The United States Department of Energy (DOE) announced a $1.3 billion investment in three transmission lines, which will advance projects aimed at adding 3.5 GW of additional grid capacity and powering over three million homes.

The DOE is entering into capacity contract negotiations with three interregional transmission line projects that are spread across Nevada’s Utah, New Mexico in Arizona and New Hampshire in Vermont.

The three selected transmission lines are:

• Cross-Tie 500kV Transmission Line (Nevada, Utah). Cross-Tie is a proposed 214-mile,1,500 MW transmission line connecting existing transmission systems in Utah and Nevada
• Southline Transmission Project (Arizona, New Mexico). Southline is a proposed 175-mile, 748 MW transmission line from Hidalgo County, New Mexico to Pima County, Arizona
• Twin States Clean Energy Link (New Hampshire, Vermont). Twin States is a proposed 1,200 MW high-voltage direct current bidirectional line that will expand the capacity of the New England electric grid

The investment is part of the $2.5 billion Transmission Facilitation Program which is a revolving fund established to overcome the financial hurdles associated with building new, large-scale transmission lines, upgrading existing transmission lines, and connecting microgrids in Hawaii, Alaska, and U.S. territories.

Last year, the government issued a Request for Information seeking public feedback on this program.

The DOE also announced the release of the National Transmission Study, which serves as its triennial state of the grid report containing a robust assessment of current and near-term future transmission needs through 2040. The report estimated that the U.S. needs to double its existing regional transmission capacity by 2035.

The study said regions with historically high levels of within-region congestion including the Northwest, Mountain, Texas, and New York regions and regions with unscheduled flows that pose reliability risks — California, Northwest, Mountain, and Southwest — need additional, strategically placed transmission deployment to reduce this congestion.

In July this year, the U.S. reported congestion costs rose to $20.8 billion, which were attributed to reliance on high-cost thermal generators, as the clean energy sources remained curtailed due to insufficient transmission capacity.