In a breakout session at the Utah Governor’s Energy Development Summit, Carl Linvill underscored the value of transmission in meeting the challenge of integrating greater amounts of variable renewable energy sources. Increasing amounts of efficiency, conservation, and distributed generation affect net load, making traditional base load generation less valuable due to its lack of flexibility. In contrast, flexible resources and transmission both facilitate low-cost options for meeting local and regional integration challenges.The report “Meeting Renewable Energy Targets in the West at Least Cost: The Integration Challenge” defines the role of transmission in meeting the integration challenge and provides seven building blocks for achieving least-cost integration. For addressing local challenges, the paper “Teaching the Duck to Fly” employs ten valuable strategies for aligning load and resources to achieve greater renewable integration.