Reconductoring ERCOT Could Save 20 Billion Dollars and Skip 6,500 Miles of New Lines by 2040
- Analysis Capacity & Wholesale Markets Policy & Markets
Marin Holt
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- 8 minutes read
- Net transmission savings by 2040: 20 billion dollars
- Greenfield miles avoided: 6,500 miles
- Modeled reconductoring spend: 10 billion dollars
- Greenfield still required: 35 billion dollars
Restringing existing Texas transmission lines with high-ampacity conductors would cut about 20 billion dollars from ERCOT transmission spending by 2040. It would also avoid 6,500 miles of new greenfield corridors. That is the finding of “Amping Up the Grid,” a report ClearPath posted on August 10, 2026 with modeling by the consulting firm Evolved Energy Research. The study treats reconductoring and new-build transmission as one optimization problem rather than as rival strategies.
The Data
The modelers ran a high-demand scenario to 2040, and in it roughly 10 billion dollars of reconductoring displaces about 30 billion dollars of greenfield transmission. That is where the 20 billion dollar net figure comes from. Texas still needs a large amount of new line in the same scenario, priced near 35 billion dollars. Reconductoring shrinks the greenfield bill. It does not remove it.
The modeling is the part worth noting. Evolved Energy Research represented ERCOT as roughly 5,000 buses and 7,000 lines, all built from public data. Its RIO capacity-expansion model then picked among three upgrade paths for each line: reconductor, build greenfield, or raise the voltage. Most long-range planning models compress a grid into a handful of zones connected by a few pipes. Merge physical lines into a zone, the firm says, and you destroy the information needed to choose between reconductoring and building new. The report also names composite-core conductors as the most cost-competitive option for both reconductoring and new build.
Why It Matters
ERCOT is already committed to a 9 billion dollar 765 kV backbone. Its interconnection queue keeps growing. Reconductoring is attractive because it stays inside an existing right of way. No new easements, no fresh landowner fights, and a shorter schedule. The study puts the value highest on meshed sections with redundant paths. There a higher-ampacity conductor lifts thermal limits without a new corridor. Where permitting is harder than in Texas, planners should read the ERCOT result as a floor. The authors say as much. They call ERCOT unusually well suited to long-distance buildout, which makes their reconductoring case a conservative one.
The Gap
The report does not answer who pays or how fast the work can happen. Reconductoring a live circuit needs an outage, and outage windows on a grid running near its limits are scarce. The study optimizes capital cost. It publishes no crew-availability or conductor-supply constraint, and only a small number of suppliers make composite-core conductor at all. Nor does it address cost recovery, which is the question a Texas ratepayer actually faces.
Read the sponsorship, too. ClearPath is an advocacy organization, the report argues for wider use of high-ampacity conductors, and CTC Global, which manufactures composite-core conductor, promoted the findings. That does not make the modeling wrong. Evolved Energy Research says its ERCOT network results tracked against the confidential data behind the ReEDS capacity-expansion model. It also disclosed its own public data sources. But this study was commissioned, and it favors the sponsor’s preferred technology. It deserves independent replication before a regulator leans on it. An earlier UC Berkeley and GridLab analysis pointed the same way, finding that reconductoring would enable 764 GW of solar nationwide by 2035.
Critical Perspective
The 30 billion dollars of avoided greenfield is avoided only inside the model’s own high-demand trajectory. Demand is the input the last three years have been worst at predicting in ERCOT. Move that curve and the savings move with it, because the value of reconductoring depends on how much new transfer capability Texas turns out to need. The report gives one scenario, not a range.
Generalizing the number is the second problem. ERCOT is a single-state grid with its own planning process and no federal siting fight, which is exactly why the authors call it well suited to long-distance buildout. Their claim that reconductoring matters more where permitting is harder is plausible, and it is also untested here. They modeled one region. A planner in PJM or MISO has a directional argument, not a number.
Finally, the network itself is a reconstruction. Evolved Energy Research rebuilt roughly 5,000 buses and 7,000 lines from public sources, then reported that the results tracked against the confidential data behind ReEDS. Tracked is a word, not an error bar. The approach looks like real progress over zonal models, and it still needs someone with the confidential dataset to say how close the reconstruction actually came.
Sources
- Amping Up the Grid: The Role of High Ampacity Conductors in Transmission Expansion (ClearPath, Aug 10, 2026)
- Reconductoring existing transmission lines in Texas could save $20 billion, study says (pv magazine USA, Aug 31, 2026)
- ClearPath: New Modeling Can Find Best Mix of Greenfield Tx, Reconductoring (RTO Insider, Aug 12, 2026)
- Getting More From the Grid: New Research Highlights the Value of Advanced Conductors (CTC Global)
