Washington, Aug 27: US consumers will have to foot a $100bn bill to upgrade the nation’s electric transmission grid. They could also reap five-fold savings from cheaper power costs, said an industry report. The Palo Alto-based Electric Power Research Institute said sizeable investment is needed to prevent a repeat of the massive August 14 blackout which left over 50m people without power and exposed the dilapidated state of the nation’s power grid.
At the root of the problem is the institutional neglect of transmission grid, which can be reversed only by hefty spending, the group said. The $100bn price tag to fix the problem is “the best estimate we can do at present,” said Stephen Gehl, director of strategic technology for the group. “It’s an approximate number — we would be the first to say that.”

“The pressures of cost containment have essentially stifled and deferred the needed infrastructure investment in the electricity sector for at least two decades,” the report said. It said the investment deficit is now running at about $20bn a year. The Edison Electric Institute, the biggest US utility lobbying group, has pegged the cost of needed long-distance transmission projects at $56bn over the next nine years.
Long-haul transmission lines transport high-voltage electricity from generation plants to central hubs, where it is funnelled through local utilities’ distribution networks to homes and businesses at a lower voltage.
Transmission projects have suffered at the same time as companies have invested in new power generating plants. While the cost of upgrading transmission lines would be large, the potential payoff would be huge.
The average US consumer would see annual power bills rise by less than $100 to pay for new transmission projects but would save $500 a year from lower power costs, the group said. Bureau Report