s grid keeping up with the demands being placed on it?
The data suggests it isn’t — and electricity customers are bearing the cost.
When power gets trapped behind a transmission bottleneck, customers on the other side of that constraint pay more — sometimes dramatically more — because they’re forced to rely on expensive local generation even when cheaper power exists nearby. That’s exactly what happened during Winter Storm Fern in January. Along the MISO–SPP border in Missouri, available wind power couldn’t reach customers on the constrained side, where gas plants were struggling in sub-20°F temperatures. Analysts estimate that relieving that single bottleneck could have saved customers more than $800 per megawatt-hour. At the same time, electricity prices exceeded $1,500/MWh at some Mid-Atlantic nodes while going negative in parts of Illinois just miles away.
These aren’t isolated incidents. Grid congestion costs have exceeded $10 billion annually for four consecutive years, topping $12 billion in 2024 — roughly double what they were before 2021. Those costs flow directly through to household and business electricity bills.
Transmission solves this by connecting regions to lower-cost power, reducing congestion, and increasing competition among generators — all of which put downward pressure on the prices customers pay. Our research shows that well-planned, long-distance, high-capacity transmission delivers roughly $5 in economic and reliability benefits for every $1 invested. And for every $1 billion in transmission investment that gets delayed, consumers lose between $150 million and $370 million in net benefits per year.
But as our recently released 2025 Transmission Planning and Development Report Card found, progress remains uneven. The report evaluated planning and development across 10 U.S. regions and found that regions embracing proactive, long-term planning — aligned with FERC Order No. 1920 — are delivering better outcomes for customers. Others, particularly the Southeast and Texas, continue to fall short on planning best practices despite rapidly growing needs. Nationally, the average grade for interregional transmission planning is approximately a D+.
The urgency is only increasing. Electricity demand is accelerating — driven by manufacturing growth, electrification across the economy, extreme weather, and emerging technologies including AI. The window for incremental planning approaches is closing.
We’ve also seen what happens when transmission is in place. During Winter Storm Uri in 2021, MISO and SPP shared power across hundreds of connections with PJM and avoided catastrophe — while Texas, with just two DC ties to the Eastern Interconnection, saw 4.5 million people lose power for days. And the New England Clean Energy Connect line, which began operating in January, is already reducing electricity prices in Maine where it delivers power.
The bottom line: transmission is how we keep electricity affordable and reliable as the demands on our grid grow. Delay is the most expensive option on the table — and the customers who can least afford it are the ones who pay first.
Read the full 2025 Transmission Planning and Development Report Card
Read our Winter Storm Fern transmission analysis
Read the report card press release
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