WIRES has submitted a response to a letter recently addressed to FERC that claimed that transmission infrastructure costs were the primary driver of rising electric bills and urged expanding solicitations as a solution.
The IECA letter's central framing is misleading and includes cherry‑picked statistics. It measures transmission as a percentage of total wholesale costs without context, so that when generation costs fall, transmission’s share appears larger even if absolute costs remain unchanged. In contrast, WIRES points to reporting from the PJM Independent Market Monitor, which finds that recent bill increases in PJM are overwhelming driven by higher supply costs, while transmission costs have risen only modestly.
IECA’s theory that competition reduces transmission costs is based on outdated assumptions and has been repeatedly contradicted by empirical studies and real-world project outcomes. In fact, expanding solicitations would slow transmission development at precisely the moment when accelerating grid infrastructure is essential to meeting our national economic and security objectives.
When well-planned transmission is built, customers pay less and our nation strengthens its energy dominance. Transmission reduces congestion, enables customers to access lower cost resources, and allows new load and generation to connect to the grid, including infrastructure needed to support AI, America’s booming manufacturing, and oil and gas extraction.
Download the Letter
About WIRES
WIRES is a non-profit trade association of investor-, publicly-, and cooperatively-owned transmission providers and developers, transmission customers, regional grid managers, and equipment and service companies. WIRES promotes investment in the North American electric transmission system and champions robust and effective transmission solutions to address reliability, economic, environmental and national security objectives. For more information, visit wiresgroup.com.
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For WIRES media inquiries, please contact:
Heather Robb
President, Heather Robb Communications
heather@hrobb.com