By Matthew L. Wald
Bill Richardson often denigrated America’s power transmission network as a “third-world grid” when he was President Bill Clinton’s energy secretary, but the more current description of it is “balkanized,” with 500 separate owners. Marc L. Spitzer, a former member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, said even that analogy was not harsh enough…
… For now, there is simply no momentum for a transmission system that would connect the best sites for renewable energy with the biggest areas of demand.
“There’s no overall transmission planning for the entire interconnection,” said Vladimir S. Koritarov, deputy director of the Center for Energy, Environmental and Economic Systems Analysis at Argonne National Laboratory. …
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