For more than two decades, the electric power industry has lived with an uncomfortable contradiction. We have known - quietly but consistently - that much of the transmission grid’s constraint is not towers, not rights-of-way, not public opposition, and often not even capital. It is the conductor itself. And yet, even as system stress mounts to unprecedented levels, Advanced Conductors remain too frequently trapped in conversations, pilot programs, and policy language rather than installed at the scale the moment demands.
This is not a technology problem. It hasn’t been for a long time.
California’s SB 1006 is important precisely because it acknowledges this reality in statute. It formally recognizes that Reconductoring with Advanced Conductors and deploying Grid-Enhancing Technologies (“GETs”) can quickly and cost-effectively expand transmission capacity, reduce congestion and curtailment, improve reliability, enable clean energy integration, and reduce wildfire risk. That recognition matters. But recognition alone will not move electrons, shorten interconnection queues, or relieve a grid stretched thin by electrification, AI-driven load growth, and climate-driven extremes.
What the industry faces today is not a lack of ideas. It is a failure to convert accumulated knowledge into routine action.
We should start by acknowledging real progress
It is easy - and tempting - to write this as a critique alone. That would be unfair and counterproductive.
California deserves credit for acting. SB 1006 did something subtle but powerful: it moved Advanced Conductors and GETs out of abstract policy aspiration and into the recurring, formal machinery of transmission planning under the California Independent System Operator. Utilities are now required to identify, study, publish, and submit opportunities for Reconductoring and grid-enhancing solutions on a repeating cadence. That creates accountability. It also creates a public record that makes inaction harder to hide.
Utilities also deserve recognition. Some - most notably Southern California Edison - have acknowledged in formal filings that Advanced Conductors are not hypothetical. They have documented years of operational experience, hundreds of miles of reconductored lines, and a growing pipeline of candidate projects. Engineers and planners who pushed these projects forward when they were not yet mainstream took professional risk, and that leadership matters.
And companies that stayed the course when Advanced Conductors were still viewed as unconventional deserve to be named. For more than twenty years, CTC Global has deployed ACCC® Conductor across the U.S. and globally, delivering higher ampacity, lower sag, reduced losses, and real capacity gains and greatly improved reliability within existing corridors. These installations have operated through heat waves, contingencies, and daily load cycles. They did exactly what the physics said they would do.
That foundation is real. It is solid. And it proves the core point beyond dispute: Advanced Conductors work.
The problem we now face is behavioral, not technical
Despite this track record, the industry continues to behave as if Advanced Conductors are still “next-generation” tools - things to be considered selectively rather than assumed as a starting point. That mindset might have been reasonable fifteen or even ten years ago. It is indefensible today.
The grid we are operating now is fundamentally different from the grid most of our standards and habits were built for. Load growth is no longer incremental. Interconnection queues are no longer temporary anomalies. Congestion is no longer a localized issue. Wildfire risk has transformed ordinary infrastructure into a public safety concern. And permitting new transmission corridors has become one of the slowest, most uncertain steps in the entire energy transition.
In that environment, time itself becomes a reliability attribute.
Advanced Conductors matter because they address time. They unlock capacity in corridors that already exist, that communities already tolerate, that environmental reviews have already touched, and that utilities already know how to maintain. They compress timelines. They reduce exposure. They allow planners to trade years of uncertainty for months of execution.
And yet, across much of the industry, the default behavior remains inverted. High-Performance Conductors (“HPCs”) are treated as exceptions that must be justified, while legacy conductors - designed for a different era - continue to be selected by default. That inversion is not prudence. It is inertia.
ACCC® Conductor is no longer “innovative”; it is underutilized
It is worth stating plainly: ACCC® Conductor is not experimental, and it is no longer novel. It is a mature, widely deployed technology with a long operational history. The question is no longer whether it can deliver more capacity with lower sag. The question is why, when lines are rebuilt, replaced, or uprated, that performance is not automatically expected.
Too often, Advanced Conductors are still described with qualifying language: “where appropriate,” “on a limited basis,” “after further study.” Those phrases reflect a mental model that no longer matches reality.
When an existing line is being touched - whether for reliability, replacement, capacity, or safety - the real engineering question should be: Why would we not use a High-Performance Conductor unless there is a clear, documented reason not to? That is how a constrained system should behave. That is how a system under time pressure should behave.
SB 1006 should be the floor, not the finish line
The greatest risk with SB 1006 is not resistance. It is complacency.
If SB 1006 becomes a cycle of studies that reaffirm what the industry already knows, followed by incremental deployment that never quite matches the scale of need, then we will have missed the point. The law exists because waiting is no longer acceptable. It exists because the cost of delay now exceeds the perceived risk of change.
California is not alone in this realization. Other states are considering or advancing legislation that encourages the use of Advanced Conductors and GETs. Federal policy, including long-term transmission planning requirements, increasingly points in the same direction. The signal is clear. What remains unclear is whether the industry will act with the urgency those signals imply.
A moment that demands a shift in default behavior
The transmission sector does not suffer from a shortage of intelligence, data, or good intentions. It suffers from a reluctance to industrialize solutions that challenge long-standing habits.
The transition we need is not radical. It is procedural and cultural. Advanced Conductors should move from being “considered” to being assumed. From pilot framing to production framing. From special cases to standard practice whenever existing infrastructure is involved.
This is not about abandoning traditional builds. We still need new lines. It is about recognizing that the fastest, least disruptive, and often least risky megawatts are the ones already embedded in steel and aluminum overhead.
A direct call to action
Utilities must treat conductor selection as a strategic decision, not a commodity choice. Regulators must ask why proven options are not being used, not merely whether they could be. System operators must surface Reconductoring solutions early and visibly in planning processes. Policymakers must design laws that accelerate deployment rather than perpetuate evaluation for evaluation’s sake. And technology providers must continue to support execution with data, transparency, and accountability.
The era of polite discussion about Advanced Conductors is over.
After more than twenty years of proven performance, we should not still be congratulating ourselves for “starting the conversation.” The grid does not need more talk. It needs strings pulled, lines energized, and capacity delivered - now.
If SB 1006 means anything, it means this: the time for deferring action has passed. Advanced Conductors must become the norm, not the exception. And the industry must finally act like it believes what it has known all along.