North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC)

11May

The Transition to Crisis

The grid reliability crisis continues to deepen and spread. Warnings about capacity shortfalls and blackouts are so frequent and ubiquitous they are as regular as a utility bill. Just this week, The Wall Street Journal found that, “from California to Texas to Indiana, electric-grid operators are warning that power-generating capacity is struggling to keep up with […]
27Apr

The Grid Reliability Crisis Spreads to the Midwest

Just a few months ago, the North American Electricity Reliability Corporation (NERC) warned that capacity retirements and the rapid remaking of the grid will pose tremendous challenges to reliability over the next decade. It was a warning coming on the heels of the grid catastrophe in Texas and startling blackouts in California that some tried […]
23Mar

Dismantling Grid Reliability One Rulemaking at a Time

When Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Michael Regan recently boasted that he doesn’t have to rely on any one policy or rulemaking to achieve his agenda, he turned more than a few heads. He signaled his intent to race forward on a zealous and wide-ranging regulatory program regardless of unsettled questions about EPA’s authority to […]
23Feb

The Reliability Crisis Reaches a New Gear

A new consensus is building that electricity grid reliability problems are in fact very real and very serious. That may not be news to anyone who has been paying attention. There have been countless warnings that something is very wrong but, for years, many of the warnings and some of the loudest voices making them […]
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 […]
01Dec

New Energy Taxes during an Energy Crisis?

As the global energy crisis marches on, Europe and the U.S. seem to be in a nightmarish game of one-upmanship over who can produce the most dire warnings over energy-induced inflation, energy insecurity and blackouts. The North American Energy Reliability Corporation is warning that much of the U.S. will face unprecedented reliability challenges this winter, […]
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 […]
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 […]
14Jul

In a Transitioning Grid, Fuel Diversity Matters More than Ever

Grid reliability challenges this summer – from California and the Pacific Northwest to New York – are a clear signal we must better value the insurance provided by a balanced generation mix. But scorching heat aside, February’s catastrophe in Texas, that left 70% of the state without power, continues to sound some of the loudest […]