Skip Navigation

North Carolina Planning Collaborative Identifies 38 Major Transmission Projects

North Carolina Planning Collaborative Identifies 38 Major Transmission Projects

April 26, 2023

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
April 26, 2023

Participants in the North Carolina Transmission Planning Collaborative have identified 38 major transmission projects that will improve the electric transmission infrastructure as part of a 2022-2032 collaborative transmission plan, ElectriCities of North Carolina said on April 13.

The 38 major transmission projects in the 2022 plan represent $1.49 billion in new transmission investments during the next decade. This includes 24 reliability projects representing more than $936 million in investments and 14 additional public policy projects representing more than $554 million in investments that will enable the interconnection of new resources and replace aging infrastructure.

The major transmission projects identified in the 2022 plan are expected to be implemented during the next 10 years by the transmission owners to enhance system reliability and resiliency, support addition of new generation resources, and potentially enable increased economic electricity transfers across the transmission network. Major projects are defined as those requiring transmission investments of more than $10 million each.

The 2022 plan includes nine new Duke Energy Carolinas reliability projects totaling more than $255 million in new transmission investments. The in-service dates and cost estimates for some planned or underway 2022 reliability projects have been revised from the previous year’s plan report.

The 2022 plan includes four new DEC and ten new Duke Energy Progress public policy projects totaling more than $554 million in new transmission investments.

The NCTPC was formed in 2005 by the load-serving entities to ensure DEC and DEP develop a shared plan for electric transmission system enhancements located in the states of North Carolina and South Carolina.

Those LSEs include DEC, DEP, ElectriCities of North Carolina, which serves public power communities across the state, and North Carolina’s Electric Cooperatives’ generation and transmission arm, North Carolina EMC, which serves as the power supplier for most of the state’s electric cooperatives.

Since its inception in 2005, transmission projects totaling more than $2.919 billion have been identified in the NCTPC plans. More than $1.158 billion in projects have been placed in service through the end of 2022, $1.46 billion are still in the planning stage and another $299 million were deferred until after 2032 or cancelled as a result of changing transmission system requirements. The plan is updated annually.

The NCTPC was established to provide participants and other stakeholders an opportunity to participate in the electric transmission planning process and develop a single coordinated transmission plan that includes reliability, resource supply additions, public policy, and local economic study transmission planning considerations. The group’s priority is to appropriately balance costs, benefits and risks associated with the use of transmission and generation resources.

Another goal of the NCTPC is to study the strength of the transmission infrastructure of DEC and DEP. The scope of the 2022 NCTPC study included a base reliability analysis for transmission needs to meet load growth between 2022 and 2032.

For a variety of reasons, such as load growth, generation retirements, or power purchase agreements expiring, LSEs may wish to evaluate other resource supply options to meet future load demand. These resource supply options can be either in the form of transactions or some hypothetical generators added to meet resource adequacy requirements for this study.

In 2022, the NCTPC also examined the impacts of 14 different hypothetical transfers into, out of, and through the DEC and DEP systems under the Local Economic Planning Process. The results of these studies are documented in Section VI of the 2022 Plan report.

“The NCTPC provides a valuable function by allowing stakeholders to better understand the electric transmission planning process,” said Marty Berland of ElectriCities of North Carolina, Chairman of the NCTPC Oversight/Steering Committee. “By offering greater transparency and opportunity to provide input to the process, entities that rely on the transmission system can collaborate to develop plans for future enhancements in a manner that optimizes cost effectiveness and reliability.”