The United States is in a new era of electricity demand growth, driven by artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing, data centers, and economy-wide electrification.

Transmission capacity expansion is simply critical to fuel this economic growth, secure international competitiveness, and deploy clean energy. Failure to expand transmission fast enough will raise costs, threaten system reliability, and ultimately weaken the U.S. as companies may look elsewhere for access to reliable, affordable power.

However, policymakers should not attack this problem by offering a single solution. The U.S. needs to implement two parallel pathways to increase transmission capacity — unlock more capacity from the grid we already have AND build the interregional transmission system we ultimately need.

These are not competing solutions. They are complementary, and both are essential.

Passing the recently introduced Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act (BAAJA) would mark a major step toward expanding and optimizing the system. That deal would accelerate transmission development, improve regional planning, expand grid capacity, and reduce interconnection bottlenecks that delay new energy resources and increase costs. Provisions that support long-term transmission planning, competitive transmission development, advanced transmission technologies, and faster interconnection queues all help deliver the reliable, affordable, and abundant electricity needed to support continued business investment and economic growth.

Corporate electricity buyers support both pathways because they can help ensure reliable power, reduce congestion, expand access to lower-cost generation resources, and help moderate electricity price increases. Inadequate transmission capacity is resulting in higher costs, delayed service, constrained access to generation resources, and ultimately affecting business investment decisions, with many of these impacts reflected in rising customer electricity bills.

Transmission constraints are increasingly shaping where companies locate, expand, and procure electricity, playing an enormous role in corporate electricity buyers’ multi-billion-dollar siting decisions.

CEBA advocates that the federal government take this two-track approach to transmission policy and strongly supports passage of BAAJA, a once-in-a-generation opportunity for transmission and clean energy.

Addressing Near-Term Challenges: Optimize the Existing System

One pathway is about speed.

To increase grid capacity in the next one to five years, the fastest and lowest-cost opportunities can be found within existing transmission rights-of-way through advanced transmission technologies and grid optimization.

In the near term, the U.S. can add transmission capacity by:

• Replacing inefficient power lines with high-performance conductors that can increase transfer capability, carrying more electrons over longer distances
• Deploying grid enhancing technologies (GETs), such as dynamic line ratings and advanced power flow controls, that allow operators to use infrastructure more efficiently
• Investing in storage, automation, and situational awareness tools that help maximize existing system performance
• Improving existing transfer capability, particularly where congestion or outdated operating assumptions artificially constrain flows

Optimization of the existing system buys time, relieves congestion, lowers costs, and can help bridge the gap while larger transmission lines are built to support the nation’s long-term needs.  

Building a Grid for Generations: Interregional Lines for Long-Term Growth

The other pathway is about scale.

Ensuring reliable, affordable power for the long term will require planning and constructing new interregional transmission infrastructure capable of moving power across regions at the scale rising demand requires.

This is where the economics become compelling. These interregional power lines can:

• Strengthen reliability during extreme weather
• Reduce the amount of redundant generation regions must build
• Lower wholesale electricity prices by allowing access to lower-cost resources
• Reduce congestion and generation resource curtailment
• Improve resilience against fuel disruptions or regional supply shortages

Interregional transmission lines’ value proposition is strong. Study after study shows that interregional investment can yield three to six times more benefits over the infrastructure’s lifetime. Additionally, the entity overseeing the reliability of the power system called for 35 gigawatts of additional interregional capacity to ensure reliable power across the nation.

For corporate buyers, a strong grid backbone is as essential to their operations as transportation, water, telecommunications, or an educated workforce.

When planned well, transmission is not simply a cost to recover. It is a cost-control strategy that gives companies greater confidence to site, expand, and invest where reliable power can be delivered at predictable, lower prices.

Why One Pathway Fails Without the Other

Pursuing only one pathway creates avoidable risk. Optimization without long-term buildout squeezes incremental capacity from an already structurally constrained and aging grid; buildout without near-term optimization cannot address the immediate demand challenge.

But together, they create a practical sequence:

• Near-term optimization provides immediate system relief.
• Interregional buildout delivers new, durable structural capacity.
• Both pathways support affordability, reliability, and economic growth.
• Each reduces pressure on the other.

That is not redundancy; it is strategy. Improving the efficiency of the existing system whilst expanding overall capacity is a smart, two-pronged approach to keep the lights on and power bills in check.

Recommendations for Policymakers

If policymakers want to support this two-pathway approach, several priorities stand out across optimization, buildout, permitting efficiency, affordability, and customer outcomes.

To optimize the existing system:

• Prioritize funding for GETs and reconductoring
• Accelerate deployment through streamlined permitting within existing transmission rights-of-way
• Support software and modeling upgrades needed for implementation
• Fully fund federal programs to scale deployment, such as the:
  • U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships (GRIP) Program
  • DOE’s Speed to Power through Accelerated Reconductoring and other Key Advanced Transmission Technology Upgrades (SPARK)

To expand the grid:

• De-risk major interregional projects through capacity contracts and financing tools
• Streamline permitting reform, shorten legal windows, and narrow judicial review
• Remove barriers to merchant and entrepreneurial transmission development
• Improve interregional planning and state coordination
• Leverage existing transportation rights-of-way
• Fully support programs, including low-interest loans through DOE’s Energy Dominance Financing Program and the Transmission Facilitation Program

And across both pathways:

• Improve interagency coordination
• Increase transparency around costs and congestion
• Focus on investments that improve grid reliability, but prioritize solutions that also lower long-term system costs for consumers

The Bottom Line

We must deploy advanced transmission technologies to unlock capacity now and build interregional transmission infrastructure to sustain growth over decades.

Two pathways. One system. One strategy.

Additional Resources:

• CEBA’s comments on the U.S. Department of Transportation’s request for information regarding the America’s Great Corridors of Commerce initiative (Oct. 2, 2026) 
• CEBA’s comments on the DOE’s draft 2026 National Transmission Needs Study (Sept. 7, 2026)
• CEBA’s energy infrastructure and transmission reform fact sheets (Feb. 18, 2026)
• CEBA’s comments in response to the DOE’s request for information on “Accelerating Speed to Power/Winning the Artificial Intelligence Race: Federal Action to Rapidly Expand Grid Capacity and Enable Electricity Demand Growth” (Nov. 21, 2025)