The recent letter led by the US Chamber of Commerce and signed by 600 organizations urging the United States Senate to pass comprehensive permitting reform reflects a growing and bipartisan reality: America cannot modernize its economy with a 20th-century infrastructure approval process. The coalition - including the Edison Electric Institute, the American Public Power Association, and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association - is correct. Transmission projects that should take a few years routinely stretch toward a decade. The process is uncertain, duplicative, and expensive. Reform is overdue.
Having spent more than two decades working exclusively in the transmission sector - and as one of the earliest members of the team that built CTC Global beginning with its formation as Composite Technology Corporation in 2003 - I have seen firsthand how slow-moving infrastructure policy can collide with fast-moving demand realities. Today, that collision is accelerating. Artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing, data centers, electrification of transportation and industry - all are reshaping load forecasts upward at a pace few anticipated even five years ago.
Permitting reform is necessary.
But it is not sufficient.
What is largely missing from the national conversation is this: we already own an enormous asset base capable of carrying significantly more power than it does today - if we upgrade the conductor technology that limits it.
Across the United States, thousands of miles of high-voltage lines were built with steel-core aluminum conductors designed for operating temperatures and load conditions of another era. The towers are often robust. The foundations are durable. The rights-of-way are established and permitted. Yet the lines remain thermally constrained by legacy wire technology.
That is where Advanced Reconductoring changes the equation.
Modern composite-core conductors - including CTC Global’s ACCC® Conductor - allow utilities to dramatically increase ampacity while controlling sag, often without changing structures or expanding corridors. In many real-world applications, reconductoring can increase capacity by 50 percent, 75 percent, and in constrained systems, approach doubling the original rating. Construction can frequently be completed within one or two seasons. The environmental footprint remains largely unchanged because the corridor already exists.
This is not a speculative engineering concept. It has been validated globally.
More importantly, independent research now confirms what transmission engineers have long understood. A 2024 analysis from the Energy Institute at Haas at the University of California, Berkeley concluded that Advanced Reconductoring could significantly expand U.S. transmission capacity at a fraction of the cost and time associated with building new lines. Their findings highlighted that reconductoring existing lines with Advanced Conductors could deliver large-scale capacity increases with far fewer permitting obstacles - because the most contentious element of transmission development is typically the corridor itself.
In other words, the right-of-way is often the hardest part. When it already exists, the pathway to capacity expansion becomes dramatically simpler.
This is a pivotal insight for policymakers.
The national debate currently centers on how to accelerate permitting for new long-distance transmission. That debate is important. We will need new interregional backbones. We will need major greenfield lines to integrate diverse energy resources and enhance resilience.
But while Congress works to reform permitting timelines, we could be increasing transfer capability on existing critical corridors right now.
Advanced reconductoring leverages infrastructure we have already financed, already permitted, and already integrated into communities. It avoids years of routing disputes. It minimizes visual and environmental disruption. It reduces exposure to inflationary escalation over extended development timelines. And it frequently delivers the lowest cost per incremental megawatt of capacity added.
For consumers - who ultimately fund transmission investment - that distinction matters enormously.
Which brings us to a more delicate but necessary conversation: incentive alignment.
Traditional cost-of-service regulation has long rewarded capital deployment into rate base. Large, capital-intensive projects can offer predictable returns over extended periods. Reconductoring projects, while transformative in impact, often require substantially less capital than entirely new builds. They are faster. They are more efficient. But they may be smaller in dollar magnitude.
If public policy is serious about affordability, congestion reduction, and rapid capacity deployment, regulators must ensure that utilities are explicitly rewarded for capital efficiency - not merely capital volume. A project that doubles line capacity at half the cost of rebuilding should be strongly favored in both regulatory treatment and public policy emphasis.
The Energy Institute at Haas research underscores that Advanced Conductors are not simply an engineering upgrade; they represent a macroeconomic opportunity. Lower costs, faster deployment, and expanded transfer capability reduce congestion charges, mitigate price volatility, and enhance reliability. In regions experiencing rapid load growth from data centers and electrification, the time value of capacity additions is profound.
Over my 23 years at CTC Global, I have had the privilege of working with utilities worldwide that faced seemingly insurmountable transmission constraints. In many cases, reconductoring with ACCC® Conductor allowed them to defer or eliminate the need for entirely new corridors, while improving system efficiency and lowering losses. These were pragmatic engineering decisions driven by performance and economics - not ideology.
As Composite Technology Corporation when we began in 2003 - and as CTC Global today - our mission has been straightforward: increase grid performance by upgrading the conductor, not rebuilding the grid from scratch.
That mission feels especially relevant now.
None of this diminishes the urgency of permitting reform. The coalition of 600 organizations is correct. The Senate should act. A predictable, durable, and efficient approval framework is vital for America’s long-term competitiveness.
But as policymakers focus on how to build faster, they should also ask how to build smarter.
Before acquiring new land, have we maximized existing corridors? Before committing to decade-long development cycles, have we evaluated the capacity trapped by outdated wire technology? Before assuming the solution lies entirely in expansion, have we considered optimization?
The path forward is not either/or. We need both new transmission and upgraded transmission. We need corridor expansion and corridor maximization.
Yet if speed, affordability, and consumer impact are central priorities - as they should be - Advanced Reconductoring deserves a central place in the conversation. It offers something rare in infrastructure policy: significant scale, rapid deployment, and cost containment simultaneously.
Permitting reform addresses tomorrow’s projects.
Reconductoring can address today’s constraints.
In a period defined by accelerating demand and economic transformation, we cannot afford to overlook either path. But if we are serious about unlocking capacity quickly and responsibly, upgrading the wires already hanging above us may be the most immediate opportunity available.
And it is one we should elevate to national priority status now.