I think it's hard to tell how transmission will evolve, but it's definitely a tool that needs to continue to be used. Even though we try to optimize more locally, I think that transmission is part of the solution and it won't disappear soon. The diversity and the geographic spreading of resources allow us to compensate for the variability of new, renewable resources like wind and solar. Transmission will definitely be an asset.
If we look at the North American context, there are places where a large amount of hydro power is available, and these places could be seen as a kind of battery that will allow more integration of renewables. Transmission will definitely be useful for that. Even though the microgrid context, the small local grids, is becoming more important and more a part of the discussion, in the end a truly smart grid would still be microgrids interconnected and interacting through interties.