grid reliability

19Jan

Did We Learn Anything from Texas?

On December 30th, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) issued a press release declaring that 322 power generating and transmission facilities had undergone stringent inspections indicating the Texas grid was ready for winter. Implied was that the grid disaster of the previous February, which left hundreds dead and millions without power or heat for […]
05Jan

The Grid Crisis is Only Getting Worse

The New Year has arrived with bitter cold and winter storms that left almost 1 million households without power along the East Coast. The reliability of the nation’s energy systems is being tested once again and there is ever-growing concern they’re not up for the challenge. The North American Electricity Reliability Corporation (NERC) ended 2021 […]
15Dec

Looking Back as We Begin to Look Forward

The year is coming to a close, but before we look forward to 2022, it’s worth looking back on 2021 and the moments and themes that have shaped how we think about coal and its future. Over the course of 2021, this blog has tried to offer insight and perspective on an energy conversation that […]
08Dec

The Grid Crisis is International

The grid reliability warnings keep coming. Both here and in Europe, electricity grids – particularly those that have raced away from dispatchable fuel diversity and allowed their reserve margins to erode – are facing ever-mounting warnings that available capacity may not keep up with demand. In the U.K., the national grid operator issued its first […]
23Nov

Turning the Unprecedented into the Ordinary

While all eyes have been on the eroding affordability of the nation’s energy supply, the reliability of the grid and the natural gas delivery system are now back in the spotlight. Despite the colossal grid failure in Texas last winter, blackouts in California and countless after-action reports and hearings on national reliability issues, the situation […]
29Sep

Dropping a Bomb on Electricity Affordability and Reliability

Senator Manchin began a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) by warning that, as the nation takes on the climate challenge, “we have to maintain a diverse and reliable energy mix with the technologies necessary to reduce emissions.” What he soon heard was that the very proposals coming […]
22Sep

Europe’s Energy Crisis is all the Warning We Need

The past few weeks have seen Europe drift into an energy crisis of its own making – a perfect storm of bad policy. As wind generation has collapsed across Europe, overreliance on natural gas as a bridge fuel and backstop to renewable intermittency has come home to roost. Tight natural gas supplies, soaring prices and […]
15Sep

CEPP: Accelerating the Grid Reliability Crisis

Senator Joe Manchin made the rounds on the Sunday talk shows this past weekend, making it clear he can’t get behind House Democrats’ proposed Clean Electricity Performance Program (CEPP), which would throw $150 billion at utilities to accelerate the pivot to renewable energy. Manchin told Chuck Todd, the plan “makes no sense at all.” He […]
01Sep

Reshaping the U.S. Electricity Mix by 2030 is Full of Potential Pitfalls – Just ask European Consumers

Proposing to upend the nation’s electricity mix and do it at warp speed is policy that at the very least deserves transparent discussion and requires extensive planning. Tucked into the reconciliation package is just such a proposal. The Clean Electricity Payment Program will throw vast sums at utilities to transform their generating fleets and do […]
25Aug

Strong Majority of Americans Want a Plan to Preserve Grid Reliability

In the wake of headline-grabbing blackouts in California and Texas and all-too-regular electricity conservation warnings in states across the country, seventy-two percent of Americans are now concerned that the speed of the transition to variable sources of power is coming at the cost of grid reliability, according to new polling from Morning Consult. These concerns […]