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Welcome to the premier edition of the Factor This Policycast, a brand-new podcast partnership with national industry association Advanced Energy United, tackling the legislation, rulemaking, and market design that matter to clean energy leaders.

Hosted by Factor This content director and Emmy-Award winning journalist Paul Gerke, this series of discussions will feature voices from across the energy policy landscape and spotlight issues shaping the evolution of our electric grid.

The first topic is one that you may have spotted in recent headlines: competitive transmission solicitation. It's no secret that large-scale, critical electrical infrastructure projects like high-voltage transmission lines cost a LOT to build and take some time to come online.

About 15 years ago, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, mandated that utilities competitively bid out such projects, but that mandate isn't being enforced, for reasons we'll get into on the program. New data points to tremendous benefits from competitive transmission, though, including billions of dollars ultimately saved by ratepayers. Detractors argue the bidding process delays timelines and subjects projects to hidden costs, and a group of Midwest utilities has even asked FERC to halt bidding in MISO and SPP. 

On this episode of the podcast, Factor This's Paul Gerke is joined by Caitlin Marquis, managing director at Advanced Energy United, and Paul Cicio, chair of the Electricity Transmission Competition Coalition (ETCC). Both are advocates for competitive transmission and share findings to support their case. They discuss that utility request to ban competition outright, talk about FERC's role in all of this, and explore the finer points complicating broader transmission build-out- at a time we really need it.

New episodes of the Factor This Policycast go live at 6 am ET every other Thursday.

More episodes of Factor This Policycast