POWER GRIDU.S. Power Grid Holds Up in Cold; Warning Issued
The electric grid powering much of the U.S. through a harsh stretch of winter has largely held up, but there is an increasing risk of supply shortfalls, an industry observer said.
The electric grid powering much of the U.S. through a harsh stretch of winter has largely held up, but there is an increasing risk of supply shortfalls, an industry observer said on Thursday.
The risk has grown in recent years as demand increases from data centers trying to keep up with the artificial intelligence boom and the digital economy. At the same time, generation plants that burn coal, oil and other fuels are being replaced by solar and batteries and natural gas-fired plants.
The North American Electric Reliability Corporation said uncertainty and slow development of new sources of power generation are driving “heightened concerns” that the nation’s electricity providers will not be able to keep up with the demand over the next 10 years.
The warning came as most of the eastern half of the U.S. entered the ninth consecutive day of colder-than-normal temperatures and prepared for more frigid weather. So far, the nation’s electric grid has held up without widespread outages, although tens of thousands of residents across Tennessee, Louisiana and Mississippi remained without power on Sunday, a week after Winter Storm Fern blew through the region.
The Corporation forecasts that over the next decade, the demand for electricity will grow by 246 gigawatts during the winter but by only about 224 gigawatts in the summer, reflecting changing patterns of electricity usage. Planners, market operators and regulators should expedite new power resources to meet growing demand, and deactivations of existing electric plants should be carefully managed, the Corporation said.
“This assessment is not a prediction of failure but an early warning on the trajectory of risk,” said John Moura, the organization’s director of reliability assessment and performance analysis. “The path forward is still manageable but only if planned resources come online and on time.”
Prior to the winter storm, the U.S. Department of Energy directed electricity generators in almost 16 states and the District of Columbia to deploy backup power resources at data centers and major industrial facilities in order to lessen pressure on the grid and reduce the likelihood of blackouts.
Grid operators, including ERCOT in Texas, reported that regional transmission networks remained stable through the storm, which dumped snow and ice from north Texas to the East Coast.
