![]() ![]() Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.), a member of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, said that the power crisis in Texas in February 2021 in which at least 200 people died made several lawmakers realize grid reliability is an “initiative we all need to worry about.” While the worst case scenario of nationwide blackouts and brownouts caused by heat has not come to fruition, lawmakers and officials have heeded utilities’ dire warnings and have pushed for grid modernization and increased reliability in a number of ways. So they've got to back off their output in order to not melt their equipment.” The same is true for many nuclear plants not positioned near the ocean. With a coal plant, the cooling water that cools the big tea kettle, the coal plant, isn't as cool as it was. And so the natural gas plants…have to reduce their output because they're not getting so many atoms of oxygen as they are when it's colder out. “The air that supplies the oxygen for the combustion is less dense when it’s 100 degrees out than when it's 20 degrees out. Hydroelectricity is reduced when less water is available and “when you have an extreme hot day, you've got limitations on coal plants and on natural gas plants,” Apt says. However, the bigger implication on the grid from high heat and low rainfall is not the increased demand, but lowered capability. ![]() But the effectiveness of those programs peters out after a few days because of “demand response fatigue.” In other words, after a few days, businesses tire of mapping out their energy consumption ahead of time. Increased demand from a heatwave is usually manageable for the first few days through demand response programs, which allow institutions and companies to earn revenue by reducing their power usage during peak periods. That kind of weather “does something on the demand side it does something on the supply side,” according to Apt. The weather forecasts have proved true: most of the West and Southwest are experiencing droughts and several cities across the country have recorded record temperatures. and most of Texas were facing “leaning below” and “likely below” normal levels of precipitation. The NWS also found that most of the Northwest, most of the central U.S. experiencing above-normal temperatures this summer was “leaning” or “likely” above normal. Predicted high temperatures and drought was a large factor in NERC’s grim outlook, with the National Weather Service in May saying the probability of nearly all of the U.S. states under the Southwest Power Pool were at elevated seasonal risk - meaning they faced the “potential for insufficient operating reserves in above-normal conditions.” The Midcontinent Independent System Operator - which manages generation and transmission of power across 15 states including Illinois and Michigan - was at “high risk” and could face “potential for insufficient operating reserves in normal peak conditions.” states under the Western Electricity Coordinating Council and the central U.S. So I would by no means say that we’re out of the woods, but so far, the grid operators have been able to arrange their generation fleets to be able to meet the demand that they’ve seen.”Īn assessment by NERC in May found that the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, all of the 14 U.S. “The real strain period for the grid is going to come in August and early September, particularly in the west. “In general, I’d say the grid has held up fine, but it’s very early in the summer,” North American Electric AEP Reliability Corporation (NERC) CEO and President Jim Robb said on the Public Power Now podcast in July. ![]()
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