Issue: Electricity & Grid Resiliency

The surge in AI and data centers risks driving up electricity demand faster than we can deploy the power lines needed to carry it. The high-voltage transmission that this expansion, and economic growth more broadly, relies on is slow and expensive to develop, and stuck in an outdated regulatory system that often hands the work to local utilities without competition. New analysis from the R Street Institute shows what this costs us, finding that, when transmission projects are open to competitive bidding, they get built cheaper and faster.

America needs more electric transmission, the high-voltage lines that carry electrons from power plants to communities nationwide. But under today’s policies, building those lines takes too long and costs too much. Without a substantial expansion in transmission capacity, the country is at risk of rising energy costs, a less reliable electric grid, and stymied global leadership in AI.