Regulator - US Electric Grid Facing Substantial Risks This Winter From Extreme Cold, Especially NG Generation
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A sweeping portion of the country that extends from Texas to the Canadian border is not adequately equipped for tough winter conditions, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation warned in a forecast released Wednesday. The report is a sobering assessment of a power grid that continues to fray and suffer from underinvestment, despite promises by politicians and regulators to shore it up following deadly blackouts in recent years.
“Much of North America is at an elevated risk of insufficient energy supplies this winter and is highly exposed to risks of energy emergencies in extreme winter conditions,” the regulator, known as NERC, wrote in a statement that accompanied the report. The power grid has traditionally faced its greatest challenges in the summer heat. But a confluence of factors in recent years has led the grid to be equally unstable during severe winter weather, NERC officials said on a call with reporters. “We’ve seen the system become more vulnerable to winter conditions,” said John Moura, director of reliability assessment and performance analysis at NERC. “For decades, the system had been built and planned around summer peaks.”
A major concern is the potential for disruptions in natural gas generation, as power plants and the infrastructure that delivers fuel to them are destabilized by the strain of extreme cold. It is the pattern that played out last year during Winter Storm Elliott, which resulted in cascading outages throughout the eastern United States just before Christmas. In Texas, where lawmakers vowed to fix their grid after dozens of Texans died during prolonged blackouts triggered by severe winter weather in 2021, the grid remains unstable heading into the upcoming cold season. NERC warned the state, where voters Tuesday approved a sweeping plan to fund more power generation, is at higher risk of energy shortages this winter than last because it is not bringing enough new power online to meet the state’s surging demand, and its existing infrastructure has not been adequately weatherized.
Similar challenges plague states north of Texas, according to the report. The regional grid that serves 15 states from Arkansas to Wyoming will be operating with significantly lower backup energy reserves than last year as a result of some power plants coming off line and demand for electricity in the region increasing. NERC warned that while the region has the resources it needs to make it through a normal winter, extreme cold weather could “result in shortfalls that can trigger energy emergencies.”
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/11/08/power-grid-blackouts-texas/
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