The North American grid watchdog Thursday published its annual long-term reliability assessment, and the analysis offers a sharp warning about the growing threat of blackouts across much of the United States in the coming years. [some emphasis, links added]
“The overall resource adequacy outlook for the North American BPS is worsening: In the 2025 LTRA [long-term reliability assessment], NERC finds that 13 of 23 assessment areas face resource adequacy challenges over the next 10 years,” the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) report states.
During January’s Winter Storm Fern, many parts of the U.S. grid neared the point where demand exceeded supply.
If the grid continues to shut down fossil-fuel generation and tries to meet demand with intermittent wind and solar, according to NERC, more Americans will face blackouts when demand is high.
Language grows more dire each year
As electricity demand grows, including data centers, the nation’s grid relies on intermittent wind and solar resources to meet that demand, NERC explains, while plants running on reliable coal and natural gas are slated for retirement over the next five years.
“The continuing shift in the resource mix toward weather-dependent resources and less fuel diversity increases risks of supply shortfalls during winter months,” NERC warns.
The language in these annual assessments from NERC has gone from describing maintaining resource adequacy on the renewable-heavy grid from being a challenge to being a problem.
“The electricity sector is undergoing significant and rapid change that presents new challenges and opportunities for reliability. With appropriate insight, careful planning, and continued support, the electricity sector will continue to navigate the associated challenges in a manner that maintains reliability and resilience,” NERC stated in its 2019 LTRA.
By 2023, NERC’s assessment had begun warning that large portions of the nation’s grid would be stressed during periods of high demand.
“The North American BPS [bulk power system] is on the cusp of large-scale growth, bringing reliability challenges and opportunities to a grid that was already amid unprecedented change,” NERC reported.
Last year’s assessment no longer talked of opportunities.
“NERC finds that most of the North American BPS faces mounting resource adequacy challenges over the next 10 years as surging demand growth continues and thermal generators announce plans for retirement,” the watchdog warned.
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The US was only one Democrat Administration away from disastrous power failures because the country is in the jaws of the wind drought trap. It is up to the Trump Administration to get them out, and to show the way for all the other western nations where suicidal net zero policies are in place.
https://rafechampion.substack.com/p/defusing-the-wind-drought-trap-revised
The wind drought trap is set over many years as subsidies and mandates for unreliable solar and wind energy displaced conventional power without being able to replace it. There is a ‘frog in the saucepan’ effect because coal power retires one plant at a time and this does not cause alarm while there is spare capacity.
Eventually the spare capacity runs out and the trap is set to close when there is not enough to meet the base load overnight. Then windless nights are potentially lethal because there is no wind or solar generation, regardless of the amount of installed capacity.
The incompetence or negligence of the official meteorologists around the world allowed this situation to develop because they didn’t issue wind drought warnings even though they know that high pressure systems cause low winds.
Consequently, the Dunkelflautes came as a surprise in Europe even though mariners and millers must have experienced them for centuries.
All the grids in the US are moving rapidly in the same direction while demand is growing with the rise of AI. Grid managers are becoming increasingly agitated but apparently they have not effectively shared their concerns with the general public and there is no electoral pressure on RINO and blue state lawmakers to support moves to get more coal into the system.
President Trump could decisively change the perception of wind and solar power by issuing an executive order to require weather reports to include the proportion of wind and solar power in the local grid at the time.
https://rafechampion.substack.com/p/will-windpower-heat-your-breakfast
I do not understand why the spread and therefore extreme vulnerbility of renewable equipment to damage by weather events isn’t taken more seriously.
There is a lot more powerlines, solar panels facing the sky and of course those ugly bloody windmills. The extent to which this gear has and is spreading should be of concern to the most ardent critical observer who doesn’t want his/her electricity to go off during a storm somewhere and it may not be near where the person lives.
China is laughing at us. They are raking the money for all the renewables crap we are willingly buying from them while they build more coal power stations.
How stupid are we when we should be building more coal and nuclear plants? They are not exposed to weather damage and they keep pumping out electricity 24/7/365.
Here in Colorado east of the Front Range there are wind turbines and solar panels all over the place. A new “Solar Farm” that is one mile north-south and more than 1/4 mile east-west not far from where I live. And this area has hail storms frequently somewhere east of the Front Range. Last year a smaller solar installation that was totally destroyed by a hail storm, creating toxic waste that had to go somewhere. And as more of these panels are installed this will happen more often.
The only way these stupid people will eventually learn is for blackouts to become more common and last longer. These people are driving by philosophy. Philosophy always trumps reality.
Unfortunately too many people won’t connect the dots that the closure of base generation plants like coal and even nuclear while adding more unreliable power systems (aka wind and solar). And in the middle of winter when there is a cold snap the wind tends not to blow and even if the sun is shining it is only generating electricity for only a few hours a day. So we end up depending on gas-fired generators, hoping there is enough natural gas in the pipelines while residents are using more gas for heating.