Another key takeaway from the IEA: the grid is now the bottleneck. Grid investment has lagged generation investment for years, and the consequences are becoming unavoidable. More than 2,500 GW of projects worldwide – including renewables, storage, and large new loads – are currently stalled in interconnection queues. Congestion and curtailment are rising even as clean generation scales.
For more than two decades, the power industry has studied transmission congestion. Utilities, regulators, and policymakers are increasingly recognising that traditional approaches alone cannot keep pace with today’s electricity demand growth. Building entirely new transmission corridors thus remains important, but it is often too slow, too complex, and too capital-intensive to meet near-term needs.
Instead of waiting a decade or more to permit and build new transmission lines, utilities can upgrade existing infrastructure to carry significantly more power – often doubling capacity within the same right-of-way. At a time when thousands of gigawatts of generation are stalled in interconnection queues, and demand from electrification and data centers continues to surge, this approach offers something the industry urgently needs: speed.
That is why reconductoring is gaining renewed attention. Technologies like advanced conductors, and in particular CTC Global ACCC® Conductor, have been deployed globally for more than two decades across more than 30 US states and 70 countries at more than 1,650 projects, supported by extensive testing and real-world operating experience across a wide range of environments.
Advanced Conductors, particularly ACCC® Conductor, offer a direct and highly practical way to unlock that capacity. By replacing traditional steel cores with lightweight, high-strength composite materials, ACCC® Conductors can carry significantly more current – often double or more – while maintaining lower sag and improved efficiency. In many cases, they can be deployed on existing structures, within existing rights-of-way, dramatically reducing both cost and time. In Mons, Belgium, the transmission grid underwent a major upgrade to support a new data centre. Elia Transmission Belgium, the national transmission operator, replaced outdated conductors with ACCC® Conductors, boosting capacity by 130 MVA, thus doubling the energy supply to a data centre.
More details: https://ctcglobal.com/powering-the-future-enhancing-grid-resilience-with-smart-technology/