OATI Asks Trump Administration to Fund Grid-Software Upgrade It Says Could Add 10-20% Capacity by 2030

OATI Asks Trump Administration to Fund Grid-Software Upgrade It Says Could Add 10-20% Capacity by 2030 A software firm is bidding for federal SPARK money to wring more capacity from existing power lines, betting algorithms can move more electricity without new towers. A grid-software company has put a number on what better code might do for America's strained transmission system. In a May proposal to the Department of Energy, OATI said its scheme could deliver a 10% to 20% increase in capacity across participating systems by 2030, without building a single new transmission tower.⁶ The pitch is aimed at the DOE's $1.9 billion SPARK grant program, though OATI did not disclose how much it is seeking. John Engel, the firm's associate vice president of strategic marketing, said the company would bring significant matching funds and that its software could reach roughly 95% of North America. "There's a speed and scale" advantage, Engel said, that physical transmission builds cannot match.⁶ The reason a software fix attracts attention is timing. New high-voltage lines take the better part of a decade to permit and build, and demand is arriving faster than that. The EIA, in its Annual Energy Outlook 2026, projects electricity consumed by data-center servers will rise across the commercial building stock through 2050, with standalone data centers accounting for more of the growth than all other server rooms combined.² That gap between load growth and steel in the ground is what grid-enhancing technologies are sold to bridge. The category covers dynamic line ratings, power-flow controllers and topology optimization software that lets operators push more current through wires already in place. OATI's claim is that algorithmic capacity can be deployed in months rather than the years a new corridor demands.⁶ The political framing is sharper still. One analysis circulating in May argued that America's transmission bottleneck threatens its lead in artificial intelligence, warning that grid constraints could hand technological advantage to China. That argument, whatever its merits, is the kind of language designed to get a clean-energy software project funded by an administration focused on AI competitiveness.⁴ Investors are not waiting on the grid to settle the supply question. Enel Green Power North America agreed on 18 May (2026-05-18) to invest $140 million to acquire seven solar photovoltaic facilities across three states, expanding its U.S. portfolio.⁵ Nuclear is drawing capital too, with Goldman Sachs adding small modular reactors to its buildout forecast as the sector's revival accelerates.³ Generation is being financed; the harder problem is moving it. The fuel mix underlines why marginal capacity matters. Natural gas supplied 42.55% of U.S. power in June, EIA daily data show, with coal at 15.78% and nuclear at 16.09%.² Wind and solar together covered about 15%, leaving the grid reliant on gas-fired plants whose output still has to reach load centers over the same congested lines OATI proposes to upgrade.² The supply side of gas, at least, is loosening. The EIA expects Lower 48 marketed production to rise 3% this year after averaging 117.2 Bcf/d in the first quarter, a 4% gain on the same period of 2025, driven mainly by the Permian.¹ It forecasts Permian output of 29.2 Bcf/d in 2026, up 6%, and projects pipeline constraints there will ease later in the year before 10% growth in 2027.¹ Henry Hub front-month traded at $3.16 on Wednesday (2026-06-10). More molecules will reach the burner tip only if the wires and pipes can carry them. There are reasons to treat the headline figure cautiously. The 10% to 20% range is OATI's own forecast, carries a 2030 horizon and applies to "participating systems" rather than the grid as a whole.⁶ Dynamic ratings and flow controllers have shown real gains in pilots, but utility adoption has been slow, and a vendor bidding for federal money has every incentive to quote the upper end of what its software can do. The near-term signal is procedural. Whether the DOE awards SPARK funds to a software upgrade rather than to hardware will tell the market how seriously Washington takes capacity-from-code as an answer to AI-driven load growth. The size of any award, and the systems that sign on, will matter more than the percentage OATI is advertising.⁶ For now the constraint is unchanged. Power demand ran to 12.46 million MWh in June on EIA daily figures, gas remains the swing fuel, and the lines carrying it are the bottleneck no acquisition or production forecast resolves.^2,1 The proposal is one bid among many for a grant program that has yet to pick winners.