Digging into a report on infrastructure buildout success factors and how permitting reform and load growth might shape transmission work going forward.

Earlier this year, a team of energy policy researchers outlined some of the key factors underlying the success—or lack thereof—of transmission projects across the country.

The researchers—Lewis (Zhaoyu) Wu, Abraham Silverman, Harrison Fell and James Glynn, then all active at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs—based their study on data from 1300 transmission projects between 2005 and 2023 that was compiled by MapSearch at Endeavor Business Media, a sister business to T&D World.

Among their findings: Strong regional and state planning programs do indeed make a difference when it comes to building out transmission infrastructure and regulated public utilities aren’t as efficient as merchant developers. Silverman, now a research fellow at Johns Hopkins University’s Ralph O’Connor Sustainable Energy Institute Center, recently sat down with T&D World to dig a little deeper into the big questions raised by his team’s paper, “A Quantitative Analysis of Variables Affecting Power Transmission Infrastructure Projects in the U.S.” Here are excerpts from that conversation.

Continue reading at T&D World

For more news related to and affecting the utility industry, check out some of our posts on the Supreme Court’s Chevron case, the US DoD partnering with Duke, and new reactor construction.