Federal regulators have overhauled the way managers of U.S. power grids will plan and pay for electricity expansions, giving states a bigger role and lifting efforts to add more wind and solar power.
In a 2-1 partisan split, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission required utilities and regional grid operators to plan for electricity growth and a changing mix of energy resources decades into the future. The decision is the most consequential policy initiative from FERC in more than a decade explicitly aimed at regional planning.
It also comes at a time of heightened political tensions around President Joe Biden’s push to nearly eliminate carbon pollution from the power sector by 2035. A recent EPA power plant rule targeting carbon emissions could speed the integration of carbon-free energy into a grid that’s moving swiftly away from coal.
FERC Chair Willie Phillips and Commissioner Allison Clements, both Democrats, voted for the rule Monday. They said the U.S. interstate transmission networks are at a crisis point, aging and stressed by sudden spurts of power growth from data centers and fossil plant retirements while new sources of generation are unable to connect.
