Senate committee hears wide support and local concerns for bill requiring utilities to plan for grid-enhancing technologies

The Senate Energy and Environment Committee on May 12 heard hours of testimony on House Bill 3336, which would require investor-owned electric utilities to analyze the cost-effectiveness of grid-enhancing technologies and include strategic plans for their use in utility planning documents.

Representative Mark Gamba (House District 41), the bill sponsor, told the committee the state faces an “unprecedented” load-growth trajectory and that “the primary holdup to getting more energy online is the lack of transmission capacity.” He said GETs can be deployed faster and at far less cost than building new lines and called installing them “low hanging fruit.”

Supporters — including Joshua Bassifin, clean energy program director at Climate Solutions, and Julia Selker, executive director of the Working for Advanced Transmission Technologies (WATT) Coalition — urged the committee to adopt the bill with a dash-2 amendment that proponents say would speed siting for many GET projects. "GATs are an…