Bid to incentivise grid enhancing technology deployment in US

The ‘Advancing Grid Enhancing Technologies’ (GETs) Act has been introduced in the US to boost investments in these technologies.

The legislation, proposed by Peter Welch of Vermont and Angus King of Maine in the Senate and Kathy Castor of Florida, Paul Tonko of New York and Scott Peters of California in the House of Representatives, requires the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to establish a shared savings incentive for GETs to encourage their deployment by July 2025.

Instead of the traditional fixed rate of return on a capital investment, a shared savings incentive would return to the developer a portion of the savings attributable to the investment in a GETs, with some of the savings also going to customers.

Additionally, the proposed Act includes an annual reporting requirement that directs transmission owners to report the costs associated with congestion to FERC and directs FERC to analyse and make this data publicly available.

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It also charges the Department of Energy with creating an application guide for implementing GETs projects. providing technical assistance to stakeholders interested in GETs and managing a clearinghouse with examples of implemented GETs projects.

Senator Welch commented: “We’re at a crucial turning point in our work to achieve a clean energy transition, and meeting this moment requires new investments in clean energy technologies that strengthen the capacity of our transmission system.

“The Advancing GETs Act will motivate grid operators and developers to bring new projects online that expand transmission capacity by guaranteeing returns for these targeted, cost saving investments. This legislation will be crucial to boosting transmission capacity and helping the United States achieve its clean energy electricity goals.”

The introduction of the Act follows a week after Senators Welch and King and Representatives Castor and Tonko urged the FERC in a letter to implement a cost saving incentive for GETs – a proposal first made to the organisation in 2020 by the industry associations the WATT Coalition and Advanced Energy United.

Julia Selker, Executive Director of the WATT Coalition, said since that time no alternative proposals to incentivise utilities to deploy these technologies have been made.

“GETs do not fit well into today’s utility business model. By designing an incentive based on the system benefits of deployments, consumer value and protection is built into the regulation. This policy would drive innovation that has been stalled for years and start to unlock capacity and flexibility on the existing and future transmission grid.”

Some individual states have started acting on GETs. In Illinois and New York, for example, studies are underway to evaluate their potential and legislation is being advanced in Minnesota and Virginia among others.

Grid enhancing technologies are hardware and/or software that dynamically increase the capacity, efficiency, reliability or safety of the existing grid and include dynamic line rating, advanced power flow control and topology optimisation.