Transmission expansion for renewable energy scale-up: emerging lessons and recommendations

This report reviews emerging approaches by transmission utilities and regulators to cope with the challenges of expanding transmission infrastructure for renewable energy scale-up. Proactive planning and regulation of transmission networks are emerging as premier approaches to ensure that transmission networks are expanded efficiently and effectively. Linking planning with clear and stable cost-recovery regulation can also help the private sector to complement the considerable investment needs for transmission. Based on the evolving international experience of the authors and on established theory and practice on transmission regulation, the report also proposes some principles that could be useful for implementing specific rules for the planning, development, and pricing of transmission networks.