For the Good of the Whole

The concept of holistic planning is necessary to ensure that today's electric power system will evolve with changing conditions to maintain adequate system reliability, achieve maximum economic efficiencies, and produce acceptable environmental impacts. Particularly, the challenge in transmission planning requires the concept of holistic planning to plan for the system operation in the whole operating space; extend the concept of the system to include generation resources, demand options, regional and global environment: provide fair and equitable methods for allocating costs and benefits; and recognize the role of incentives in achieving individual and public benefits. Hopefully, this article has put these various ideas in perspective and will stimulate discussions by decision makers and researchers in this industry.