Speed to power: how can America accelerate the build-out of the next grid? | special episode from the ACORE Grid Forum in Washington DC
Energy Gang
Wood Mackenzie
4.6 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 4 November 2025
⏱️ 61 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Electricity demand in the US is rising faster than it has in decades, driven by AI and a wave of investment in domestic manufacturing. But with transmission lines and other electricity infrastructure taking years to permit and build, how can America secure the power it needs fast enough to remain competitive?
In this special episode of The Energy Gang, recorded at the ACORE Grid Forum in Washington DC, host Ed Crooks speaks with industry leaders, innovators, and policymakers tackling the challenge of “speed to power”, and asks them for their ideas on how to accelerate the build-out of the next grid.
Ed begins the episode with Heather Reams, President of Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions, who explains why bipartisan consensus on permitting reform is finally within reach, and what it will take to sustain political will through an election year.
Next, Richard Kauffman, Chair of the Coalition for Green Capital, shares his perspective on how creative financing models and public-private partnerships can unlock investment for distributed and community-scale energy projects that strengthen the grid from the ground up.
Ed then speaks with Rob Gramlich, Founder and President of Grid Strategies LLC, who breaks down the regulatory and planning challenges slowing progress on transmission and offers insight into the reforms needed to modernise America’s grid for a new era of demand.
Technology can help find solutions faster. Theodore Paradise, Chief Policy and Grid Strategy Officer at CTC Global, discusses how advanced conductors with carbon fibre cores can double transmission capacity without building a single new line. He also explains how CTC’s new partnership with Google is accelerating the deployment of new transmission technology.
Finally, Ray Long, President and CEO of ACORE, joins Ed to bring all the threads together, highlighting how political leadership, technology, and finance must converge if the US is to meet its rising power needs and remain globally competitive.
This episode was recorded at the ACORE Grid Forum in Washington DC.
You can also watch the full conversation in video format on YouTube - just search Energy Gang.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's a grid which was never designed for renewables. |
| 0:04.0 | I don't talk to anyone in Washington or outside of the Beltway who doesn't say permitting, permitting, permitting. |
| 0:09.0 | This is a moment of pivotal change in the utility world like I've never seen before. |
| 0:13.0 | In just four years, 2030, we need to increase power in the United States by 120 gigawatts. It's more than we've ever built in that short period of time. |
| 0:29.5 | Hello and welcome to The Energy Gang, a discussion show from Wood McKenzie about the fast-changing |
| 0:34.4 | world of energy. |
| 0:35.4 | I'm at Crooks. |
| 0:36.5 | And today we're coming to you with a second special episode from the ACOR Grid Forum in Washington, |
| 0:41.3 | DC. |
| 0:42.3 | The event brings together policymakers, innovators and industry leaders who are all focused on one key |
| 0:47.3 | question. |
| 0:48.3 | How can America accelerate the build-out of its electricity grid? |
| 0:52.3 | From politics to finance, from regulation to technology, the theme is the same, speed to power. |
| 0:58.6 | And before we dive in, a quick reminder that this episode is also available on YouTube. |
| 1:02.8 | Search Energy Gang to find us there. |
| 1:05.5 | To talk first about the political conditions for grid development, I spoke to Heather Reams. |
| 1:09.2 | She's the president of Citizens for Responsible |
| 1:11.7 | Energy Solutions, which is a group that works with Republican lawmakers and the public to advocate |
| 1:16.9 | for clean energy. Heather, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you. Great to be here. |
| 1:21.4 | So tell us a little bit about Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions. Cress, as I think you call it. |
| 1:27.0 | What do you do? |
| 1:28.0 | So we are a Washington, D.C. based right of center organization that engages Republicans and the |
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