{"id":57036,"date":"2026-06-12T11:25:57","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T15:25:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine\/?p=57036"},"modified":"2026-06-12T13:56:46","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T17:56:46","slug":"lights-on-expanding-grid-capacity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine\/current\/lights-on-expanding-grid-capacity\/","title":{"rendered":"LIGHTS On: Expanding Grid Capacity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>As electricity demand surges across the U.S., a Johns Hopkins project is helping states expand grid capacity faster and more affordably. LIGHTS (Leadership in Grid Innovations for HighVoltage Transmission for States) is funded by the Department of Energy. \u201cLIGHTS addresses a critical gap in moving research into practice,\u201d says <a href=\"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/faculty\/uzi-yury-dvorkin\/\">Yury Dvorkin<\/a>, a member of the <a href=\"https:\/\/energyinstitute.jhu.edu\/\">Ralph O\u2019Connor Sustainable Energy Institute<\/a> (ROSEI) and the project\u2019s primary investigator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The LIGHTS team is working with PJM, which coordinates wholesale electricity markets across 13 states, including Maryland. As grids in these regions face rapid load growth\u2014often driven by data centers\u2014the team is developing algorithms and models to help governments improve cost savings, reliability, and speed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe don\u2019t have 10 years to wait for traditional transmission projects,\u201d says <a href=\"https:\/\/energyinstitute.jhu.edu\/people\/abe-silverman\/\">Abe Silverman<\/a>, a ROSEI researcher and the project\u2019s co-PI. LIGHTS is identifying upgrades to boost capacity on existing lines, such as replacing aging conductors with carbon fiber alternatives and using realtime weather and system data to ensure line safety. \u201cOur goal is to provide actionable insights that help states move faster, spend smarter, and strengthen reliability,\u201d Dvorkin says. \u201cWe can unlock enormous value in a fraction of the time it takes to build something new.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2014 WICK EISENBERG<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As electricity demand surges across the U.S., a Johns Hopkins project is helping states expand grid capacity faster and more affordably.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":57903,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[],"issue":[105],"class_list":["post-57036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current","issue-spring-2026"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.8 - 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