Every serious capacity addition in the U.S. power grid, whether solar, wind, nuclear, or gas peakers, eventually runs into the same structural ceiling: there is not enough high-voltage wire to move the power from where it is produced to where it is consumed. The generation story is loud. The transmission story is where the actual constraint lives.

The Backlog Is the Signal

The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s 2023 interconnection queue study put the total queued generation capacity at roughly 2,600 GW nationally, against a current installed base of approximately 1,200 GW. The majority of those projects are stalled not because of financing or equipment delays, but because of transmission access. FERC Order 2023, which restructured the interconnection process, acknowledged the problem structurally, but the permitting and construction timelines for new 500 kV and 765 kV lines still run 10 to 15 years in most regions. The queue is not a pipeline. It is a waiting room.

What makes the dynamic particularly legible to capital allocators is that the bottleneck is regulatory and political, not technical or financial. The engineering to build a 500-mile HVDC line exists. The capital to finance it at regulated utility returns exists. What does not exist, consistently, is a mechanism to allocate costs across beneficiary states and utilities before shovels move.

Where FERC Order 1920 Changes the Calculus

FERC’s Order 1920, issued in May 2024, is the most substantive federal transmission planning rule in roughly 13 years, since Order 1000. It requires transmission providers to conduct long-range scenario planning over 20-year horizons and to identify transmission facilities that address anticipated needs, including from load growth driven by data centers and electrification. The cost allocation provisions are the contested center of the rule, and several utilities have already filed for rehearing on specific provisions.

The practical effect, if the rule survives legal challenge, is that regional transmission organizations and independent system operators will have clearer authority to designate and cost-allocate projects that no single utility would unilaterally build. PJM’s recent RTEP cycle, which identified over $50 billion in transmission needs through 2039, is an early-stage illustration of the scale of spending that could be authorized under this framework.

The Infrastructure Firms Watching This Quietly

Several large infrastructure funds, including Brookfield Asset Management and BlackRock’s infrastructure platform, have increased their public commentary on transmission as a distinct asset class from generation. The regulated return structure, typically a FERC-authorized base ROE in the 10 to 11 percent range before incentive adders, combined with multi-decade asset lives, fits the liability-matching mandate of pension and insurance capital. The scarcity of buildable routes and the permitting complexity function as structural moats for incumbents who already hold right-of-way.

• HVDC projects crossing multiple RTO boundaries carry additional regulatory complexity but can unlock otherwise stranded renewable capacity in the interior West and Gulf Coast.
• Right-of-way acquisition on greenfield routes remains the single longest-lead item, frequently exceeding equipment procurement by two to three years.
• Several states, including Wyoming and Montana, have passed legislation to accelerate siting for interstate transmission, creating differential regulatory environments that matter for route selection.

The Operator Read

The structural setup here is not subtle. Generation capacity is being commissioned faster than the network can absorb it. The regulatory framework is, slowly, being rewritten to enable cost-shared long-range planning. And the capital willing to sit in 20-year regulated returns is actively looking for investable projects. The decade’s boring story, transmission build-out, is positioned to become the decade’s most consequential infrastructure spend. Operators and allocators watching the FERC Order 1920 litigation calendar are watching the right variable.