Six US states have opened highway and rail rights-of-way for new electricity transmission infrastructure, but actual construction has materialized in only one of them \u2014 a gap that underscores how difficult it is to move from policy to steel in the ground.<\/p>\n
The idea is to route power lines along approximately 48,000 miles of highways and 140,000 miles of railways already crossing the country. Proponents view those existing corridors as a way to address the Department of Energy’s estimated need for 47,000 gigawatt-miles of additional transmission capacity by 2035.<\/p>\n
Wisconsin remains the sole state with lines actually built. NextGen Highways \u2014 an advocacy group with backing from Bill Gates as well as The Nature Conservancy and Audubon \u2014 reports the state has installed 28 lines covering more than 200 miles. Neighboring Minnesota and Iowa have authorized similar placement, which could form the foundation of an interstate corridor, but no construction has followed. California and Virginia have limited themselves to setting up assessment procedures, while in Washington, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Massachusetts the group is so far only promoting the approach.<\/p>\n
At the federal level, the Department of Transportation is developing the America’s Great Corridors of Commerce program on a public-private basis. Industry association ACORE is pushing for corridor access to be generation-neutral, for independent developers to receive equal rights, and for federal support to extend to storage-paired projects.<\/p>\n
Among the regulatory barriers ACORE highlights is the absence of a federal permitting lever. The National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors are not legally operative after the DOE cancelled three proposed zones in August, leaving FERC without authority to override states on routing decisions. ACORE proposes a federal working group to negotiate state-level permitting agreements underpinned by shared lease-payment mechanisms.<\/p>\n