Mark Christie

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, […]
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 […]
02Jul

Happy American Energy Independence Day

Energy abundance. Energy security. Energy independence. As we approach July 4th, our Independence Day, it’s worth taking a moment to recognize the leap forward the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) provides to boosting American energy production and reversing the damaging legacy left by the prior administration. In the closing months of the Biden administration, the […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
19Feb

Manufacturers Join the Chorus: Keep the Coal Fleet Open

In just a matter of weeks, momentum has swung decisively in favor of preserving the coal fleet. First, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Chairman, Mark Christie, put out a statement saying the nation must “stop the premature retirement of dispatchable generation.” He was followed by the Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, who said the U.S. should […]