The organizations are calling for a refocusing and expansion of incentives to create an expanded, more efficient and modernized grid, independent ownership of the gird, and an incorporation of the benefits of transmission into long-term planning.

This includes a call for new incentives for “technologies and operational practices that optimize the capacity of the existing grid as well as the management and control of energy on the grid”, and the coalition argues that the current lack of incentives is slowing down deployment of beneficial technologies...

Advanced Energy Economy noted that these policies could “unlock opportunities to integrate more renewable energy”, and also noted that the costs savings and renewable energy integration benefits are connected.

“With respect to new transmission infrastructure, our proposals would focus FERC’s policy efforts on the need to improve the transmission planning process for the interstate and inter-regional projects that are needed to access low-cost remotely located renewable resources,” Advanced Energy Economy Managing Director and General Counsel Jeff Dennis told pv magazine...

PV Magazine's analysis last summer found that the greatest current roadblock to integrating more solar and wind in California is not a lack of transmission lines, but the actual practices of managing the grid. Chiefly, we found that inflexible contracts between out-of-state generators and utilities are causing the state to import power at the same time that it is curtailing in-state solar and wind.

Read the entire PV Magazine story here.