Introducing Rail Grid Collaborative's Creative World
Welcome to the Rail Grid Collaborative! We are thrilled to have you here.
THE RAIL-GRID COLLABORATIVE (RGC) is a non-profit organization founded to promote and enable technical collaboration, joint action, research and mutual goal setting in pursuit of investment in (1) efficient, safe, and high-performing North America freight and passenger rail operations and related supply chains; and (2) an integrated, resilient, secure and economical electric transmission grid. RGC targets the respective and shared need for GROWTH and SUSTAINABILITY of North America's two most critical infrastructure networks. RGC believes that industrial policy, technology change and greater operational flexibility and profitability will be driven by enhanced collaboration, joint action and partnerships between and within these industry networks and with policymakers at all levels of government, including bi-national interactions. The convergent transportation and electricity industries will constitute a new industrial ecosystem.
Mission: lRGC is dedicated to helping railroads and electric power mutually develop knowledge and strategies that produce While electric system owners, operators, investors and planners are readying the system for a monumental surge in energy demand and deployment of new or updated infrastructure, freight and passenger transport operators and stakeholders are exploring expansion and upgrade of systems, fleets, fuels, including sustained market share, commercial advantage, and opportunities for growth and improved asset utilization.
- EXPLORE the latest developments in railway and electric technology, infrastructure, and public policy.
- TRACK emerging cross-sector solutions, industry news, and insights.
- DRIVE policy and commercial changes that will shape the integration of rail transportation and the evolving electric grid.
- CONSULT AND CONFER with participants and experts in both market segments though our workshops and advocacy.
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OUR OBJECTIVES: WHAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN
WHERE COMMERCIAL OPPORTUNITIES EXIST
Let’s pursue direct (and private, where necessary) negotiations about individual, limited-term commercial arrangements or specific transactions, projects, or outcomes the parties can achieve. RGC accounts for investor and market demands, operational concerns, structural barriers and information deficits, resource and technology needs, and the opportunities and the historical position that rail holds in the marketplace
WHERE PUBLIC POLICY OPPORTUNTIES OR PROBLEMS EXIST
The electric and railroad industries can utilize RGC to pursue project or policy objectives, meet the demands of public policy and employ an understanding of FEDERAL, STATE, and LOCAL laws and processes as a tool of public advocacy. RGC is reaching out to energy regulators and planners, state rail planners, and funding programs, to identify and seize benefits for all classes of rail and grid participants.
JOINT PROBLEM-SOLVING
A classic example of JOINT PROBLEM-SOLVING involves co-location of electric transmission lines and cables within railroad and other transportation rights-of-way as a contribution to both strengthening the national electrical grid, decarbonizing railroad system components, and accelerating operational innovation through catenary, energy storage, and other applications.
BEST INDUSTRY INTELLIGENCE
Industry intelligence serves policy makers, and RGC participants and stakeholders require TIMELY POLICY INPUT. Because the services and benefits of electric grid and rail transport operations are economy-wide and impact states, markets, small communities in diverse regions of the country, RGC will develop capabilities to identify trends and developments among industrial strategies, regional transmission plans, state and national rail plans, and state integrated resource plans, where future projects are planned for funding and development.
ACCESS TO DATA
Where a paucity of commercial, industrial, or technological data or significant barriers to economic development exists, new research and data collection will assist decision making by industry and public interests. Grid and rail expansion require better information on railroad rights-of-way, system requirements, energy demand, system interconnection, and more coordinated state siting requirements, that can address the drag on new projects, such as the co-location of charging facilities, electric generation and transmission facilities, or data centers within transportation geospatial assets.
FRESH START
Major research projects, long absent from rail infrastructure planning, can stimulate new economic activity. The Federal Railroad Administration’s recent study “Cost and Benefit Framework for Modern Railway Electrification Options,” together with new industry experience co-locating rail and electric facilities, demonstrate the feasibility of deploying more efficient electric generation and transmission resources for locomotive power, ways to identify the cost and benefits of overcoming uneconomic barriers, methods of reducing costs, development timelines, and the operational risks of transmission colocation. Rail system electrification, starting with components (e.g., switchyards, substations, branch lines) is necessarily ‘incremental.’
Projects and Developments
PROPOSED PROJECTS / SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MORE COMING SOON--US MIDWEST, NOTHEAST, MID-ATLANTIC AND SOUTH
MORE COMING SOON--US MIDWEST, NOTHEAST, MID-ATLANTIC AND SOUTH
The BNSF-owned corridor between San Bernardino and Barstow offers a power transmission path which connects the nation’s 2nd large metropolitan area with the tremendous solar and wind energy resources of the Mojave Desert.
MORE COMING SOON--US MIDWEST, NOTHEAST, MID-ATLANTIC AND SOUTH
MORE COMING SOON--US MIDWEST, NOTHEAST, MID-ATLANTIC AND SOUTH
MORE COMING SOON--US MIDWEST, NOTHEAST, MID-ATLANTIC AND SOUTH
Regional reports coming soon