Expanding Power Networks: Allocating $2 Million Per Mile Toward Achieving Zero Carbon Emissions
The global shift towards renewable energy sources is progressing rapidly, but the existing electricity infrastructure is struggling to keep up. The increasing demand from electric vehicles, heat pumps, artificial intelligence data centers, and solar power systems is pushing the grid to its limits. Transmission lines are congested, interconnection queues are growing, and new infrastructure development is insufficient.
While policymakers are focusing on long-term expansion, emerging technologies are offering faster, more adaptable solutions to alleviate pressure on the grid. Advanced conductors, grid-enhancing technologies (GETs), and intelligent control systems are enabling utilities to increase capacity, decrease congestion, and enhance reliability, often without the need for additional wiring.
These innovations will not replace the need for long-term investments, but they can provide a temporary solution, reduce costs, and hasten the energy transition by making better use of existing infrastructure.
The Energy Grid's Inability to Keep Pace with the Changing Energy Landscape
The electrical infrastructure we rely on was designed for a different era-centralized, fossil fuel-based, and unidirectional. Today's energy system is decentralized and dynamic, with rooftop solar panels, wind farms, electric vehicles (EVs), and digital infrastructure changing how and where power flows. This shift toward two-way, variable energy movement necessitates a grid that is smarter, more flexible, and more resilient. Meeting this challenge entails more than merely generating new power; it demands substantial upgrades to the grid itself.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), achieving climate and energy goals will require the addition or refurbishment of over 80 million kilometers of grid infrastructure by 2040- effectively doubling the global grid.
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A 2023 assessment by the Energy Transitions Commission estimates that the world will require $1.3 trillion annually in zero-carbon power and an additional $0.9 trillion in transmission and distribution to reach net-zero emissions. To simply put: for every $100 invested in renewables, roughly $70 should be invested in the grid to ensure that clean energy actually reaches end users.
While this infrastructure buildout is essential, smarter grid management can relieve pressure in the short term. Unlocking the hidden capacity in the current system offers a faster, more efficient way to maintain the energy transition's momentum.
The Grid's Weakest Link: Lack of Real-time Data
Despite serving as crucial infrastructure, most high-voltage lines lack the sensors required to understand real-time operating conditions, leaving utilities reliant on outdated static line capacity ratings. Rather than adapting to real-world conditions, they are forced to operate under worst-case assumptions. On a cool, breezy day, a line may be capable of carrying 30-40% more power than assumed, safely and reliably. The result is artificially constrained capacity, renewable energy curtailment, and mounting congestion.
Without accurate, real-time data, grid operators are left guessing rather than optimizing, and the financial impact is substantial. US consumers are spending $20 billion in congestion costs while in Europe that figure is over €4 billion. Moreover, more than 80% of renewable energy projects are idle in interconnection queues-not because of permits or panels, but because the grid cannot accommodate the power they produce. This isn't a hardware problem; it's a data problem, and solving it begins with recognizing what's already there.
A Smarter Approach to Grid Capacity
Norwegian startup Heimdall Power is pioneering a smarter, quicker method for grid intelligence, utilizing technology that enables safe, cost-effective deployment of sensors on live transmission lines. This opens the door to Dynamic Line Rating (DLR), a powerful way to unlock hidden capacity in the grid.
Heimdall's solution? Small compact sensors called 'Neurons', which can be rapidly deployed onto high-voltage lines using autonomous drones, enabling installation in under 60 seconds without line shutdowns. These intelligent devices measure real-time environmental and line conditions, such as wind speed, temperature, and line sag-the invisible factors that determine how much electricity a line can carry at any given moment. By continuously analyzing these inputs, DLR calculates a line's real-time capacity-often allowing it to safely carry more power than outdated, worst-case static ratings would suggest.
"Think of our sensors as speedometers for the grid," CEO Jørgen Festervoll said in an interview. "Right now, most utilities are driving blind-and slow-just to be safe. We give them real-time visibility."
Rapid Deployment and Scaling
The pitch is bold and straightforward: with smarter technology, we can safely increase transmission line capacity by up to 40% and accelerate the clean energy transition, all without laying a single new wire. "We're the Apple Watch of the power grid," Festervoll said.
Heimdall's edge isn't just its sensors, but how quickly it can be deployed. According to Festervoll, there is no need for shutdowns, nor for heavy equipment. Entire transmission corridors can be digitized in days, not years-a significant shift from the traditional infrastructure timeline. This means that utilities can defer up to $2 million per mile in new line construction, boost dispatch efficiency by 20%, and accelerate renewable integration by 40%. This is grid modernization that's fast, flexible, and economically compelling.
"We're solving visibility in the most under-instrumented trillion-dollar asset class on the planet," Festervoll says.
Preventive Measures: Smart Technology Averts Blackouts
Grids are vital to modern life-powering everything from industry and infrastructure to homes and hospitals. Yet for such complex systems, it's remarkable that they sometimes fail-and even more surprising that they fail less often. Managing a modern grid with outdated tools is like directing air traffic without radar: it works- until it doesn't.
And when it doesn't, the consequences extend far beyond the power sector. Grid failures can disrupt supply chains, halt public services, and cost economies billions. The recent blackout in Spain and Portugal, triggered by what appears to be a single line failure, underscored just how vulnerable the system can be.
That event highlighted a growing challenge: as power grids become more complex, our ability to manage them with outdated tools is eroding rapidly. Early reports point to failures in voltage control and chronic underinvestment, and the final analysis is expected to include a familiar set of technical recommendations-greater inertia to support renewables, improved trip settings, faster black-start capabilities, stronger cross-border coordination, and increased attention to cyber risks and early warning signals.
Rather than just revisiting familiar mistakes, this moment underscores the need to look ahead-and adopt smarter tools. One utility, equipped with Heimdall's real-time data, averted a similar outcome entirely. When a storm brought down a transmission line, the system showed that cooler temperatures had boosted capacity on a nearby line. Operators were able to reroute power in real time-and keep the lights on.
That's not just smart technology-that's economic resilience.
The $290 Billion Opportunity: Smarter Grid, Smarter Policy
Heimdall's technology is part of a larger opportunity to transform how we manage and optimize the grid. The shift toward smarter, more responsive infrastructure is gaining momentum-and it's not just a niche trend. The global smart grid market is expected to deliver $290 billion in global energy savings by 2029, according to Juniper Research. The International Energy Agency (IEA) echoes this, identifying real-time grid intelligence as essential for decarbonization, electrification, and the coming surge of EVs, heat pumps, and data centers.
But unlocking this potential requires more than just better technology-it demands smarter regulation. Today, most utilities are financially incentivized to build more physical infrastructure, not for using existing infrastructure better. Festervoll explains it bluntly: "You get paid to pour concrete, not optimize electrons."
To truly modernize the grid, the IEA is calling for a shift in how utilities are rewarded-focusing on outcomes like visibility, flexibility, and efficiency rather than traditional capital investment. The smart grid revolution isn't just about deploying sensors and software. It's about aligning technology and policy to build a system that's not only bigger, but fundamentally smarter.
The Bottom Line: Use What You Have, Just Smarter
In a world where electrification is accelerating, capital is limited, and the stakes are high, knowing what you already have-and using it smarter-may be the most valuable energy asset of all.
As Festervoll says, "If you don't know what you have, you'll overbuild." And in today's economy, overbuilding isn't just inefficient - it's unaffordable.
- Emerging technologies, such as grid-enhancing technologies (GETs) and advanced conductors, are offering solutions to alleviate pressure on the current electricity infrastructure, enabling utilities to increase capacity, decrease congestion, and enhance reliability without the need for additional wiring.
- The global shift towards renewable energy sources and increasing demand from electric vehicles, heat pumps, solar power systems, and artificial intelligence data centers is pushing the existing power grid to its limits, necessitating a smarter, more flexible, and more resilient grid that can accommodate two-way and variable energy movement.
- To ensure clean energy reaches end users efficiently, it is essential to invest in transmission and distribution infrastructure alongside zero-carbon power generation, with approximately $70 of every $100 invested in renewables going towards grid upgrades.
- Norwegian startup Heimdall Power is developing a solution that maximizes grid intelligence by using technology that enables the safe and cost-effective deployment of sensors on high-voltage transmission lines, making it possible to securely increase transmission line capacity by up to 40% without laying a single new wire.
- The smart grid revolution isn't just about deploying sensors and software; it's about aligning technology and policy to build a system that's not only bigger, but fundamentally smarter, focusing on outcomes like visibility, flexibility, and efficiency rather than traditional capital investment in infrastructure.
