A Novel Idea: Fact-based Energy Policy

The Department of Energy (DOE) is finally doing something almost unheard of in government in recent years: policymaking based on reality and facts.

This week, DOE released a new “Resource Adequacy Report,” evaluating the reliability and security of the U.S. grid. The report is a direct response to President Trump’s Executive Order, “Strengthening the Reliability and Security of the United States Electric Grid,” which mandates the development of a uniform methodology to analyze current and future electricity capacity and identify at-risk regions. 

As hard as it is to believe, instead of setting energy policy based on quota systems, pledges and artificial deadlines, we have an administration that is actually taking a hard look at the data on what it takes to keep the lights on.
The report’s findings are clear and demand immediate action:

1. The path we’re on simply won’t work. Continuing to retire well-operating coal power plants, replacing them with less reliable generation, will not allow the U.S. to keep up with the power demands of the global AI race and keep energy prices affordable, much less keep the lights on.
   
2. We’re not growing our grid in the right ways. Given how quickly electricity demand is increasing, we need what the report calls “radical change” in how we are approaching capacity growth and grid management.
   
3. Retirements are digging the hole deeper. The fossil fuel power plants currently set to retire are not being replaced with comparable generation, increasing the risk of outages by 100x in 2030.
   
4. We need every megawatt of energy we have, and more. Even if all of the planned retirements stopped, given expected increases in demand, the risk of outages is still up 34x by 2030. We must grow reliable capacity.
   
5. It’s a new age in power generation analysis. We can’t examine resource adequacy the way we used to. We need to better account for the demands on the grid, future needs and how we’re meeting them, and the attributes of the power sources we have.

China is already the world’s manufacturing superpower, and it has set its sights on taking the lead in the global AI race, and has the all-of-the-above rapid growth energy policy to support its ambitions. This bold report from the Department of Energy makes it clear that we need not just a policy shift, but a transformation in our thinking and approach to tackle resource adequacy issues across the country and secure our position as a leader in the global AI race. Absent bold action we’ll be watching from the benches.