Roughly half the country is at risk of blackouts. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s (NERC) 2024 Long-Term Reliability Assessment released last week indicates that multiple regions across the U.S. are “likely to experience a shortfall in electricity supplies” during extreme weather events or even just at the peak of summer or winter.
While this year is an improvement over last year, where a larger portion of North America was at some level of risk, it is still a warning that millions of Americans could experience electricity shortages at some point in the coming years. Output is not meeting demand, and in situations of increased electrical needs, the supply has and will continue to fall short.
We should not be putting lives and livelihoods in jeopardy for the sake of implementing politically popular but drastically inferior energy sources.
Elected officials have pushed an aggressive net zero agenda that hopes to decarbonize energy usage. They heavily promote that intermittent wind and solar replace reliable coal and natural gas, and at much faster rates than the grid can adequately manage.
NERC’s annual evaluation asserts that the increasing wind and solar replacements of coal and natural gas is “affecting the essential reliability services (ERS) that the resource mix provides.” Renewables are not capable of handling a significant portion of America’s electricity needs.
Earlier this year, CEO of the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO)—the most vulnerable region—wrote that “the transition that is underway to get to a decarbonized end state is posing material, adverse challenges to electric reliability.” Wind and solar lack certain key reliability attributes that other sources possess.
Recommended
Swapping out 30 megawatts of fossil fuels in favor of 30 megawatts of renewables will not supply the equivalent energy output; their capabilities differ greatly. “A nameplate megawatt of wind or solar is simply not equal in terms of capacity value to a nameplate megawatt of coal or gas or nuclear,” said FERC Commissioner Marc Christie in a Congressional hearing last year.
Nameplate (installed) capacity is the ideal amount of electricity that could be generated. Wind and solar simply underperform with much lower capacity factors, a measurement that shows how consistently a power source generates electricity relative to its maximum potential output. Their factors are 35 and 25 percent, respectively. Coal is at 50 percent, natural gas has 55, and nuclear has 93. Simply stated, substituting renewables in place of fossil fuels will likely cause shortages.
Yet, government bureaucrats—at both the federal and state level—are mandating the closure of coal and natural gas plants, and at a rapid pace. This aggressive push to swap out reliable sources in favor of weather-dependent ones is dismantling our electric grid.
It couldn’t happen at a worse time.
For a commodity that has remained relatively flat for decades, NERC projects monumental surges in electricity demand over the next 10 years: summer peak to rise by 15 percent and winter peak by almost 18 percent. An influx of power-hungry data centers which house artificial intelligence capabilities is the main culprit. Currently consuming roughly 4 percent of U.S. electricity generation, these centers are expected to reach up to 9.1 percent by 2030.
Overly ambitious renewable energy portfolios in various regions have already left millions of Americans with shortages, and in some cases, leaders requesting citizens conserve and reduce their energy usage. The combination of instability and the high electricity rates that often accompany the massive wind and solar buildouts is a step in the wrong direction.
In order to meet our burgeoning demands, while also satisfying the needs of a growing population and economy, we need to take serious stock of how we are powering a grid that so many depend on to run their households and businesses. We can’t afford to be foolish and unwise, and we can’t rely on sources that lack a solid track record of performance. Renewables cannot be a viable replacement option for hydrocarbons.
Instead of closing down readily dispatchable coal and natural gas plants and flooding the grid with unreliably intermittent sources, we should be doubling down on their employment.
The NERC assessment ought to serve as a warning sign that changes need to be made to energy policy before it is too late. It is imperative we pivot away from misguided strategies that will do little to alter global temperatures but much to weaken economic activity and leave millions in the dark. American consumers expect and deserve reliable, affordable, and abundant energy.
Kristen Walker is a policy analyst for the American Consumer Institute, a nonprofit education and research organization. For more information about the Institute, visit www.theamericanconsumer.org or follow us on Twitter @ConsumerPal.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member