grid reliability

21Jan

The Affordability Crisis Is a Reliability Crisis

Soaring electricity prices have become a top-tier political issue and will remain so through midterms and likely far longer.  That was underscored last week when the Trump administration hosted several state governors from PJM Interconnection territory, the nation’s largest electricity market, to urge the grid operator to hold an emergency capacity auction for data center […]
12Nov

Another Winter Living on the Edge

The November wind has arrived with winter nipping at its heels. Here in Washington, the mercury dropped below freezing for the first time this fall as snow began to blanket Midwestern states. Right on cue, the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) previewed its annual Winter Reliability Assessment. NERC warns region-wide cold snaps – much […]
05Nov

Electricity at the Ballot BoX

Electricity prices were on the ballot in several states yesterday. Democrat wins of governor’s races in Virginia and New Jersey, and a sweep of public service commission races in Georgia, are adding to the sense energy issues – particularly electricity prices – will be center stage in the midterms. Ratepayers are frustrated—and rightfully so. Residential […]
29Oct

Reliability is a “Five-Alarm Fire”

Rising electricity prices and their impact on the economy and ballot box have become front page issues. However, the nation’s teetering grid reliability is the crisis we must not ignore. With power demand surging, and utilities struggling to get new infrastructure and dispatchable generation onto the grid, alarm over the state of the nation’s power […]
08Oct

Former FERC Chairman Mark Christie Warns the Electricity Crisis is Here

No one has sounded the alarm louder about the nation’s eroding grid reliability than former Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Mark Christie. We recently had the opportunity to sit down with him to discuss reliability, surging power demand and the urgent need for more dispatchable generating capacity. His timely remarks came as debate rages about […]
13Aug

Planned Coal Plant Retirements Crash into Energy Reality

Utilities are grappling with an unshakeable reality: they can’t meet soaring power demand without the existing coal capacity they have. One after another, utilities are dropping plans to close plants or are kicking retirements far down the road. Deliberately removing dispatchable capacity from grids at the same time they are facing record breaking—and growing—electricity demands, […]
06Aug

J.H. Campbell Comes to the Rescue in MISO

When Secretary of Energy Chris Wright used emergency authority to extend the life of the J.H Campbell coal plant in Michigan at the end of May, the decision was met with a broadside of a criticism. To the anti-coal crowd, the move was a bail out, a solution in search of a problem and a […]
30Jul

“It is actually here now”

“The reliability threat is not on the future horizon,” Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman (FERC) Mark Christie said last week. “It is actually here now.” Christie, who was overseeing his last FERC meeting before departing the commission, was responding to results from PJM’s recent capacity auction—an auction that for the first time came up short […]
08Jul

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 […]
11Jun

Aligning Energy and Regulatory Policy with the AI Moment

It has become hard to overstate the impact AI and data centers are having on the power sector. This is an industrial revolution on an extraordinary scale. At a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) conference on grid reliability last week, regulators and grid operators once again sounded the alarm over the challenges they collectively face […]