Greening California Grid May Cost $30.5 Billion for Power Lines

(Bloomberg) -- California's switch to clean power will require $30.5 billion in spending on transmission lines and substations by 2040 to hook up staggering amounts of solar, wind and geothermal plants, according to a roadmap by the state's grid operator. 

The planning document, intended to guide transmission investments during the next 20 years, illustrates the challenge facing California as the state aims to end greenhouse gas emissions from its electricity grid by 2045. Including imports from neighboring states, renewable sources supplied a third of California's electricity in 2020, the most recent year for which data are available. Demand for clean electricity is expected to increase, as the state pushes for greater adoption of electric vehicles.

Of the new transmission investment forecast by the California Independent System Operator, $8.1 billion would be required to connect a power source that does not exist yet — 10 gigawatts of offshore wind turbines along the state's coastline. The roadmap also projects more than 2 gigawatts of new, onshore wind power in California, 12 gigawatts of wind turbines in other western states that could supply California, 53 gigawatts of large-scale solar plants, and 37 gigawatts of batteries plugged into the grid by 2040. For comparison, 1 gigawatt is roughly the output of a single nuclear reactor.

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