They may not agree on all of the details, but Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) and Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), who both sit on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, concur on the necessity of updating national energy policies and addressing questions surrounding national electric transmission infrastructure.
A nationwide conversation is playing out over how to modernize U.S. energy laws to incorporate the impacts of new grid technologies and ensure the resiliency and security of the electric grid.
That grid was built at a time when one generator would reach a transmission line, which in turn would extend to distribution lines and then to customers, Heinrich told the audience at an event hosted by The Washington Post on Thursday morning. Now, Heinrich said, “it’s a multidirectional machine,” with new developments like customers producing energy themselves, such as with a wind turbine or solar panels.
Hoeven, who joined Heinrich onstage, said, “The challenge is getting everybody to work together to make sure that that distribution system for our energy grid in this country works.”
Producers of any type of energy – wind, solar, gas or “baseload” resources like coal, Hoeven said – have a common interest in ensuring a distribution system is available, because they each share in the cost of constructing and using transmission infrastructure.
