America’s power grid is heading towards a breaking point. Data-center growth and resurgent industrial demand are putting strain on the transmission system, while outdated utility planning continues to lock out mature and cost-effective wire solutions. This is a regulatory bottleneck born from utilities’ monopoly status, not an innovation problem. To unlock affordable capacity, policymakers should require utilities to consider the best-available technologies by default, while utilities themselves modernize planning to reinforce their affordability commitment to customers.

>>>READ: The Wire Inside the Wire: Energy Capacity Hiding in Plain Sight

For decades, utilities strung transmission towers with the same conductors. These lines are built from materials that determine how much electricity can flow without exceeding safe operating temperatures. Advanced conductors, available today, can deliver between 25 and 100 percent more power than the decades-old, sometimes century-old, materials utilities still rely on. 

Restringing existing towers with higher-capacity conductors, called reconductoring, is one particular high-value opportunity for this technology. It enables more energy on the same physical footprint at lower long-term cost to consumers, especially when it can defer new construction. So why do utilities reconduct less than 1 percent of transmission lines each year and under-deploy this technology in new construction too?

A new study by ClearPath and Evolved Energy Research, which I had the chance to review, answers that question directly. The analysis looks at what happens to costs and grid capacity when planning properly accommodates advanced conductors. Today’s grid models select conductors late in the planning process, often after the path of a line is already fixed, blocking opportunities for reconductoring. The study’s distinct innovation is its modelling approach. Instead of evaluating long-term capacity needs and power reliability separately, as conventional planning processes do, it evaluates both questions together. This allows the model to evaluate reconductoring and new construction side-by-side and identify the least-cost way to meet transmission needs on Texas’s ERCOT grid across several growth scenarios.

The study demonstrates the value of reconductoring, especially given large growth in AI and datacenters. In its high-demand scenario, reconductoring accounts for nearly 75 percent of the new transmission capacity added by 2030. But it is not a perfect substitute for new lines. New transmission routes remain a necessary complement, though affordability and reliability both suffer when new construction is the only option considered. 

This complementary relationship between upgrades and greenfield lines holds in the long run too. By 2040, a reconductoring-inclusive approach avoids roughly 6,500 miles of new construction—of a total possible 14,479 miles—and saves ERCOT customers approximately $20 billion. Additionally, including reconductoring under the high-demand scenario reduces total transmission costs by 30 percent compared to meeting the same demand with greenfield development only. 

Unlocking these savings in practice requires fixing how utilities plan, which directly determines what they build. The researchers’ model confronts planning’s current pitfalls: by iterating  between the often-siloed capacity and reliability models, it can test reconductoring, greenfield lines, and different conductor types together, so the least-cost mix emerges early in the planning process. Utilities need to modernize their planning tools with these same principles in mind.

>>>READ: A Growing Grid Needs Market Discipline: Five Principles for Transmission Policy

Legislative direction can spur greater discipline from transmission planners too. Representative Julie Fedorchak’s (R-N.D.) High-Capacity Grid Act would instruct FERC to set a best-available transmission conductor standard for new interstate lines and major rebuilds. Today, utilities earn a profit from customers only on new infrastructure. Because installing or upgrading lines with advanced conductors can defer the need for new construction, utilities have a perverse incentive to keep using old technology. Under this legislation, a utility that installs anything less than the best-available conductor must justify that choice to regulators, ensuring customers are served at the lowest cost instead of subsidizing utility rent-seeking. The bill cleared the House Energy and Commerce Committee this summer, with complete bipartisan consensus.

Demand is now growing just as retail electricity prices climb faster than inflation, and that combination should make cost-competitive innovation a priority for utilities, regulators, and legislators alike. Advanced conductors are a clear place to start. Enacting policies and practices that catalyze their deployment at scale could save households and small businesses money, while unlocking the near-term energy capacity America’s economy needs to grow. 

The views and opinions expressed are those of the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of C3.