From California to Texas to Indiana, electric-grid operators are warning that power-generating capacity is struggling to keep up with demand, a gap that could lead to rolling blackouts during heatwaves or other peak periods as soon as this year.
California’s grid operator said Friday that it anticipates a shortfall in supplies this summer, especially if extreme heat, wildfires, or delays in bringing new power sources online exacerbate the constraints. [bold, links added]
The Midcontinent Independent System Operator, or MISO, which oversees a large regional grid spanning much of the Midwest, said late last month that capacity shortages may force it to take emergency measures to meet summer demand and flagged the risk of outages.
In Texas, where a number of power plants have lately gone offline for maintenance, the grid operator warned of tight conditions during a heatwave expected to last into the next week.
The risk of electricity shortages is rising throughout the U.S. as traditional power plants are being retired more quickly than they can be replaced by renewable energy and battery storage.
Power grids are feeling the strain as the U.S. makes a historic transition from conventional power plants fueled by coal and natural gas to cleaner forms of energy such as wind and solar power, and aging nuclear plants are slated for retirement in many parts of the country.
The challenge is that wind and solar farms—which are among the cheapest forms of power generation—don’t produce electricity at all times and need large batteries to store their output for later use.
While a large amount of battery storage is under development, regional grid operators have lately warned that the pace may not be fast enough to offset the closures of traditional power plants that can work around the clock.
Speeding the build-out of renewable energy and batteries has become an especially difficult proposition amid supply-chain challenges and inflation.
Most recently, a probe by the Commerce Department into whether Chinese solar manufacturers are circumventing trade tariffs on solar panels has halted imports of key components needed to build new solar farms and effectively brought the U.S. solar industry to a standstill.
Faced with the prospect of having to call for blackouts when demand exceeds supply, many grid operators are now grappling with the same question: How to encourage the build-out of batteries and other new technologies while keeping traditional power plants from closing too quickly.
“Every market around the world is trying to deal with the same issue,” said Brad Jones, interim chief executive of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which operates the state’s power grid.
“We’re all trying to find ways to utilize as much of our renewable resources as possible…and at the same time make sure that we have enough dispatchable generation to manage reliability.”
The risk of outages resulting from supply constraints comes amid other challenges straining the reliability of the grid.
Large, sustained outages have occurred with greater frequency over the past two decades, in part because the grid has become more vulnerable to failure with age and an uptick in severe weather events exacerbated by climate change, [according to the IPCC.]
A push to electrify home heating and cooking, and the expected growth of electric vehicles, may increase power demand in coming years, putting further pressure on the system.
California regulators on Friday said as much as 3,800 megawatts of new supplies may face delays through 2025.
Such delays would pose a major challenge for the state, which is racing to procure a huge amount of renewable energy and storage to offset the closure of several gas-fired power plants, as well as a nuclear plant.
Gov. Gavin Newsom recently said he would consider moving to keep that nuclear plant, Diablo Canyon, online to reduce the risk of shortages.
“We need to make sure that we have sufficient new resources in place and operational before we let some of these retirements go,” said Mark Rothleder, chief operating officer of the California Independent System Operator, which operates the state’s power grid.
“Otherwise, we are putting ourselves potentially at risk of having insufficient capacity.”
Read more at WSJ
This article is riddled with errors. Don Cross and Randy Verret already addressed the fact that renewable energy is much more expensive. For those who argue otherwise, how do they explain the much higher electric rates in jurisdictions that have adopted significant renewable energy such as California and Germany?
The article is out right wrong when it says, “an uptick in severe weather events exacerbated by climate change.” Severe weather events are not increasing and this is even acknowledged in the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report.
The article called wind and solar power cleaner forms of energy. This is based on the incorrect assumption that carbon dioxide is a pollutant. It also ignores the significant green house gasses that are released in the manufacture of solar cells and wind towers.
The article seems to assume that after some rough times we will eventually get to the point where we can rely mainly on wind and solar power. The fact is the low density power of wind and solar simply can not replace the high density power of fossil fuels and nuclear that is need to run a modern industrial society.
The one way the article is correct is in predicting that power shortages will get worse.
Wind is the cheapest 🙂 See financial results of main wind turbines producers, all red because demand plunged into the bottom of the Marianas Trench.
We should not put our nation under the rediculous notion that Wind and Solar will solve a fake crisis of Global Warming/Climate Change we to get back to some Common Sense which is totaly lacking under the Democrats and Biden the Irresponsible
Let’s not forget what we have discussed before with electric vehicles sucking up a larger percentage of available electricity. Not only do these EV’s drive up the cost of electricity for everybody but I also wonder what happens to an EV if there is a brown out or varying voltage. Will the battery catch fire? Will it damage the battery. I don’t really know but my guess is that our politicians and current owners of EV’s don’t either.Looks like we will find out though.
Trying to compare all weather disasters with Global Warming/Climate Change has become quite popular with the M.S. Media the AP,NYT’s and the rest of them the Talking Heads the Birdcage Liners/Fish Wraps its all Fake News and you dont need to bea rocket scientists to know that is true
Ms. Blunt, you killed your own argument that solar and wind are among the cheapest form of electricity when you added that they DON’T PRODUCE ALL THE TIME !. Somebody or something has got to fill in the productivity gap during the down times and that’s good old fossil fuels or nuclear. (heaven forbid !)
Also, not looking forward to giant battery storage areas. Oh well, November comes soon !
Don, I’m with you. NO WAY solar & wind are among the “cheapest” forms of electricity. When you take into account upfront government subsidies on capital investment, cost of additional transmission lines, favored pricing afforded renewable power that create market distortions and the thermal “back-up” generation needed for the 70% of the time renewables are “off-line, they are hardly competitive with combined cycle natural gas & coal. As an example, all you have to do is look at residential & industrial electricity prices in that “renewable wonderland” called Germany. Prices per kilowatt hour are 2-3 times the domestic rates in the U.S. The author is certainly correct about the blackouts. The more intermittent sources added and the LESS conventional (thermal) reserves available from conventional generation sources will only further de-stabilize the grid. This is a self-inflicted wound, whether folks realize it (yet) or not…