Countries around the world are ahead of the United States in terms of planning and building “macro grids” capable of moving electricity from one grid or distant geographic region to another, according to a new report authored by an Iowa State University engineer and former doctoral student. Co-authors James McCalley and Qian Zhang have been part of a $1.5 million study supported by the U.S. Department of Energy exploring ways to connect the two major U.S. electric grids and share as much as 30,000 gigawatts of electricity across them. Iowa in particular could benefit from building new links across the country’s eastern and western power grids, McCalley said in a statement by ISU. “We’re arguably at or close to our wind-investment limit in Iowa as a result of transmission limits,” he added.