More than 80 top U.S. energy experts across the political spectrum and from the private sector, academia, and nonprofit organizations met at Stanford University to explore how the United States can meet the rising electricity demands that threaten to overwhelm the aging U.S. grid in the coming years.

The Feb. 12 all-day roundtable began with a discussion between Jennifer Granholm, the Secretary of Energy during the Biden administration, and Condoleezza Rice, director of Stanford’s Hoover Institution and Secretary of State during the George W. Bush administration. Arun Majumdar, Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability dean and professor of mechanical engineering in the School of Engineering, moderated the discussion.

“Universities can serve as neutral, objective conveners for people of different views to find common ground and facilitate dialogue and debate in an open way,” said Majumdar after the meeting. “This is not just a privilege, but a responsibility.”

The participants joined the invitation-only meeting, organized by the Doerr School’s Precourt Institute for Energy, to produce a report later this year that will distill key points intended to be helpful to lawmakers as they consider ways to modernize the national grid to meet the moment of increased energy demand, reslilience, and security in the United States. The report will present big ideas based on research findings. It will be available to policymakers and other energy sector stakeholders to address matters that affect energy security, economic security, and national security.

To promote the candid discussion necessary to produce a portfolio of ideas and recommendations, all discussions at the invitation-only meeting will not be attributed to specific participants, and no journalists were present.

In mid-March, the organizers aim to publish a read-out of the meeting, with the full report following later this year.

“We had outstanding roundtable discussions about fixing the U.S. electric grid so that our economic growth and technical leadership don’t move to other countries,” said the meeting’s primary organizer, Karen Skelton, who was a senior policy advisor to Secretary Granholm and Biden’s top climate diplomat, John Podesta.

“But the real proof of the value of this meeting will be in what actions follow it. The forthcoming report is intended to help federal, state, and local policymakers understand paths forward to modernize cranky old electricity infrastructure to meet current demands,” said Skelton, a visiting scholar at the Precourt Institute for Energy.

Rising demands

The country’s electricity demand was flat for 15 years, starting with the onset of the economic recession in 2007. In 2022, however, electricity use began rising due to increasing electrification in the transportation, housing, and industrial sectors and growth in the U.S. manufacturing sector. In addition, tech companies are building large data centers for energy-intense AI processing, and cryptocurrency mining has been creating significant electricity demand in recent years. The U.S. Department of Energy forecasts a doubling of electricity demand by 2050, with some other forecasts anticipating an even greater rise in demand. While the trend line is clear, meeting participants agreed that the location and extent of the increase remain uncertain, and demand could potentially skyrocket.

More electricity demand, meeting participants noted, is a good thing because it reflects a growing economy and technological advances.

Unfortunately, U.S. economic growth and technological supremacy could sputter if the electric grid is unable to modernize and expand quickly enough to accommodate this unprecedented growth.

Despite the availability of new technology that can increase the efficiency of current transmission infrastructure, meeting participants identified a number of issues that are holding back the needed overhaul and expansion of the grid, including:

• Difficulties in siting and permitting new transmission lines;

• Obtaining financing for major transmission projects;

• Addressing severe shortages in the availability of transmission transformers and other essential transmission equipment;

• A highly balkanized electric grid regulatory system that includes the wrong incentives for advancing national – as opposed to utility-specific – electricity needs; and

• Integrating the national grid, especially given the increased dependence on intermittent renewables like wind and solar power.

The U.S. electric grid is really six regional grids with limited connections, and three of those regional grids extend well into Canada. Canadian hydropower, for example, is at times a crucial supply source for the western U.S. system. The ability to move significantly more electricity between regions would alleviate the intermittency of wind and solar power, several people said.

Now is the time

The strain is already showing. A broad swath in the middle of the country has insufficient backup resources, and most of the rest of the United States will be in the same situation in a few years. The Northeast this past January saw very high prices in its electricity market as cold weather nearly overwhelmed the grid there.

Meeting participants agreed that now is the time to address these serious issues. Some immediate improvements are at hand, like expanding the capacity of existing transmission lines and improving electricity demand forecasts. Attention on other key issues also cannot wait, including federal, regional, and state clarification of financing options for new transmission lines and mechanisms to slash wait times for new electricity resources to connect to the grid. New investment in improved supply chains for the domestic production of transformers, batteries, advanced processing chips, and other technologies also is needed as a matter of national, economic, and energy security.

All meeting participants contributed to three breakout sessions of 10 groups brainstorming potential policy solutions or at least guidelines, which were then shared with the full group. These group discussions will form the basis of the March report.

“What are the priority ideas for reforming America’s electricity system that take advantage of modern technology and address increases in electricity demand, outdated infrastructure, and rising utility rates, as we attempt to expand a competitive and reliable grid? This is a challenging question to answer, but we took big steps toward formulating key recommendations,” said William Chueh, the director of the Precourt Institute. “We look forward to sharing these ideas publicly very soon.”

Three panels set the stage for the three breakout group discussions. Aside from those already mentioned, the speakers and panel moderators were:

• Sonia Aggarwal, CEO, Energy Innovation

• Drew Baglino, former senior vice president of powertrain and energy, Tesla

• Sally Benson, Stanford professor of Energy Science & Engineering, and former director of the energy division of the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy

• Rich Glick, principal, GQS New Energy Strategies, and former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

• Rob Gramlich, president, Grid Strategies

• Garret Graves, former U.S. Congressman, Louisiana

• David J. Hayes, professor of the practice, Stanford Doerr School, and former special assistant to the president for climate policy

• Mary Landrieu, senior policy advisor, Van Ness Feldman, and former U.S. Senator, Louisiana

• Tracey Lebeau, administrator and CEO, Western Area Power Administration

• Elliot Mainzer, president and CEO, California Independent System Operator

• Alice Reynolds, president, California Public Utilities Commission

• Michael Skelly, co-founder and chief executive officer, Grid United

• Nidhi Thakar, senior vice president for policy, Clean Energy Buyers Association

• Eric Toone, executive managing director and technology lead, Breakthrough Energy Ventures

• Pat Wood, CEO, Hunt Energy Network, and former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission