Your electricity bill is going up. Grid operators say they need billions in new transmission lines. Utilities are filing for rate increases to pay for them. What almost no one will tell you is that cheaper solutions already exist, are proven, and are being passed over on purpose.

Grids are built on a cost-plus-guaranteed-profit basis. This incentive leads to the deliberate choice to ignore the cheapest way to add grid capacity.

Two technologies could add 30 to 50 percent more capacity to existing transmission lines for a fraction of the cost of new construction.

The first is dynamic line ratings. A line's rated capacity is set conservatively, based on worst-case weather assumptions. Dynamic line ratings use real-time sensors to measure actual conditions and allow the line to carry more power when it can safely do so.

The second is reconductoring: replacing the wire on an existing tower with advanced composite-core conductors that carry roughly twice the current. Same towers. Same right-of-way. Same footprint. Double the capacity, in months instead of years.

Both are proven. Both are deployed in Texas and in Europe. Both are available now.

Neither is being widely built in American........

© Townhall