This bill directs the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to create a shared‑savings incentive that returns a portion of the cost savings from investments in grid‑enhancing technologies (GETs) to the developer who pays to install them. It also requires standardized congestion reporting by transmission operators, directs the Department of Energy to develop an application guide and technical assistance clearinghouse for GET projects, and authorizes modest appropriations to DOE to stand up the guide and support services.
For compliance officers and transmission planners, the bill changes how GET investments are paid for and evaluated: it creates a financial reward for private entities that invest in operational or hardware upgrades that relieve constraints, makes congestion costs more visible through mandated reporting and an annual map, and puts FERC and DOE in coordinating roles for measurement, guidance, and analytics.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill requires FERC to promulgate a rule establishing a shared‑savings incentive that returns a defined portion of measurable savings from a GET investment to the entity that pays to install the technology, and to set uniform eligibility and measurement protocols. It also requires transmission operators to submit standardized annual congestion‑cost data and directs DOE to produce an application guide and technical assistance clearinghouse for GET deployment.
Who It Affects
Transmission owners and operators, utilities, independent developers that pay to install GETs, regional transmission planners, FERC and DOE, and vendors of GET hardware and software. Entities that manage or finance transmission upgrades will see changes to the economics of investment. Market and planning stakeholders will gain new datasets to inform long‑term transmission decisions.
Why It Matters
By explicitly returning a portion of measured savings to the payer, the bill aims to correct an investment‑incentive gap that often leaves privately funded GET projects unrewarded. Standardized congestion reporting and a publicly available map create visibility that can influence where GETs and traditional upgrades are prioritized and funded.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The bill defines “grid‑enhancing technology” broadly to cover hardware or software added to transmission facilities to increase capacity, efficiency, resilience, reliability, or safety — and it defines “developer” as the entity that pays to install the GET. It instructs FERC to implement an explicit shared‑savings mechanism under section 219(b)(3) of the Federal Power Act, giving the Commission a binding timeline to issue a final rule and setting out categories of actions FERC must take in that rulemaking.
Under the statute FERC has to design an incentive that quantifies savings attributable to a GET investment and returns a portion of those savings to the payer. The bill requires that the mechanism be applied uniformly rather than negotiated project‑by‑project, and it leaves to FERC the methodological task of defining how to quantify both the cost of the investment and the expected or realized operational savings (including which cost elements may be included, such as permitting, purchase, and installation).
The statute bars application of the incentive to GETs already installed before enactment and directs FERC to adopt consumer protections as part of the program.The bill also creates a mandatory congestion‑reporting regime: transmission operators must submit annual data on congestion‑management costs and identify constraints that exceed a material cost threshold, including the cause of the constraint and the next limiting element. FERC must adopt a single metric and protocol for measuring and reporting those data, and FERC and DOE are charged with analyzing submissions and jointly producing an annually updated map of congestion‑management costs that will be published publicly.Finally, the Department of Energy must publish an application guide for utilities and developers on GETs, maintain a clearinghouse of completed projects, provide technical assistance on request, and update the guide annually.
The statute authorizes limited appropriations to DOE to create and sustain the guide and assistance functions. FERC is also required to evaluate the shared‑savings incentive at a later date and consider how it aligns with its regional transmission planning requirements and related orders.
The Five Things You Need to Know
FERC must set a uniform shared‑savings percentage that is no less than 10% and no more than 25% of savings attributable to a GET investment.
The shared‑savings payments to the developer are recovered over a fixed 3‑year period after the savings are realized.
An investment is eligible only if the Commission determines expected savings over the recovery period are at least four times the cost of the investment.
Transmission operators’ annual congestion reports must flag each constraint that produced more than $500,000 in associated costs and disclose the cause and the next limiting element with its rating limit.
DOE is authorized $5,000,000 for fiscal year 2025 and $1,000,000 annually for fiscal years 2026 through 2036 to stand up and maintain the application guide, clearinghouse, and technical assistance.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Short title
Gives the act its names: the Advancing Grid‑Enhancing Technologies Act of 2025 and the Advancing GETs Act of 2025. Mechanically important for citation and packaging but carries no operational requirements.
Definitions
Establishes key definitions FERC and DOE will use: the Commission (FERC), the Secretary (DOE), and a broad definition of grid‑enhancing technology (hardware or software added to transmission to improve capacity, efficiency, reliability, resilience, or safety). That broad definition leaves room for a wide range of devices and analytics to qualify, which will be important when FERC writes eligibility and measurement rules.
Shared savings incentive—rulemaking and core mechanics
Directs FERC to issue a final rule implementing authority under FPA section 219(b)(3). The statute requires FERC to determine a single percentage of savings to return to the installer (see fiveThings for the numeric range) and to apply that percentage consistently across eligible GET investments rather than on a project‑by‑project basis. The provision directs FERC to define how to quantify costs and savings (including permitting, purchase, and installation costs), to set timelines for recovery (a fixed multi‑year recovery period), to exclude GETs installed prior to enactment, and to adopt consumer protections. It also requires FERC to evaluate the incentive program after it has operated for a number of years and to consider alignment with its regional transmission planning directives.
Congestion reporting, metric, and public map
Requires transmission operators to submit annual reports with data on congestion‑management costs and to identify material constraints (including cause, next limiting element, and planned upgrades). FERC must promulgate a single metric and reporting protocol so the data are comparable; FERC and DOE will analyze the data, jointly map congestion costs, update that map annually, and publish both the raw reports and the map on their websites. For compliance teams this creates new routine data collection and disclosure obligations; for planners it creates a standardized dataset for assessing where GETs may deliver the largest system value.
DOE application guide, clearinghouse, and funding
Directs DOE to publish an application guide for utilities and developers describing how to propose and implement GET projects, to update that guide annually, and to operate a clearinghouse of completed projects for technical lessons learned. DOE must also provide technical assistance on request. The statute authorizes specific appropriations to DOE to establish and maintain these resources, which creates a predictable, though limited, funding stream for outreach and technical support.
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Explore Energy in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Independent developers or utilities that pay to install GETs — the bill creates a direct revenue stream tied to realized operational savings, improving the private return on investment for GET projects and making third‑party financing more attractive.
- Regional transmission planners and grid operators — standardized congestion reports and an annual congestion‑cost map give planners consistent, auditable data to identify high‑value GET deployment opportunities and to compare GETs versus traditional upgrades.
- DOE and federal analysts — access to regular, standardized datasets and a statutory clearinghouse improves federal capacity to evaluate GET performance, prioritize technical assistance, and advise on best practices.
Who Bears the Cost
- Transmission owners and operators — they must collect, analyze, and submit standardized congestion data annually, and implement any internal data processes needed to support the new reporting protocols.
- FERC — statutory deadlines, a technically complex rulemaking, and a later evaluation obligation impose staff and analytic burdens on the agency; the statute also requires FERC to define measurement methodologies and consumer protections without providing additional resources.
- Ratepayers and incumbent investors in some scenarios — returning a portion of savings to a third‑party payer alters the distribution of savings and may reduce the share retained by utilities or other market participants, which could complicate cost allocation conversations.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The bill balances two legitimate goals that pull in different directions: it seeks to accelerate private investment in GETs by returning a fixed portion of measurable savings to the payer, but it forces FERC to create a uniform, administrable rule for quantifying and distributing those savings — a uniform rule that will inevitably misprice some projects. Faster deployment and clearer incentives come at the cost of measurement complexity, potential misallocation of savings, and new compliance burdens for operators and regulators.
The bill creates a targeted incentive but asks FERC to fill in several analytically challenging gaps. The central technical task—attributing operational cost reductions to a GET investment versus other contemporaneous changes in dispatch, generation mix, or market conditions—requires transparent, consistent counterfactual modeling.
FERC must decide whether to use ex ante modeled savings, ex post measured savings, or a hybrid approach; each choice shifts risk between payers, system operators, and developers and has different gaming and measurement challenges. The statutory requirement that the percentage be uniform and not case‑by‑case simplifies administration but forces a one‑size‑fits‑all payment level that may under‑ or over‑compensate in specific circumstances.
On congestion data, the usefulness of the map and public dataset depends entirely on the metric and protocol FERC adopts. If the metric is too coarse, it will hide important operational distinctions; if it is too granular or expensive to produce, compliance costs may deter accurate reporting.
The bill also leaves open how the Commission’s consumer protections will interact with third‑party arrangements and whether contracts that allocate returned savings will need additional regulatory approvals. Finally, the authorization of relatively modest DOE funding supports a guide and clearinghouse but likely won’t cover extensive project‑level technical assistance or nationwide implementation support, leaving many utilities to absorb the costs of moving from pilot to scale.
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