Julia Frayer, Managing Director at London Economics International LLC (“LEI”) spoke at the Southwest Clean Energy Transmission Summit held in Albuquerque, New Mexico on April 1s , 2015, with a presentation on “Nexus between transmission investment and renewable development.”
As part of a panel exploring the compatibility of transmission expansions and upgrades with small and large scale clean energy, Ms. Frayer commented on the fallacy “that the need for new transmission can be deferred with more generation and that more transmission can substitute for generation.” She explored how New Mexico could leverage new transmission in order to develop renewables generation in-state. Ultimately, she remarked, new transmission is necessary to unlock the region’s existing potential and explore its natural advantages, a move which “will require creating a favorable investment climate for not just inward looking investments but also outward looking investments and leveraging opportunities where the
transmission and generation investments can work together.”
The Southwest Clean Energy Transmission Summit was hosted by Americans for a Clean Energy Grid, a project of the Energy Future Coalition in Washington, DC.