The world is electrifying. Between the increased adoption of electric vehicles, new manufacturing facilities and the energy-hungry data centers that are powering the AI revolution, electricity demand is increasing at unprecedented rates.

Amid all of the opportunities that our electrified economy brings, it’s crucial to keep in mind one thing that could derail all of this progress: an insufficient electrical grid. The U.S.'s century-old transmission infrastructure can't handle today's soaring electrical demand, and the resulting bottlenecks could significantly hinder economic growth and our decarbonization goals. Unless the U.S. more than doubles its regional transmission capacity, the backlog of renewable projects will only increase with growing electricity demand.¹ Connecting clean energy projects to the electrical grid is vital to meeting the demand for renewable energy and overall climate goals – including the Paris Agreement’s goal of a 43% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 – but outdated grid infrastructure is holding us back. There were 2.6 terawatts (TW) of generation and storage capacity stuck in interconnection queues at the end of 2023, 95% of which is renewable energy. The average project takes five years to connect and is burdened by increasing interconnection costs.² On top of all of this, utilities are racing to meet customers’ demand for capacity to feed data centers needed to power rapidly evolving cloud computing and AI technologies, whose applications are multiplying to touch every aspect of our technological lives.

Our lack of grid capacity isn’t a problem of tomorrow; it's something we’re facing here and now that must be addressed with appropriate urgency. The traditional means of upgrading grid infrastructure would be to install new transmission lines, which must be part of the solution, but new lines can take up to 10 years and cost millions of dollars per mile.³ Utilities must use every tool in their toolbox and consider every means of increasing grid capacity, lest we fail to meet both our demand for electricity and our decarbonization goals while ensuring a reliable energy delivery system.

Thankfully, there is an affordable, here-and-now solution to this problem: Grid Enhancing Technologies (GETs). GETs are devices and software that can make the most of existing grid infrastructure to increase electrical throughput. One particular GET, Dynamic Line Ratings (DLR), can create near-immediate improvements in grid efficiency upon installation. If one were to picture the current electrical grid as a congested highway, with countless impatient cars struggling to merge and get to their destination, then DLR implementation would be the equivalent of creating an entirely new lane, alleviating stress and significantly speeding up traffic.

AES, a global energy company, recognizes the grid capacity challenge and has partnered with DLR provider LineVision to deploy. the technology at scale. AES and LineVision recently released a case study on the deployment of 42 of LineVision’s DLR sensors across five diverse AES transmission lines in Indiana and Ohio, which, at the time, was the largest deployment of DLR in the United States. AES chose LineVision’s DLR for a number of reasons, including DLR’s affordability, the speed with which it can be installed and the valuable data it provides about grid assets in the field and their ability to carry power. LineVision’s DLR sensor monitors can be installed directly onto transmission poles within minutes, without the need for scheduled power outages or expensive installation equipment. These sensors offer visibility into transmission line capacity and conductor health, and proactive monitoring alerts for real-time identification of potential safety threats. By calculating transmission line ratings based on real-time environmental conditions, AES found an increase of over 60% for deployments on 345kV lines.

AES had four goals when deploying LineVision’s DLR for this case study. The first was to validate the benefits of DLR through quantitative evidence affirming its effectiveness. The second was to increase the efficiency of AES’ existing grid, which all GETs – including DLR – are inherently equipped to do. The third was to ensure the reliable and safe delivery of electricity. The final objective was to establish a variety of proof points on DLR across a number of different asset types and customer-use cases.

Both AES and LineVision aimed to choose a set of transmission lines that would sufficiently demonstrate the efficacy and versatility of DLR. AES believed that the lines that could validate DLR customer benefits were those with known or expected constraints, reliability risk or planned investment. With this in mind, the two organizations chose five transmission lines for DLR deployment, located in a mix of urban and rural areas. Total installation time took less than two weeks with an average sensor installation time of approximately 30 minutes, excluding travel time.

Early results from the case study underscore the potential for DLR to greatly enhance real-time monitoring, which would improve grid operations and strategic investment in assets. Extra high voltage transmission lines were shown to be well-suited for DLR because of their wider rights of way, taller structures and greater tension equalization between spans. With DLR installed, these lines consistently exhibited a much higher electrical capacity than their counterparts utilizing static ratings and ambient adjusted ratings (AAR). The final major finding was that DLR provided improved situational awareness and opportunities for informed decision-making in all five deployments, which will determine the next steps for each line. For example, DLR revealed how highly vegetated areas can limit the cooling effects of wind and impact the carrying capacity of transmission lines. DLR surfaced capacity constraints on a 69kV line that travels through a narrow vegetation corridor, restricting the cooling effect from wind. This insight enabled AES to consider vegetation management or targeted reconductoring to raise the line capacity.

The enhanced capacity that DLR can provide transmission lines, coupled with the lessons learned, exhibit the potential for DLR to bring about substantial benefits to customers and utilities alike. These projected benefits include reduced energy and upgrade costs, lower congestion, improved reliability, cleaner energy and faster connection of large customer loads such as data centers. For all the promising discoveries that were made, this is only the beginning. AES is committed to continuing the study of DLR and providing further data on its uses. It is incontrovertible that DLR should play a vital role in the future of the electric grid. But more than that, given the urgency brought about by increased electrical demand, they must be a part of a modernized grid right here and now.

Other studies have found similar promising results from GETs. The Department of Energy (DOE) recently concluded that deploying DLR and other advanced grid technologies overnight could increase the capacity of the existing grid to support 20-100 GW of incremental peak demand when installed individually, with significant additional capacity potential when installed in strategic combinations.⁴ This could help defer an estimated $5-35 billion in transmission and distribution infrastructure costs over the next five years.

Given the clear evidence from deployments across the U.S. of the benefits of GETs, one may wonder why they aren’t more universally adopted by utilities. Some barriers to the wide adoption of GETs exist. The first barrier is a lack of general knowledge among utilities, policymakers and everyday ratepayers. Due to a lack of overall awareness, there simply are not enough people in relevant spheres of influence who know about the potential for GETs to modernize the aging electric grid.

The second barrier to adoption is a lack of viable financial and regulatory incentives for GET installation. Utilities are operating within century-old regulatory frameworks that were designed when the country and our power needs were vastly different than they are today. State and local electricity regulators designed these regulations to incentivize the construction of large infrastructure. One solution is to incentivize GETs adoption the same way regulators promote energy efficiency programs. The cost savings of deploying a GET solution over traditional poles and wires can be shared between the customer and the utility.

While there has been some headway in regulatory action involving GETs, more remains to be done. The most pro-GETs regulatory framework can be found in Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Order 1920, which advises utility companies to “consider” using GETs like DLR as a way of creating a more efficient, cost-effective regional transmission planning process. While FERC’s demonstrated interest in the advantages of DLR is a positive development, GETs are a win-win that can immediately give the electrical grid a much-needed boost and should be prioritized as an integral part of the future of electricity instead of merely being “considered.” Similar to the requirement from FERC for the use of Ambient Adjusted Ratings (AAR), action from FERC on the use of DLR is appropriate and represents the next best step forward in optimizing our existing assets.

There are many ways in which GETs deployment is stifled, but there are also viable solutions to these obstacles. It all starts with educating the right people on the impact of GETs. Case studies on GETs must be amplified and shared among policymakers, regulators, utilities and customers. Once GETs are universally recognized as the low-hanging fruit grid solution that they are, policies and incentive structures should be reformed to reflect this fact. FERC must go beyond advocating for the “consideration” of GETs and advocate for, if not require, their implementation. On top of that, state regulators need to provide the same impetus for installing GETs as they currently do for constructing new transmission lines. If and when those critical steps are taken, a modernized grid with superior capacity will begin to transition from a goal to reality.

Our current approach to grid modernization is expensive and takes years to complete. Simply sticking with the status quo will not give us the grid we need today to power an increasingly electric tomorrow. DLR is a proven solution that provides near-term grid enhancement, and this technology must be implemented on a larger scale. To that end, AES is committed to further using and analyzing DLR and sharing insights through subsequent studies in the hope that these findings will encourage the acceleration of DLR adoption throughout the United States.

This case study provides a positive example of the solutions possible when utilities, regulators and policymakers work together to ensure our grid’s sustainability. GETs must become universally embraced as an effective, innovative means of increasing grid capacity and this effort begins by educating key decision-makers on their benefits. Once this occurs, regulatory and business incentives must be modified to foster GET adoption.

In addition to the findings of this partnership, there is momentum in other arenas that give reason to be hopeful about the future of this technology. FERC Order 1920 has given DLR key recognition among federal regulators, and the Biden Administration recently announced an effort to mobilize the public and private sectors to upgrade 100,000 miles of transmission lines over the next five years through the use of GETs such as DLR. These developments are working together to provide the positive inertia through which key decision-makers can further the goal of driving innovation, enhancing grid resilience, maintaining customer affordability and paving the way for a cleaner energy future.

¹ Grid Strategies: The Era of Flat Power Demand is Over

² Berkeley Lab EMP: Queued Up: Characteristics of Power Plants Seeking Transmission Interconnection

³ Department of Energy: National Transmission Needs Study