grid reliability

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 […]
04Jun

Racing to Cover Capacity Shortfalls

Need more evidence we’re in a power supply emergency? Look no further than how the nation’s grid operators are scrambling to fast-track interconnection of new dispatchable resources that can shore up eroding reliability. From the Great Plains to New York, operators are frantically trying to revise interconnection processes to get new generation added to grids […]
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 […]