28May

A Grid Emergency in MISO

Well, that didn’t take long. Before the boiling heat of summer has even officially arrived, the lights went out in the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) region. More than 100,000 customers in and around New Orleans went without power for most of the day on Sunday when MISO was forced to order rotating outages in […]
21May

A Demand and Price Shock

As electricity prices continue to rise and grid reliability warnings proliferate, electricity demand projections are only growing more aggressive. A new report from consulting group ICF International sees U.S. electricity demand jumping 25% by 2030 and 78% by 2050 compared to 2023. That surge in demand will have huge impacts on already teetering reliability and […]
14May

Another Summer of Potential Power Shortfalls

Scorching heat could threaten the nation’s energy supply this summer, with demand eclipsing supply and potentially causing shortfalls and power outages throughout large swaths of the United States, the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) warned today in its 2025 Summer Reliability Assessment. NERC underscored that the nation’s grid reliability – facing the twin challenges […]
07May

Listen to the Capacity Markets

For years, despite ever louder warnings of a rapidly approaching electricity supply shortfall, electricity markets weren’t reflecting impending scarcity. No longer. In both the PJM and Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) capacity markets, prices have exploded—an unmistakable signal to bring more capacity to the market and keep existing resources operating. Last year, capacity payments to […]
30Apr

It’s Good to Have a Reliability Backstop

With Spain, Portugal and parts of France still reeling from a stunning blackout, grid reliability is once again top of mind. While it remains to be seen what caused the grid failure, the complexities of moving away from dispatchable power and towards heavy reliance on intermittent energy are understandably in the spotlight. Regardless of what […]
23Apr

Yes, it is an Energy Supply Emergency

With so much understandable focus on meeting soaring new power demand from the AI revolution and hyperscale data centers, it’s easy to forget the nation entered this moment already facing a grid reliability crisis. The reshoring of industry, electrification and the rapid loss of dispatchable power were already enough to push grid operators to warn […]
09Apr

“We are still strong, we’re still here, and we’re still needed”

Yesterday, the Trump administration made the coal industry a centerpiece of its effort to meet soaring power demand and produce American energy abundance. Flanked by miners in the East Room of the White House, the President signed four executive orders that collectively aim to halt the closure of essential coal power plants, reinvigorate coal leasing […]
02Apr

Grid Operators Tell Congress They Face a “Generational Challenge”

Last week, a congressional hearing, titled “Keeping the Lights On: Examining the State of Regional Grid Reliability,” brought together executives from the seven U.S. wholesale power markets that manage the supply and flow electricity in two-thirds of the country. Their message to all listening was crystal clear: power shortfalls and soaring prices for consumers are […]
26Mar

Confronting the AI Electricity Bottleneck

The CEO of NVIDIA, a global leader in AI, recently observed, “Every single data center in the future will be power limited… We are now a power limited industry.” What he was saying is that electricity is now the key constraint on the development of data centers, the uptake of AI and the economic potential […]
19Mar

Undoing the Regulatory Assault on Grid Reliability

Just a week ago the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) launched the “biggest deregulatory action in history,” announcing 31 actions to unleash American energy, lower the cost of living, restore the rule of law and give power back to states to make their own decisions. Notably, on the urgent issue of rapidly eroding grid reliability, the […]