Transmission Bottleneck Stymies Growth of U.S. Wind, Solar Power

The continued growth of the U.S.’s rapidly expanding wind power industry is threatened by the lack of transmission lines to distribute the electricity nationwide, according to The New York Times. Electrical generation from wind power, solar power, and other sources is growing four times faster than transmission capacity. The newspaper reports that a $320 million wind farm in upstate New York has had to temporarily shut down because of the electrical grid’s inability to absorb power and that projects in windy areas, such as the Dakotas, are stalled because of the lack of transmission capacity to send power to the coasts. With 200,000 miles of power lines divided among 500 owners, the grid resembles a regional network of streets and backroads that needs to become a superhighway. Congress, however, has done little to advance the estimated $60 billion project to upgrade the national grid. Oilman-turned-wind-entrepreneur T. Boone Pickens has urged Congress to overhaul the grid, but scientists say that expanding the transmission network is a major obstacle to the so-called Pickens Plan.