good afternoon and Welcome to our popup Forum on integrating Advanced transmission technologies into the New England power grid this week's hot weather is the perfect backdrop for this event which is focused on how Innovative Technologies can get more juice out of New England's electric power grid and at a lower cost and greater speed of deployment than many traditional transmission Investments this forum is hosted by the federal and Regional energy office then the Massachusetts executive office of energy and environmental Affairs my name is Jason Marshall and I serve as deputy secretary of the federal and Regional energy office I'll be joined later this afternoon by my colleagues assistant secretary Weezy noara and senior director Ashley gagnan thank you all for joining today's Forum the emergence of advanced transmission technologies or atts comes at a crucial time technology is driving fundamental changes to our electric grid we're moving from centralized fossil fuel driven power plants to clean energy resources that are distributed across the system wind solar and battery storage among other resources will help us chart a path to our future grid on the energy demand side load growth is projected to climb substantially in the coming decades through driven by the electrification of vehicles homes and buildings and potentially a rising consumption of power from Ai and cloud computing fortunately technology is also fundamentally changing the way that we meet the evolving needs of our electric grid transmission is the lifeblood of our electric power system you'll hear today from experts on how new transmission technologies have the potential to be generational Innovations and how they can play a key role in maximizing capacity on the power grid provide system operators with new tools to enhance reliability and lower consumer costs you'll hear today from the US Department of energy on its recent liftoff report on Innovative grid deployment you'll then hear from consulting firm energy and environmental economics or E3 on Pathways for integrating atts into the New England grid and we'll close out with a panel representing a cross-section of the New England energy landscape but first i'm pleased to welcome our Secretary of Energy environmental Affairs Rebecca teer to join us for a few minutes good afternoon secretary good afternoon everyone thanks so much for for joining us today I think this is a really great topic I know everyone's looking forward to the program and I just want to thank you for joining us this is our second popup Forum um that's sponsored by our federal and Regional Affairs team so I want to thank Jason and Weezy and Ashley and Hayden for their work putting together this forum this event as you know Builds on a similar Forum that we held last year focused on grid enhancing Technologies and this year we're driving diving a little deeper into advanced transmission technologies as you all know a lot has happened this last year with FK final rules on interconnection and the transmission planning reforms and these orders require among other things that the routine evaluation that requires the routine evaluation and consideration of Advanced transmission technologies and as many of you know a couple weeks ago FK also issued an advanced notice of proposed rule making to consider potential requirements for the use of dynamic line ratings so these decisions and Rule makings recognize the important role that advanced transmission technologies can and should play in ensuring reliability and affordability of the grid ISO New England also recently released its 2050 transmission study this study identifies the significant Investments that our region will need to make in our transition transmission system to meet the demand and integrate clean resources over the next 25 years Advanced transmission technologies are essential to ensuring that we are able to get the most out of our existing system before we build new Trans new infrastructure so how do we leverage and prioritize these Technologies here in New England how can we fully integrate them into our planning processes to get the most out of our system and save consumers money through the clean energy transition these are exactly the sorts of questions that our presenters and panelist today are gonna have come to talk about and I'm really excited for all of the discussion so thank you all for being here today and thanks again to the team that put this together have a good afternoon well thank you again secretary um not only for the welcome but for helping to set the stage for what we'll see today and um really Massachusetts wouldn't be a leader on Federal and Regional energy energy issues without your really close engagement so um thank you again thank you all have a good afternoon and next I'd like to welcome Senator Mike Barrett who is co-chair of the joint committee on telecommunications utilities and energy to join us um Senator Barrett and representative Jeff Roy the other co-chair of the committee are uh really roll up your sleeves kind of legislators and they've been out front on transmission um last legislative session they LED effort to in their respective Chambers to create a clean energy transmission working group which they also served on actively over the course of 2023 uh and that group produced a report that included recommendations to pursue the integration of advanced transmission technologies and with that Senator I really again want to thank you for being here and I'll turn it over to you well very happy to be here Jason and and happy to have joined the secretary and chair Roy and all of you uh so thank you for taking an interest um you're uh taking up the topic at a critical time uh I'm sure J chair Roy will mention exactly where the house is in terms of its consideration of a new climate Bill several weeks ago the Senate enacted new climate legislation and gets played a prominent role in terms of our drafting the reason we need your help though is because uh the legislature awaits information on just how large a role gets is going to play uh are we talking about uh a significant substitution for new construction are we talking about um standby U enhancement of the existing grid and the built the soon Tobe built grid but um only uh in a way that will have impacts around the margins we don't know what the technological and Tech capability is for truly substituting substituting att's for as I say the more expensive new construction option it's critically important to us right because our constituents are going to wind up paying for all of this so it's we really need to know if we're talking about uh something with a major set of implications for New England or a more marginal set either way we'll take them but uh the order of magnitude question is critical uh in a similar fashion I might mention uh we are always going to be concerned in the legislature about cost right uh is this a a relatively affordable addendum to our portfolio of solutions or are we looking at significant Standalone expense in connection with the adoption of these Technologies so on technical capability and reach and cost the legislature awaits uh Enlightenment uh from this forum uh from the Healey Administration from all of you acting in your individual and independent capacities these are critical questions because we're going forward we're not waiting we're going forward probably probably this year we hope conceivably in the next 60 days to authorize a significant expansion of the grid where do AT&T's fit in a where to gets a figure we need to know we're so grateful to Healey folks and I am so happy to be collaborating with the house my house colleague chair Roy as we ask these critical questions so happy to be here thank you thank you Jason very much for stitching This
Together Jason you're you're on mute well thank you Senator we really do appreciate um your close engagement and you're being here today and your leadership on on transmission and atts and um Good Luck wrapping up the legislative session we know it's in it's in high gear right now um and on on that front um I'm gonna invite uh chairman Roy to to join if if he's available um we know that the house is is I believe currently debating the climate bill so it's possible that that the chair um may not be here uh in time um I do see his office coming on hello everyone um I'm I'm filling in for chair Roy uh we're very excited to take up the house climate belill today and he is uh still in caucus so he asked me to to come down and deliver his remarks uh my name is Caleb vs I'm the research director for
Cher sure K Caleb did you did you want to um deliver remarks for the the chair uh yeah if that's okay I can go ahead please yeah we know we know your hands are very full right now thank you for taking the time go ahead please most definitely well on behalf of chair Roy great to be here with you all today we want to thank the EA for putting on this forum and convening us here for this important discussion on how we best integrate Advanced transmission technologies into the New England grid ATS are an essential piece of the puzzle when it comes to the Commonwealth's clean energy transition pursuant to our bold State climate goals we need to rapidly increase electrification of our buildings and transportation sectors and switch to newer cleaner sources of power generation this demand for more Renewable Power necessitates the Swift buildout and strengthening of our transmission
infrastructure as you all know constructing new transmission lines can take several years atts are a game changer because they can increase the capacity of existing transmission in the of of excuse me of existing transmission in existing rights of way minimizing the need to engage in what is currently often the lengthy siding and permitting process essentially they will help us get more bang for our buck with our existing infrastructure and will ensure that new Investments bolster the efficiency and reliability of our grid to the greatest extent possible the 2022 climate bill created the clean energy transmission working group to analyze cost application and Regional coordination opportunities for the transmission infrastructure upgrades necessary to support our clean energy goals a group did great work this session and issued its report in December 2023 this forum today is especially exciting because it is the start of the group's recommendations being put into action and speaking of action we are currently in the busy final Sprint to the end of the legislative session this month and are hard at work on another climate though no surprise there uh the chair will be on the house floor in a in a few minutes to advance h48 76 and act accelerating a responsible Innovative and Equitable clean energy transition the Big Goal this session is ciding and permitting reform so that we can expand generation and transmission at the pace that the climate crisis demands I am happy to say that the house climate Bill incorporates consideration of 18 TTS and other grid enhancing Technologies into the permitting processes for clean energy infrastructure facilities it also includes language recommending that utilities conduct cost Effectiveness and timetable analysis of multiple strategies including deployment of grid enhancing Technologies when proposing Capital Investments which to date are underutilized in the Commonwealth this language was inspired by the recommendations of the Cen energy transmission working at this critical juncture conversations like the one we're having today are essential to moving the needle forward and planning for our Clean Energy Future and I look forward to listening on behalf Cher Roy and learning from the experts who are speaking here today thank you everyone Caleb we really appreciate it we know we know how busy you are today and and thank you for carving out time um thanks as well to you for your engagement in the clean energy transmission working group group as well as of course as the chairs um and we we will be uh of course monitoring closely what happens over there today and including with respect to atts and gets um and uh expected it could be a late one as as these sometimes can be so best of luck to you and thank you again thank you very much we look forward to it and now we're going to move into our presentations and I'd like to welcome um Ariel Horowitz to provide a presentation on Doe liftoff reports hi Ariel um Ariel is the deputy director for Grid modernization at Doe's brid deployment office um she's no stranger though to the Massachusetts energy landscape and prior to joining doe she served as senior program director at the Massachusetts clean energy center um Ariel the Commonwealth is very proud to see the work that you're doing now on a national level and thanks again for being here and I'll turn it over to you yeah thanks so much for having um I'm very delighted to join today um not from Boston but from Puerto Rico where it's almost as hot as it is in Boston but with some less reliable internet and air conditioning um so very uh glad to get the opportunity to talk about some work that we've been doing at the department to support alternative transmission technologies and G enhancing Technologies um I do have some slides but I'm not sure if those can be brought up um awesome thank you um so so this is work that our team undertook along with um a group of of collaborators within the department um when the Biden Administration came in the department kicked off a series of reports called the pathways to commercial liftoff really around um the the Department's overall kind of pivot to supporting deployment and pivot to supporting industry and thinking through strategically how can we identify areas that really just need that um extra push from the Department to move forward into the field and what do those pushes look like um and so this is the first of those reports that the grid deployment office which is a a new office at doe really focused on um on deployment in the electric sector uh was involved in and we're we're very pleased to talk about some of the findings and the relevance um to New England next slide please um of course uh you can download the full report using that QR code um we have more information a then what I'll cover here briefly around the specific Technologies case studies and some of our our resources next slide so just to go into a little bit more um kind of technical detail and depth around what it was that we were looking at um we really motivated this report around exactly um some of those questions that um that shares very were bringing up earlier around how to get more capacity out of the existing transmission and Distribution Systems in the existing right of way so we looked at a range of Technologies going all the way from the bulk power system down to the distribution scale and tried to assess sort of where the core benefits were and where there were some synergies between those different Technologies in particular on the transmission system there's a lot of interest um within the department within the administration I know for all of our stakeholders as well around Advanced conductors and grid enhancing Technologies such as Dynamic line rating and others um and just very very broadly when we look at those Technologies what we're looking at um are ways to run more power through the existing RightWay either for example with Dynamic line rating where you would be switching from using an engineering heris that would tell you how how much power a line can carry before it would sag too far where it would be sort of a safety or stability problem in having um live information that tells you uh can you actually run more power than the engineering heris would tell you similarly for um some of those Advanced conductors that's really switching to kind of backbone materials that have different material property that you're able to run higher currents higher voltages around um those lines without them sagging as far as a conventional conductor would um so we're really interested in some of these tools and in particular making sure that the department can support stakeholders and assessing when are these the right tools for the job um these various kinds of innovative grid Technologies can solve some problems on the grid not all problems often we are looking to solve
Ariel I think your internet did unfortunately cut out um so just for folks who are viewing we'll give it a minute and see if if um it corrects itself
for folks who are tuning in Ariel logged off we're going to give her just a moment to see if she can log back in um and if not we'll move to the next part of our of our Forum thanks for your patience e
all right well I think in the the uh virtual meeting era we've all gotten used to some curve balls and we just had one um in terms of the participation of our last presenter so we are going to move into the next presentation if Ariel is able to join us we'll pick up where she left off after E3 um has finished presenting um so for now I'll ask our our presenters from energy and environmental economics or E3 uh to please come on
camera hi LMI and Kevin so um our office engaged E3 to help identify um opportunities to integrate Advanced transmission technologies into the New England grid um this is really an action-oriented Administration here in Massachusetts and um we're we're grateful to E3 for their expertise and helping us navigate this regulatory space and with that I'll turn it over to you to briefly introduce yourselves and begin the presentation thanks Jason um and while we're pulling up the slides I'll just do a quick introduction uh hi everybody my name is laki alap and I'm a partner here at E3 um E3 is an energy consulting firm that supports clients across the energy industry as they navigate the clean energy transition and I lead the firm's transmission practice and I'm really excited to be here today um I'm joined by my colleague Kevin Steinberger who you also see on the screen and we will be presenting on the opportunities uh for advanced transmission technologies which I'm going to refer to as atts throughout the presentation to help modernize and expand the New England system next
slide so a quick overview of what we'll be talking about today um I'll start with a quick summary of current and forecasted challenges to the transmission system in New England uh and then discuss what atts are and why we're talking about them today um we'll talk about how atts could be applied in New England um and uh some of the challenges with planning for them but also why we think it's the right time for atts and I'll end by talking about some of the strongest applications for atts in the region and then I'll hand it over to Kevin to discuss some of the headwinds and opportunities to integrate atts into the existing planning processes in the region next slide so New England is going to require a massive investment in transmission over the next several decades um and there are several key drivers that really underpin this investment uh first is the need to expand transmission capacity so many uh of the long-term studies of the New England power system show that there's an increased strain on transmission through uh incre including things like thermal overloads um import constraints and congestion and all of these issues really point to the need to expand transmission capacity but we're also seeing that there are serious rights of weight constraints and how much um you know transmission we can actually get built which is creating a backlog and getting that capacity online Second is the need to diversify supply side generation resources so many of the New England states have uh set really aggressive decarbonization goals which are going to facilitate um the addition of gigawatts of new Renewables and storage uh onshore and offshore and transmission is going to be required to both interconnect those resources as well as deliver them to uh load centers across the region and of those resources we're expecting large amounts of offshore wind to get built and we think that that could pose some risks without sufficient buildout of transmission uh you know that could result in increased entailment which in turn could impact offshore wind project economics and risk of underachieving on policy goals but there's also uh the planning and operating operational challenge of building and integrating an offshore transmission network with an onshore transmission Network third is the age of the current transmission system so I think the average age of a transmission Lin in I New England is around 45 years old which means that a large part of the grid is nearing end of life and will need to be replaced um and we're seeing that play out today uh when you look at the spending for asset Condition it's currently outpacing or will be outpacing the um spend with for reliability uh fourth is the large increase in load growth and sort of touching on what Jason said in his introduction you know we're seeing new large loads and significant electrification of transportation and building sectors uh causing really sharp increases in demand um as well as how that demand is showing up throughout the day um in some of these you know forecasted studies we're seeing Peak demand at around 57 gaws by 50 which is more than double historical Peak uh load for the region um in addition to that we're seeing you know forecasted winter Peaks are growing substantially uh nearing those of Summer Peaks which you see on the graph on the right here and finally is a need to improve system resiliency in light of you know increased frequency of extreme events so these there we're seeing more and more extreme weather events that are impacting the region particularly in the winter and uh having transmission to uh access neighboring markets could help alleviate um some of the those constraints and help provide resiliency by allowing markets with Surplus power to support New England um so that's another reason that we're seeing significant uh transmission investment next slide um so as New England is decarbonizing the power system is going to face a number of challenges which uh are going to impact the impa are going to impact the amount of transmission that gets built and this slide is really meant to capture some of those uh those challenges so um the I New England undertook a study of transmission needs out to 2050 and the city is really meant to help inform the level of investment that the region could expect to meet the uh decarbonization goals reliably and it found that it could cost up to$ 26 billion by 2050 to build out the system to meet Regional needs um in addition there's also a very long interconnection queue for new resources in the region um there's over 30 GW of active project queue requests that are trying to get developed by 2029 um and this is largely made up of batteries wind and solar resources that are going to require a significant transmission to interconnect then you know once you have transmission projects that are approved they have to go through the planning uh uh sorry once you have transmission projects that are approved through the planning process uh they then often go through a long and complex um and sometimes expensive process to get cited and permitted and so we've seen heightened nimbyism to transmission across the country and it's also becoming increasingly difficult to find rights of way to accommodate new transmission there's also uh you know renewable resources that are located pretty far from load centers and are going to require transmission to facilitate their delivery so being able to identify site and build transmission is going to be a really key part of meeting the Region's decarbonization goals and finally um there are a number of headwinds to developing transmission today uh we've seen supply chain disruptions which have caused significant delays to getting projects constructed uh and we've also seen sustained inflation which has made you know already Capital intensive assets more expensive next slide so this provides a backdrop for why we're talking about uh atts today given that it is becoming increasingly difficult to build new transmission um and the fact that we have to build uh transmission at such a scale uh it's going to be really important for planners to have all options in their toolkit to be able to address constraints on the transmission system and so atts are really an uh Innovative set of hardware and software solutions that are focused on modernizing the transmission system system and they are capable of doing a number of things they can expand transmission capacity on the existing system they can improve resiliency they can uh give you access to Renewables and they can defer new transmission build and some of the ETS that you've likely heard of that aial had mentioned earlier are Dynamic line ratings and advanced conductors and we're going to be talking about them more um as well as some others in a little bit next slide so how can atts be used utilized in New England so in the 2050 transmission study that I mentioned earlier they identified a number of needs that atts could address so uh one of those was uh reconductoring um and they mentioned reconductoring as a as a way to uh provide an incremental solution that could be utilized as needs uh arise you know over time and so Advanced conductors are one way to address that reconductoring need so you could put Advanced conductors in existing rights of way um and this has the benefit of both expanding transmission capacity but also avoiding the need to find a new right of way and um this can get you incremental capacity online uh more quickly and reduce costs relative to tr traditional transmission technologies um which you know can support meeting the Region's goals in a timely manner and in a more affordable way um and as you can see on the great the graph on the right here this is actually from that report that era was referencing the Doe's Pathways to uh commercial liftoff for Innovative grid deployment this shows uh the value of different kinds of atts when you're measuring the potential for deferred transmission investment across the US and you can see that there's potentially billions of dollars of value here and so we think that this warrants proactive consideration in Isn New England's planning process to ensure that all of the Investments that are being made are right siiz to the need um and this is also echoed in for quarter 1920 uh and that transmission Solutions are really designed to meet future loads and policy goals reliably and cost effectively next slide um and so of the atts that are out there which ones do we think show the most promise for the New England region and so we screened for technologies that met the drivers of transmission need that I mentioned before and you can see those in the table here and what this table reflects is where we think different atts show the most potential um I'll note that this table doesn't capture all of the Nuance because there might be certain cases where some atts could serve some needs that aren't checked off here but we really just wanted to capture where there was the most potential um also note don't have uh time to go through each of these ATS in detail but just kind of want to give a flavor of what each of these ATS can do um so first is Advanced conductors and so these are conduct conductors that um have a carbon or a composite core and they allow for more power flow um and lower losses uh compared to traditional conductors and these are really a great option to uh replace aging lines and support expansion of the ex existing system to serve growing loads second we have Dynamic line readings and so this is another type of ATT that's getting a lot of increased focus in the industry um FK just had an advanced noer that came out on this recently on how to implement dlrs and so what dlrs are there it's a way to calculate um a safe operating capacity limit for a transmission asset in real time and so this is done through the use of things like sensors and software or a combination of the two um and it really has the ability to address um all of the drivers of new transmission in New England which we think makes them a really promising technology to uh evaluate uh next is power flow controllers and so what these are are devices that can control flow on a line by changing its reactants um and so what this can do is it can uh alleviate um constraints on overloaded lines and help move power across the system and so a use case for this could be unbottle renewable generation in a constrained part of your system um and we think that you know similar to dlrs pfcs can uh show show significant promise to address a number of the needs in the New England region um and then next is storage is a transmission only asset and so what we mean by this is use of storage to address transmission issues like um mitigating system voltage or stability issues and these assets uh when they'd be operated would be used only in transmission reliability events or to provide transmission level services and so you wouldn't be bidding them into the market like you might other types of storage uh what they can do is mimic transmission expansion in congested parts of your system um it could help avoid uh curtailment of Renewables um and you can also dispatch these assets during extreme events or system contingencies to support uh reliability and resiliency and finally we have uh topology optimization so this is software that can optimally route power flow around congested lines and you do this by uh circuit breaker switching um I've sometimes heard of this uh or analogy this is sort of like the ways of the power grid um and it can support increased transfer capabilities by relieving constraints um and it can also support increased resiliency by adapting to grid conditions in real time so uh in summary we think that there are several atts to address each driver of transmission need in the region and many of the atts that we have listed on the slide here um also have limited Footprints and don't require new rights of way while addressing uh the similar types of needs of traditional transmission technology so we think that that could save significant cost and time uh to implement and so the suggest that proactive consideration of these types of Technologies is really important to ensure that the grid can evolve uh efficiently and affordably and so with that I'm going to turn it over to Kevin to dis to discuss some of the headwinds and opportunities to incorporate atts into the planning processes in the region today great thanks so much F me um so as Le me was just outlining uh there are potentially many opportunities for atts to play a role in helping New England both modernize and expand its transmission system over the coming decades however there are also several sources of headwinds that need to be overcome in order to unlock the full potential that atts can have in the region and the challenges and concerns that are listed on this slide uh draw in part from stakeholder comments on on order 1920 and the the requirements for inclusion of atts in that order we've generally categorized these headwinds into uh both planning headwinds and implementation headwinds although as um will be evident they're definitely overlapping challenges across each of these so um on the planning side historically utility cost recovery structures have prioritize large capital projects over efficiency improvements uh although we recognize today that many utilities are more Capital constrain than than they've been in the past atts also are commonly not Incorporated into the planning context because they don't always provide direct capacity value and are thought of as uh primarily operational Assets in some cases um and then lastly capacity expansion and system level planning often focuses on generation and transmission independently rather than identifying areas for coordinated planning that can maximize the the total value of Investments between both new resources and the bulk and local transmission systems on the implementation side um it can sometimes be challenging to incorporate novel Technologies into the transmission system especially uh when planners are often focused on near-term reliability needs um a focus on minimizing costs also can make piloting new technologies uh difficult to get approved and ATS may also require new software and so the timing might be difficult to get right with the timing of needed upgrade um there are also perceptions that atts can add administrative or operational challenges in the near term um and so all of these are are definitely challenges that the industry will have to Grapple with in the the years to come and and many of them don't have easy solutions but over the next few slides we'll speak to a few potential strategies to reduce or at least partially alleviate these these headwinds next slide please um so firk order 1920 really sets the stage for this discussion by establishing requirements for atts to be considered directly alongside conventional transmission Solutions we think it's important though that that planners go a step further than just what's required by by the order in order to realize all the intended benefits of the rule um and planners can do that both by examining a broader range of Technologies um and by considering a more comp hensive set of metrics in their evaluations overall as as lme was mentioning earlier we we think that a proactive approach to incorporating atts into transmission planning can help ensure that the the best solution or portfolio of solutions is developed to comprehensively address the the Region's needs um and that the Investments that the region is making over the coming decades are appropriately right sized to meet their their long-term needs and in light of their policy goals next slide
please the the table on the left of this slide shows the compliance requirements of of order 1920 um which again takes the important first step of requiring that the impacts of ATS be evaluated in a similar manner to Conventional transmission projects so so many of the um benefits categories on the left are categories that are already considered in conventional transmission evaluation there is though uh a much broader opportunity to look more holistically um when we consider the scale of Investments required over the next several decades the challenges that that conventional transmission projects often face in the region and the overlap of upcoming transmission system needs with with future needs to achieve the Region's decarbonization goals so in light of that states utilities and the iso um may want to consider additional metrics that that can capture these considerations um as one example of this you know recognizing the challenges to to permitting and building new infrastructure in the region um technologies that can enhance the transfer capability along existing corridors May warrant additional consideration similarly uh some technologies may have higher value in a high renewable future um so as as one illustrative example uh Dynamic line ratings have been shown to provide provide significant value in reducing wind curtailment um so some of the long-term planning and the scenario planning that's currently being incorporated into the the transmission planning process through the the changes that uh isce and New England made recently um could also look at the additional impacts of atts in those long-term High renewable Futures to the next slide please in addition to a broader examination of of benefits and the impacts of atts that that we showed on the last slide we we also know that there are many opportunities to encourage the consideration of atts throughout the the planning permitting and and evaluation processes um so information sharing and and readouts of operational learnings can be really critical loow hanging fruit um and as transmission owners share learnings um both across the region and across North America um there can be positive effects as that encourages transmission owners to to think about Solutions on their own systems um and there may also be positive Network effects as many areas of the grid become modernized and more capable of of integrating new atts uh similarly both both software and Hardware standards can be really helpful in ensuring that um there aren't missed opportunities to Future proof futility systems um so even if futilities aren't actively considering an ATT solution today um setting those standards now can be critical such that there's not a misalignment down the road um in terms of software compatibility for example next slide please um there's of course uh a really complex landscape of of processes and stakeholders across the transmission planning ecosystem um and are for um potential consideration of of atts um and the goal of this presentation is is certainly not to specifically map out each process or or where individual atts can be considered um but rather we're aiming to emphasize that that there are many opportunities across this landscape to ensure that atts are considered as part of a cost-effective portfolio of solutions to address transmission system needs and if we advance I think this highlights a um examples of that um so I won't go through through all of this in detail but similar to to recent changes in the long-term transmission planning process um that the iso has recently taken up um that takes policy goals into account stakeholders could consider additional updates to that process um both to incorporate some of the additional benefits that that we discussed earlier and to ensure that the full value of atts is captured in the study process and the needs assessment it's also critical that uh both the the iso and transmission owners ensure that there isn't restrictive language in their solicitations or in other processes that might prevent non-conventional solutions from being evaluated um as one example you know a few a few years ago um in another ISO storages transmission um was unable to participate in that that iso's competitive solicitation because of of tariff language and so um some low hanging fruit is just to to screen for that type of language and make sure that um evaluation processes are able to fully take into account all potential solutions to a given system need go to the next slide um I'll I'll close out our presentation by just recapping several of the the key themes we've discussed and then uh I'll turn it back to Jason um so as LXI outlined um at the outset of the presentation the the new New England region is projected to require significant investments in the transmission system over the coming decades driven by a combination of Aging infrastructure electrification driven load growth um decarbonization of supply and a heightened focus on increasing system resiliency to to extreme weather Advanced transmission technologies can be uh an important tool in the toolbox for system planners and operators to consider as they make these these large Investments um and indust stakeholders across the the planning landscape can take several steps uh now and proactively to ensure that that these tools are considered um a few examples of of those steps are um you know by updating and expanding benefits assessments uh transmission planners can incorporate the unique offerings of these Technologies um such as improving the utilization of existing corridors um and it will be really important for stakeholders to share care out learnings of Pilots with new technologies such that the industry gains comfort and familiarity with the the reliability of of deploying these Solutions the stakeholders should really take steps now to ensure that uh transmission planning and evaluation Frameworks can evaluate uh both new and traditional solutions to system needs on a Level Playing Field uh ensuring that ultimately the region is finding the the least cost portfolio to meet system needs and proactively taking these steps now will be critical to enhancing and modernizing the the New England grid uh to help meet the Region's decarbonization goals while while continuing to ensure customer affordability I'll now turn it back over to to Jason and we're we're looking forward to hearing the perspectives of the the panelists later as well well a big thank you to the two of you and to the the broader E3 team for this presentation it's it really is a a key and timely uh reference document that I think we'll turn to often as we explore reforms to regulatory structures to make sure that they're keeping Pace with the innovations that we're seeing um at least here on the the technology the transmission technology side um I'm going to now turn it to my colleagues Weezy noara and Ashley gagnan to transition to our panel
discussion great thanks so much Jason uh really appreciate it and a a big thank you to um to Ariel the department of energy um hopefully we have a chance to hear from her a bit later um but the E3 team as well for the excellent presentation on opportunities for integrating atts here in New England as Jason said my name is Weezy noira I'm the assistant secretary for federal and Regional energy Affairs here at EA and I'm joined by my colleague Ashley gagnan senior director for federal and Regional energy affairs at ea uh we're we're very excited to facilitate this segment a conversation with our esteemed panelists to provide reactions to the E3 presentation and really to share any other thoughts or insights they have on integrating atts here in the region so I will ask them to to go ahead and turn on their cameras if they haven't done so already we have about 35 minutes for the discussion so this may feel a bit like a lightning round but we have a a fantastic and Nimble group here representing a wide range of interests and experience here in the region uh so to begin I'll ask each of you to introduce yourself your organization and provide your initial reactions to the information E3 shared with us during its presentation um we'll start first with with Jackie from the mass A's office and then how about we go to Jeremy at aeu fondon and Andrew from eversource and National Grid and then last but certainly not least Al from ISO New England so uh Jackie take it away thank you so much thank you for hosting this forum and for inviting us to um participate I'm Jackie Burl I'm a managing attorney at the Massachusetts Attorney General's office and we are the Commonwealth's um statutory rate pair Advocate and so in that capacity we've been you know interested in and supportive of these alternative or Advanced transmission technologies gets what have you um anything that we can do to you know take the best advantage of our existing um transmission infrastructure and um you know look at whatever cost efficiencies and cost savings that we can achieve um as we look toward the future with what will be required buildout so I think the E3 presentation um is great it really affirms those ideas um and it provides important context you know for our office um one of the things that I think E3 included that's a really important point and we'd want to emphasize is that as we look to what what we can all do to facilitate these um or deployment of these technologies that first planning headwind about the traditional utility cost recovery structure incentivizing large capital projects over gains and efficiencies is something I think you know everyone needs to sort of put their heads together and figure out a way to um confront that just existing reality so we're interested we have you know some ideas interested to hear from others um and thank you again for having
us great thanks Jackie Jeremy over to you great thank you guys for hosting and for inviting us to participate I'm Jeremy mcdermid um managing director and general counsel for Advanced Energy United uh United is a national trade Association of clean energy companies from all Stripes um with the common mission of getting to 100% clean energy and I think the the um C3 report and the the C3 presentation and the liftoff report both are as as Jackie said affirming um that there is an opportunity for atts to play a significant role in squeezing out as much as we can out of the existing system even as we know we're going to need to make new investments in in transmission and uh other grid assets so I think the the question isn't you know what you know isn't whether we're going to use atts or not the question is you know how where and how fast and I think that is the sort of subject of of this conversation of so what what are the levers to get um us to scale in a way that's cost effective that's effective and uh and retains the the reliability um while expanding the the scope of the clean energy generation in the Commonwealth and across ISO New England so glad to be here and looking forward to the conversation thanks Jeremy appreciate it and over to you Von good afternoon thank you Weezy and good afternoon everyone uh my name is Von devati I'm the vice president of transmission policy interconnections compliance and uh economic analysis at ever Source uh I can really relate to almost everything that was said by E3 and the few slides and comments we received from the grid deployment office as well um ever source is uh obviously very engaged in the development of the transmission needed to achieve our clean energy transition we believe that very strongly that Innovation is going to be a key part of that transition and how can we include that is going to be a key element of it to Jeremy's comments we're deploying atts in various applications but the conversation on how to scale it how to make it standardized how to make it a a a day-to-day activity for every and align everyone on those standards is going to be a good conversation so looking forward to it personally because I have policy interconnections and compliance it really touches upon all the applications of atts so really excited for this thank you thanks fondon
Andrew thank you uh thanks Weezy for for inviting me to be part of this panel it's very exciting and um thank you to E3 for that presentation I I found it to be um um very thoughtful and and very much you know on point for what we're trying to do here National Grids really optimistic about um the application ad of advanced transmission technologies um you know really do see the benefits in terms of uh being able to maximize um the capability of our existing systems uh we're also excited about the nimbleness of some of these Solutions um and being able to quickly respond to large spot loads uh in ways we haven't before um so very very much excited about uh these tools and you know another you know another great point that they brought up was just the the need to maximize rways um you know so there's hit on some very key topics definitely a relevant conversation and uh appreciate being invited to it um didn't introduce myself Andrew schneller uh National Grid vice president of network strategy and regulation thanks Andrew appreciate that and last but not least Al McBride thanks Wheezy and hi good afternoon everyone I do want to reiterate thanks to uh the office of EA for the invitation today and I do thank want to thank the secretary the senator and the office of the chair for their very helpful and important teeing up remarks um I'm pleased to to be on such a good panel here today I appreciate that and uh I do want to thank E3 and the department of energy for their presentation as well I think the presentations were helpful and you know and I I hopefully we'll be able to offer more in this when we get into the discussion but um I I think from from our perspective from the iso we we started to hear this come up uh recently in the context of referring to grd enhancing Technologies and alternative transmission technologies in the past couple of years or so and I think we've been kind of uh watching that and looking at that and thinking of it and realizing that um in some cases these are Technologies or versions of technologies that we've been um applying and and utilizing for for some time um but just not calling them uh atts or or gats and then there are other technologies that are on the uh uh implementation Runway so I'm looking forward to that and and I think conferences and discussions like this are really helpful to get us all together so that we can uh speak the same language and and move the conversation
forward excellent thank you to all of our panelists for kicking us off I think you know a good Turning Point from there might be to look to Andrew and Von to help us level set a little little bit with where we are in the region right now with respect to ATT so maybe you can help us answer this question of are we starting from zero with respect to atts in New England and if not could each of you talk a little bit about the ways that eversource and National Grid incorporate atts into your planning processes and discuss some of the regulatory issues at play so maybe we can start with bondon and and move to to Andrew thank you uh that's a great question uh if you look at one of the slides if you refer back to one of the slides that was shared by E3 on the different kinds of atts uh it eversource has been deploying one of those Solutions you know for already you know in a but in a more surgical manner so I think if you look at Advanced conductors we've got a few applications of conductors where uh we're replacing them with uh the additional 795 and doubling the rating of those circuits when we're replacing our aging infrastructure so if we're replacing structures and we feel that cost effectively now we can handle a more advanced conductor uh without increasing cost significantly and still adding capacity while keeping in mind things like ice loading and reliability considerations we're deploying that an example of that is some of our asset condition projects in New Hampshire where we're getting more more than twice the current carrying capability of the line I think at Advanced power flow conductors we're using them we've used them in the first order 1,000 solicitations where we rerouted power to uh relieve overloads uh but are we using them at scale I think it depends uh it's not at scale yet because in a lot of cases we start looking at a 10 20-year Horizon and we feel that just rerouting power will probably solve a 10-year need but it's probably not going to solve a 20-year need so in those cases we feel that the right thing to do is probably build a new circuit so we can solve for the Long Haul um an item that was not mentioned um in that list was flexible AC transmission devices stack coms uh some folks may be familiar with that eversource is deploying the first of its kind on Long Island that's connected to the South Fork Wind Farm it's called a git form ing statcom basically it helps control voltage and uh and maintain stability independently so it that's another example of a uh advanced technology that we are going to need to use in New England as we get more inverted based resources uh and instead of building new synchronous condensers we need to maximize the ability of the existing stack commoms and existing devices that we're going to deploy so it's a very good example of something that is on our mind we're going to be uh we're going to be leading that effort but we also think there's tremendous value in the policy circles uh enabling that as a standard that you know we should have more grid forming fax devices and finally I'll just um provide one more comment on dlrs uh as was mentioned by E3 FKS anop really uh talk you know touches upon how to implement dlrs we're already working on complying with 4coder 881 which would help um us manage uh ambient adjusted ratings for our systems but uh when it comes to Dynamic line ratings I we completely agree that there is there is an opportunity to use Dynamic line ratings throughout in strategic locations across New England to help increase inter connection of offshore wind or solar or mitigate reliability concerns uh we were um lucky to be a part of a doe Grant along with Yukon to deploy dlrs on the cape uh that would help increase uh under certain constraint conditions injection of offshore wind uh on the cape so looking for I think to answer your question I think we're start we're not starting from zero but we're not at full capacity yet so I think this conversation is very helpful and I think a year from now if we're in this circle again and we can comfortably say we've got the policies in place and we've got project in place to scale up applications of atts I think that would be
success great thank you Von and Andrew we could turn to you to hear National Grids perspective sure thank you um yeah we're we're absolutely not starting from zero um you know we we actually have a a track record of of installing atts on the system um and I think the different atts have different applications and and we're kind of learning about that as we go one of the ones that was sort of a natural fit early on for us was these um you know high capacity low sag conductors which are are easy to integrate into our system because they use the same construction practices same tools for installation um they don't require additional software oversight so those ones are are um something that we've been using for quite some time now and has become somewhat of a standard uh in terms of um you know it's something that we're considering when whenever we're bu we're building um DLR we've also uh got got quite a bit of um experience with at this point I believe I believe we were the first ones uh we were the first customers of line Vision uh when we had Rhode Island energy um or what's now Rhode Island energy under National grids footprint uh we installed DLR uh on one of our lines down there back in um 2019 um and you know we were able to see a 20 to 30% increase in you know the capacity on on the line after doing that we've got it on two lines in New York one one more in progress we have a a line where we're proposing to use it in Massachusetts right now and then you know we also have a UK footprint where we're using it extensively the the conditions there are different um in that there's a lot more congestion on the system than what we see in in the New England footprint um they don't have the um the asset condition type issues that we have but in the UK we've got it on seven circuits with another six in progress and you know expect in the relatively near future have it on you know 15% of the system so it's something that we have experience with and and we're working to to find the right applications for it um and then you know some of the other uh Technologies um with like uh Power flow controllers um we're doing Pilots Advanced superconductors um Pilots as well uh so they're they're a little bit more in the early phases but definitely see the potential um maximizing the right of ways uh so so absolutely you know not at at uh starting from zero um but I think we we are still trying to find the right applications for the right Technologies and making sure that we're aligning the solutions with with the actual
conditions that's helpful Andrew and and bondon as well just level setting for us what experience you have already with atts I'll turn to Al next and um Al of course you have a unique role at ISO New England as the independent system operator and and Regional planner could you could you talk about how ISO New England sees the current state of play for atts in the region and how atts are integrated into the regional transmission planning process uh today at the iso sure thanks Wheezy and just let me quickly I didn't introduce myself uh previously again I'm Al McBride and executive director of transmission services um and and one of my jobs currently is to oversee the interconnection cues so I do see a lot of this stuff um as generators come through the interconnection process you know just reflecting back on the E3 presentation I thought it did a really nice job of of kind of describing the the landscape and articulating what is is being asked of us to to look at and and and consider and and the table I think it was slide seven or or slide eight that listed the different types of um uh alternative transmission technologies I actually in when I look at something like that I kind of group that into two groups um there are um uh there's equipment like um specific pieces of equipment that you could add to the or connect to the transmission system instead of building new lines and that's things like storage uh a power flow controller um or instead instead of rebuilding a line using something like Advanced conductor so that's the equipment example and then the the other category I would describe as optimizing what you already have and in in that space I think of dynamic line ratings and circuit switching as example of of really without adding a additional equipment Beyond things like monitoring maybe extra monitoring stuff like that optimizing the equipment that you already have and the first category the new equipment I think we we starting from zero I think we have a lot of experience in and I want to give a couple of examples one is inter Regional actually and one is is regional um for the inter Regional example uh New York as you know was also advancing the energy transition and had a uh a big transmission expansion that they were calling their segment a and segment B projects that uh were intended to bring a lot more Renewable Power from upstate New York down to the city now we obviously coordinated with them in that planning and identified an impact on the New York to New England transfer uh where that could be degraded um now we did not seek or or Advocate that new transmission needed to be added to address that but instead we had we identified and it's being installed now the the um introduction of something called a phase shifting Transformer and that essentially performs the same function as an advanced powerf flow controller and I I think we should call that an alternative transmission technology that's not a terminology that we've used in the past but I think we're I think it would be helpful to people you know that are observing and and want to see these kind of solutions for us to use that terminology more often so what it does is specifically it will increase the impedance of that line that could have been overloaded and a force more flow to go over the other TI lines that are not overloaded for for those scenarios and and that's the same function as a advanced power flow controller um the example the regional example I want to give was in the um uh competitive solution solicitation that we ran a few years back for Greater Boston uh we received many different proposed solutions to solve the needs um that went along with Mystic retire Mystic Generating Station retiring and other things um and that was rebuilding lines adding new lines but the one we actually picked did not involve rebuilding or adding a new line it it involved adding a a statcom uh uh to support voltage and two switch reactors and a switch reactor is actually the most basic version of a powerflow controller it's a switch in switch off thing but that actually was enough that was enough of a solution uh to meet the needs um so there's an example of something we've already run where we picked the non new transmission line solution uh based on what was provided to us in uh the competitive solicitation and we expect that to continue going forward and for that to be baked into all of these solicitations going forward that our job is to identify what the need is and then it's the transmission owners the incumbents and the non-incumbents will identify what the solutions are and we'll evaluate them and whether they're building new lines or these alternative Technologies if they meet the need then we would we would pick the one with the lowest cost uh even if it's not a conventional Transmission Solution that's helpful Al and appreciate those examples and before I turn it over to Ashley I always encourage other panelists to chime in if they have if they have questions or uh follow-up commentary so go ahead Ashley well thanks thanks Al and I think that was a great build onto some of the information that vond and Andrew provided and now you know we've heard perspectives from ever Force National Grid from our grid operator so I want to maybe turn now to Jackie and Jeremy if you both could talk about you know I think you touched on this a little bit in the intro but maybe elaborate a little more about the importance of atts from your perspective Vantage points and how you're seeing the current state of play of atts in the region from those Vantage points and you know maybe where you think we need to go as a region if you don't think we're quite where you think we need to
be and I'll start whoever wants to start can start maybe I'll Jeremy Jeremy can go first and then we'll turn to to Jackie I was gonna tell Jackie she's up all right pressure is on thank you um yeah thanks for the question and I think and I agree that um you know some of what we just heard from Al and um vond and and of course too just teased this up so um from our perspective as the rate pair Advocate I think the importance of these Technologies any technologies that can you know meet the needs while also achieving you know efficiencies and any cost savings to Consumers cannot be overstated and it's in the context of what you know we've all acknowledged and what was also included in the E3 um presentation is going to be substantial transmission build out in the future no matter what we do so I just think it's important to sort of keep that in mind as we're thinking about this subset of Technologies and I think Ariel right before we lost her was saying that these are a piece of the puzzle and so if we can achieve some cost savings here that's great because it's also within this broader um context which is going to be substantial cost particularly in our region um I think that you know the attitudes especially what we're hearing on this panel it's it's encouraging from our perspective that um these Technologies are being deployed where possible although you know I think and and I think bondon would agree with this but I was interested in his characterization of his I think surgical applications right and so they're looking for some opportunities to Pilot some of these Technologies still whereas you know we would like to see this become just a routine part of every whenever there's that identified need this should be a routine standardized part of the process to consider any and all potential Solutions um if there's some good reason this is not a viable solution we just need to you know we need transparency into that process so we think the process should be you know a clear one we would like to see transparency into that Pro process and then there's the accountability piece and so from our perspective to we have to confront this sort of inevitable information asymmetry between the to's you know in our ISO New England and the public and you know rate paays rate paay Advocate and so um finding some way to have an objective review or scrutiny of these evaluation processes um is also an important piece we've you know sort of coalesced recently around the idea of an independent transmission monitor I'm still thinking through how that would work and obviously it was tabled in the um in the you know order 1920 the Nota that preceded order 1920 20 but still something we're thinking about and just some way to achieve that level of
scrutiny the um the problem with following Jackie is like I think it's sort of echoing the the the violent agreement across this panel around the principles of sort of needing to make sure that we're using these Technologies where they make sense and I think you know from a from a sort of trade Association that has ATT um developers and and and vendors in our in our Network we have a healthy impatience about getting there faster um and making sure that we're scaling it up um at as quickly as we can recognizing as as Jackie does that there is a information asymmetry and I think that there's there's not as as much um understanding of the uh experiences that our transmission owners in ISO already have and I think we're lucky in New England to have engaged um utilities and transmission owners who you know both National Grid and a source were repres presented at the white house uh Summit on on atts there's um there is a willingness and and an eagerness to to partner and work together and I think I'm trying to figure out those ways in which we can take advantage of those you know those potentially billions of dollars and savings that are on the table that E3 mentioned how do we do that and how do we make sure that there is a a flow of information and a and a and an assurance that where they make sense and we understand that it is a technical challenged and a technical technically specific moment where where these these Technologies make sense that they get deployed where they make sense and where they're cost- effective and so if we can bake that into a policy and and and and do that in a way that that increases the familiarity um with the Technologies and with the process across the board I think we will see getting to that sort of Next Level that Von talked about a year from now where where we'll be further down the road to scaling up
atts Jeremy I I'll I'll piggy back off of what you you just said so we've seen some deployment of atts some use of atts here in the region so really we need to shift our Focus to scaling up those uses across the New England power system so I'll I'll throw this question out to all of the panelists what are the barriers to scaling up today and how can we chart a path forward for cost effective scaling of atts in the near
term I want to hear from that from the from the the engineers yeah um well I can I can try and go first on that Wheezy and um I want to pick up on something that um Jackie mentioned and Jeremy echoed which is the information a asymmetry I think that that's something we can work on I actually I want to work on on that personally um I think first of all kind of describing the the applications that we've already um implemented kind of in this new context in this new kind of framework um but then um providing more information I think to explain People to People what the likely use cases are uh for the different applications and different Technologies um uh so for example with the the powerflow controller powerflow controller or devices like a powerflow controller those are more likely to be useful and and we've seen them implemented on interfaces like I mentioned in New York New England interfaces when you're optimizing the use of an existing interface um so that's that's a great application for something like that where it it would not work would be where you just have an overbuild of generation after you've optimized the use of the current pipes pipelines out of the area if all of those pipes are full after you've you've kind of diverted everything as optimally as you can then you get to the point where you have to build new uh another pipe another transmission line infrastructure so uh an advanced powerf flow controller won't help you in that kind of circumstance and that that does lead to the one of the other points that Jackie made and I appreciate it is this is just going to be one of the tools to for the scale of both load growth and generation growth that we're talking about we will need um uh new transmission line infrastructure for the kind of circumstances like I described but I think if we can share the information and the use cases where these more naturally lend themselves as solution versus not I think that would help with the information like
symmetry um I'll just I'll in addition to what Al said I would say uh interestingly enough counter to what people may think I actually think cost might be a barrier to deployment of certain Technologies and and I'll explain why I say that um and and maybe the barrier is not having a full understanding of the value provided the long-term value we can get from deployment of a technology so I'll give you an example you know we have an opport let's say we have an opportunity to solve a voltage need uh and it's a competitive solicitation the easiest answer might be the least cost way to solve the voltage need but the long-term value might be a grid forming application of a statcom or a mesh ready breaker that allows integrating uh certain circuits in the future uh or a conductor that is much more expensive today but in the long run could avoid building future transmission uh uh around that circuit so there are areas where we've encountered this we would like to deploy an advanced technology but the cost is higher than what it is to deploy current technology I think if there is a general awareness and standardization of the long-term value of certain Technologies we might be able to you know avoid um future Investments that could be um that can be really optimized by existing in um deployment of at so that that's one example that comes to mind uh the other barriers of technology and operational burden are going to get unlocked with for quer 881 and implementation of dlrs I think we're almost we're sitting at a place where the aop has almost given another momentum to Dynamic line ratings throughout the industry so it's almost you know a year from now that's going to be base case for us is we're deploying uh amid adjusted ratings there we've already deployed amid adjusted ratings and dlrs are starting to get implemented so I think some of the barriers policy already uncover you know eliminating those barriers and and we're we're marching towards that but I do think you know alignment with the iso alignment with the states on what a 2050 study criteria looks like uh when uh evaluating atts could be something we can work
on thanks wandon um I and thanks Al for bringing up the statcom that was one that I forgot when I was talking about uh some of the ones that we've done we partnered with eversource on that and uh you know it allowed us to decommission Mystic and keep the system stable at at a much lower cost than um you know some more traditional Solutions might have might have uh done but um we we kind of touched on a lot of the barriers I think one of them is sort of actually the the the way that the Tariff is structured today in that um it doesn't encourage sort of widespread uh installation of some of these Technologies they have to be sort of dedicated to to to resolve a specific issue and often they're not the best way to resolve that specific issue when you take into account asset conditions and things like that so our approach right now to ven's point is more more surgical in finding a way to um create a multivalue project where these fit as a as an addition to that project to add add Solutions they're not [Music] um they're not the right solution in and of themselves with the way that our our tariff is structured I think that um you know the the long-term transmission plan that that we're looking at um the lttp is going to sort of open up um more longer term opportunities to to use these in the right in the right capacity so I'm very optimistic about that I think the anop that we we've mentioned here a few times is going to going to facilitate that discussion and probably encourage the the use of this and and obviously for 1920 um where it kind of requires this as a uh as an initial uh screening mechanism I I think we'll we'll really encourage the use so so the barriers are there right now but I I see that that those doors are starting to open and uh you know very excited about
that thanks Andrew any quick reactions to those barriers from Jeremy or
Jackie I mean I think I think that there's there's once there's increasing reps and you know we we see how the technology evolves in in and and applies in certain instances where it'll get more familiar to everyone involved and you you'll you'll see some increased momentum there I do think that we we need to be careful about um Pro over promising what atts can do at the expense of new build and I think it is a it's a sort of a a braided solution um and everybody on this on this panel has has said so it's it's not going to solve all of our transmission challenges but it is part of the overall um the overall sort of set of ingredients to to make sure the grid is as effective and and robust as we need it to
be right um so maybe before I think we're getting close to time but would be remiss you know not to ask I think we've heard some of this um from Andrew already but you know pulling on one of the threads that Jackie brought up I think she pointed out the need to ensure that atts are routinely considered in our planning process here in New England so maybe we could do a little roundabout you know here from Von Jackie Jeremy and Al I think we heard this a little bit from Andrew what in your view is you know a key pathway one key pathway one key opportunity that you think will enable the more routine consideration and prioritization of atts in the region in the near term and we we could just do a quick quick go around on that
question I can go uh first uh so I I think one one quick routine pathway for atts to be deployed is ensuring we have an opportunity to kind of collaborate between to and the iso when we're building our asset condition projects you know to the extent we can use high-capacity conductor and uh rightsize them or to the extent we can um increase the hosting capacity of the grid while we're already uh satisfying our obligation to maintain reliability and resilience would be the first one of the Reps to Jeremy's term of starting to get used to the deployment and the value of the technology and and I'll give one more is like I said earlier deployment of uh statcoms and grid forming inverters grid forming um fax devices is another um application that I we believe is going to be increasingly needed if we don't do that we're going to need other devices on the system to maintain voltage
stability thank you V and maybe we can go to Jack Jeremy and then we'll wrap up with Al yeah thanks I was going to I mean it it may make more sense for me to go at the end you know I'm not an engineer as Jeremy said but I'll just add that um you know I think we are interested in you know seeing that process get developed and having transparency into the process of you know standardizing the process um but we we can't we don't have that technical expertise um to really State what it should be but for from our perspective I think there does need to be some level of objective review and scrutiny and so I think you know to some extent we do get that um from the iso uh but from our perspective it just needs to be more than that and that's where you know we want to make sure like order 1920 the language was really valuable and it's headed in the right direction but I think you know even in the E3 presentation it sets a floor right and so we think it's more than a consideration it must be more than a check the box exercise whatever this process is um and so that's what we'd really like to see I I feel like following Jackie is a Fool's eron because I I I you think similarly I think it's you know it is routinizing the the review and some degree of of sort of obligation to deploy gets if the review makes sense from a costeffective and uh and Technical standpoint um and and doing that at a at a place where that objectivity can can breed confidence in the Technologies and the process
alike and and I think panels like this are very helpful for for uh the an organization like the iso to get you know more feedback on the type of information we need to be providing and and uh the quality of explanation so if we need to do more more work here and and I hear that from um from the panel um if if you know if if we've explained the use cases if people understand the Alternatives and the potential options then just to really touch on one of the barriers again one one of the barriers is fear of regret and and what I mean by that is one of the reasons we were asked to do the 2050 study is I so let's jump to the end and find out what's needed and it's a lot right it's a lot that's needed but then we need to feed back that back into the decisions that we make in the in the meantime and so in my example if we currently have three pipelines out of an area I think we need to go through the exercise of demonstrating that we there's nothing further we can do to optimize those three pipelines before before we come out and say that a you know a fourth pipeline or something like a fourth pipeline is needed um so and that's the people have used the term least regret or multivalue or or other things in in terms of identifying the the Best Transmission Solutions going forward so um uh I I I have a takeback of of adding enhancing you know the information and the you know the evaluations and the criteria that we apply thanks Al I think that's a a great place to close things out we've we've made some progress here in the region but there's certainly an open an openness and uh willingness to explore ways to go further so I just want to thank all our panelists Al Jeremy Jackie Von and Andrew for joining us this afternoon and with uh and Ashley for helping me facilitate this great discussion um we've got one minute left so I'll turn it over to to Jason Marshall to close us out well thank you all what what an insightful and engaging panel discussion we really appreciate it I've just a couple program notes as we close out one unfortunately Ariel was not able to rejoin us now to to finish up her presentation um but I do know one thing she probably would have mentioned is that Doe is preparing to uh I think release an opportunity for some additional funding under something called the grip program that could includes funding for advanced transmission technologies um and then uh relatedly um the materials presented today uh will be posted on our website as well as um the the Forum itself so um you can look for those in the in the materials in the coming days um I just want as we close just again thank the panelists the presenters Wheezy and Ashley uh great job thank you for being here today making this possible I also want to express appreciation to Hayden ladimir Ireland from our team for providing Technical and administrative support she's really a crucial member of this e team um and I'll I'll just end by saying I think today's Forum do does really highlight the high level of activity in many different Arenas on Advanced transmission technologies um and at the same time it it highlights the need for more work and Leadership to ensure that we're building out the system as cost effectively and rapidly as possible uh thank you all again have a great rest of your afternoon our program is concluded bye