(Statehouse) – Indiana lawmakers have approved a measure to study ways to use advanced transmission technologies to squeeze more energy from the state’s aging electrical grid.
The technology is a suite of hardware and software which can boost the capacity of current transmission lines and perhaps postpone the need for new infrastructure. Backers of the plan said because it is deployed on existing towers, it can reduce cost, modernize without new construction and increase the system’s energy capacity.
Sen. Eric Koch, R-Bedford, a co-sponsor of the bipartisan bill, said the state faces an ever-increasing demand for energy.
“We’re hearing projections of a single data center using one or maybe even two gigawatts,” Koch pointed out. “A gigawatt is about the size of the consumption of residential use in the city of Indianapolis. It is a large amount of electricity being projected to be needed.”
Colorado, Maine and Utah are among the states to have already deploying the system and are studying its effectiveness. Senate Bill 422, signed last week by Gov. Mike Braun, was backed by a variety of groups, including AARP Indiana, the Hoosier Environmental Council and The Pew Charitable Trusts.
Current customers and future demand for new technologies drive the need for more energy.
Carter Harms, state campaigns officer for the Pew Charitable Trusts, said the list is growing.
“Increased domestic manufacturing, increased needs from data centers, partially due to artificial intelligence, and then also increased electrification,” Harms outlined. “Because of that growing demand, we’re seeing strain on the electric grid.”
Koch added one of Indiana’s power utilities tested the system and obtained positive results.
“We did have the benefit of one of our five investor-owned utilities here in Indiana, AES, pilot a type of ATT called Dynamic Line Ratings,” Koch noted. “The results were favorable, and that gave us some confidence that the ‘juice is going to be worth the squeeze.'”
(Story by our newsgathering partners at Indiana News Service)
