- Chairman Guthrie writes that permitting reform is essential to providing the electricity needed for the U.S. to succeed in Artificial Intelligence.
- Louisiana’s governor, a staunch supporter of President Trump, is backing litigation that could severely deter energy development at a critical time.
- Michigan wanted to speed the pace of clean-energy adoption. Now, it has one of the highest electricity costs in its region.
- FERC renews BlackRock’s utility investment authorization, citing potential concerns regarding access to capital for energy infrastructure projects and facilities
- A new Executive Order from President Trump focuses on strengthening the grid.
- Representatives of seven grid operators across the nation express their reliability concerns at a House hearing.
AI Is an ‘Opportunity, Not a Threat’, But It Requires Permitting Reform to Succeed, Says the House Energy and Commerce Chairman
In an op-ed in the Washington Times on March 25, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY), called for embracing Artificial Intelligence (AI), writing that “new technologies are an opportunity, not a threat.” Innovation has “enabled generations of entrepreneurs to increase health and prosperity in our communities, create family-sustaining jobs, and ensure our nation’s continued success.”
But for AI technology to bring those benefits, an expansion of U.S. energy infrastructure is needed to provide the electricity to run data centers.
A McKinsey report in October found that AI data demand will triple by 2030. As a result, there’s “potential for a significant supply deficit. To avoid a deficit, at least twice the data center capacity built since 2000 would have to be built in less than a quarter of the time.”
Guthrie agrees that to provide the electricity that’s needed, we have to “unleash American energy,” as President Trump urged on the first day of his second term in his Executive Order No. 14156.
His remarks preceded a new report this month by the International Energy Agency (IEA) that found that “in the United States, power consumption by data centers is on course to account for almost half of the growth in electricity demand between now and 2030. Driven by AI use, the US economy is set to consume more electricity in 2030 for processing data than for manufacturing all energy-intensive goods combined, including aluminum, steel, cement and chemicals.”
Below is a graphic representation of a data center.
The IEA finds that “a range of energy sources” will have to be “tapped to meet data centres’ rising electricity needs,” and it is “renewables and natural gas [that] are set to take the lead due to their cost-competitiveness and availability in key markets.”
Chevron, a major natural gas producer, announced partnerships in February with GE Vernova, the energy technology company, and Engine No. 1, a San Francisco-based investment firm, to power data centers, which consume 50 times more power than the average office building. Under the agreement, GE will deliver seven high-efficiency gas-powered turbines to Chevron by 2027, “helping to provide the energy that AI data centers need, when they need it—ideally without disrupting power or increasing energy costs.”
Exxon Mobil has also announced it wants to get into the business of boosting AI by “designing a massive natural-gas fueled plant meant to directly supply electricity to data centers,’ reported the New York Times.
Chairman Guthrie believes that the U.S. can’t meet the AI challenge – while at the same time providing low-cost, reliable power to consumers and businesses – without streamlining the process of putting new energy infrastructure in place.
In his op-ed, Guthrie wrote:
Permitting reform is one way to help address the growing need for electricity. Today, 40% of electric generation in the U.S. comes from natural gas, but the way we permit isn’t sustainable thanks to archaic processes and bureaucratic delays. It took an act of Congress to complete the construction of the last major natural gas pipeline built in this country. When we are in control of our own energy development, production, and supply, we are more prosperous and secure and can maintain our competitive edge over the Chinese Communist Party.
Permitting reform has been on the plate of Congress for years. The most recent bill never made it to the Senate floor. Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV) said at the time, “It’s a shame that our country is losing this monumental opportunity.”
Manchin has retired, and his former colleague, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), the panel’s ranking member, are among the members of Congress who are talking once again about reducing red tape and the time it takes to build new energy infrastructure.
The bipartisan National Governors Association (NGA) announced in February that it is time for reform to go forward. “Permitting reform is one of those issues where both Republicans and Democrats recognize the problem, we largely agree on solutions, and Congress gets close year after year to doing something,” NGA Vice Chair Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, R, said in a press release. “But somehow it just never crosses the finish line.”
President Trump’s own commitment to permitting reform is clear. An April 15 Presidential Memorandum (see below) called for federal agencies “to issue a plan for modernizing the technology used for Federal environmental review and permitting processes for infrastructure projects.” The memorandum quoted Energy Secretary Chris Wright:
This administration is taking action to fix a broken system that’s slowing down critical energy projects across the country. Outdated permitting systems are creating costly delays at the exact moment we need to be expanding capacity, strengthening our energy security, and building the infrastructure that powers American industry and lowers costs for families.
With a Governor Supporting President Trump, Why Is Louisiana Thwarting Energy Development with Meritless Litigation?
Even though he is a staunch MAGA supporter, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican, has embraced lawsuits against oil and gas companies, contradicting President Trump’s goals and strategies and the Governor’s own public pronouncements.
More than forty of Louisiana’s 64 parishes (the equivalent of counties) have partnered with trial lawyers to file huge lawsuits against oil and gas companies for the course of at least a decade. The parishes allege that through canal dredging in violation of state law, the companies have damaged coastal marshland, harming natural storm protection. The companies strongly disagree.
The legal campaign began in 2013 with legal actions by three southern Louisiana parishes against BP, Chevron and Shell. In 2016, Landry, who was then the state’s attorney general, intervened, and the state itself joined joining the parishes as a plaintiff “making claims that oil and gas drilling, pipelines, historic pollution and dredging of access canals caused billions of dollars in land loss over time,” according to WWL-TV in New Orleans.
The suits have only accelerated, putting Landry “at odds with Trump’s energy dominance goals,” said a Feb. 7 Forbes piece by David Blackmon, a Texas-based energy analyst.
In 2021, Landry authorized a $100 million settlement with minerals giant Freeport-McMoRan, which had been accused of damaging the coast. “His decision immediately faced blowback from industry officials who fear the precedent it sets,” reported The Advocate, a statewide daily newspaper.
“It is disappointing that some elected officials have sided with plaintiffs’ attorneys in support of job-killing lawsuits and a flawed settlement scheme that could put our coast further at risk,” said Tyler Gray, president of the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association, and Mike Moncla, president of the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association, in a joint statement.
In January, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that two other lawsuits must remain in state court, rejecting the energy companies’ attempt to shift jurisdiction to federal court. That decision listed as the intervenor plaintiff in the action: “State of Louisiana, ex rel, on Behalf of Jeff Landry.”
The ruling could make it easier for parishes to secure significant awards. By then, Cameron Parish and the state had already reached a settlement with BP, Shell, and Hilcorp, potentially worth up to $7 billion.
Then, on April 4, a jury in state court in Pointe a la Hache, Louisiana, ordered Chevron to pay $745 million to restore wetlands. “The case,” reported the Associated Press, “was the first of dozens of pending lawsuits to reach trial in Louisiana against the world’s leading oil companies for their role in accelerating land loss along the state’s rapidly disappearing coast.”
Chevron will appeal, but the decision, said the AP, “could set a precedent leaving other oil and gas firms on the hook for billions of dollars in damages tied to land loss and environmental degradation.”
The energy companies argue that scientific research shows that coastal erosion is caused by broader geological factors as well as manmade interventions that have nothing to do with extracting fossil fuels.
For example, they say, 20th Century flood-control efforts cut off the natural supply of sediment, preventing new land formation. Subsidence, the natural sinking of land, is another natural feature that has nothing to do with drilling. Bayou Bienvenue is a good example of an area that used to be swamp and is now open water. Hurricanes as well have shaped Louisiana, eroding marsh soil and expanding coastal bays. As barriers erode from these forces, inland wetlands become more vulnerable.
According to Restore the Mississippi River Delta, an organization supported by such groups as the Environmental Defense Fund and the National Wildlife Federation:
One of the most significant causes of land loss is the straitjacketing of the lower Mississippi River with huge levees to control the river and protect communities, economic infrastructure and other resources from river flooding. The problem is the delta’s wetlands were and still are built and sustained by sediment delivered by the river. Leveeing of the river cut the tie between the sediment-filled river and its delta, stopping the cycle of new wetland growth.
Another problem for the wetlands is that upriver dams trap the sediment that once carried all the way to Louisiana’s coast. “The total amount of sediment carried by the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers has been reduced from 400 million tons per year to about 200 million tons per year,” according to MississippiRiverDelta.org
Meanwhile, the Wax Lake Delta, which still receives natural sediment from the Atchafalaya River, continues to grow, providing evidence that sediment loss, rather than oil and gas activity, is the real factor behind wetland depletion in the Mississippi Delta.
During World War II, Louisiana’s energy sector expanded significantly at the direction of the federal government, which encouraged oil and gas production to support the war effort. Texaco, for example, produced crude oil which was then refined into aviation fuel. Drilling operations, pipeline installations, and canal construction were all authorized by state and federal agencies.
Despite that historical context, the appeals court last year ruled that oil and gas firms were not acting under a federal officer’s direction — a decision that could carry major implications for ongoing litigation. Defendants in January subsequently took this case to the U.S. Supreme Court and asked the high court to review the case for federal jurisdiction. Two former Joint Chiefs of Staff, retired Air Force General Richard Myers and retired Navy Admiral Michael Mullen, filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court supporting the case for federal jurisdiction given the energy companies were working as a federal contractors to support America’s military during World War II.
It is especially surprising that Gov. Landry is backing litigation because the legal campaign risks undermining both U.S. energy security and Louisiana’s own economy.
A 2019 study by the Pelican Institute for Public Policy found these lawsuits have already resulted in reduced drilling activity, lower royalty and tax revenues, and an estimated annual economic loss of $44 million to $113 because of lawsuit risk. Said the report:
Economic theory indicates that with increased risk of lawsuits against oil and gas producers come less investment, and more specifically, less drilling activity…. When the risk of getting sued increases, the expected costs faced by companies increases and as a result, drilling activity decreases. Further, the world today offers many drilling opportunities to oil and gas producers and the investors that finance them, and that makes seeking opportunity elsewhere more likely as litigation risk increases.
When a Louisiana jury ordered Chevron to pay $745 million in a landmark coastal restoration lawsuit earlier this year, the decision set a dangerous precedent that could open the floodgates for billions more in damages across 42 pending cases. Daniel Erspamer, CEO of Pelican Institute for Public Policy, called the ruling a “setback for the new administration and the thousands of Louisiana families who depend on a strong energy sector.” He added:
For more than a decade, coastal lawsuits like this one have unfairly targeted energy producers for activities that were lawfully conducted decades ago,” Erspamer said. “There is little doubt that, if left to stand, this chilling precedent would further undermine legal certainty and deter future investment in our state.
In an April 1 article for Forbes, economist Wayne Winegarden, senior fellow at the Pacific Research Institute, which sponsors this newsletter, warned that Louisiana’s high taxes, burdensome regulations, and aggressive litigation posture are stifling economic growth. Winegarden noted that the Tax Foundation ranks Louisiana’s tax climate as one of the worst (40th among states) in the nation. According to the Cato Institute, Louisiana’s regulatory policies are also below average (32nd), and its litigation environment ranks 48th. These lawsuits will further deter investment and worsen income inequality.
“Undoubtedly these lawsuits will enrich trial lawyers if successful,” Winegarden wrote. “They will not remedy the coastal erosion problems afflicting the state, however. Making matters even worse, these lawsuits are discouraging needed income and job growth for residents by exacerbating Louisiana’s anti-growth policies.”
The real gross domestic product of Louisiana was lower in 2023 than it was in 2005. The state’s anti-energy policies will only make matters worse.
With Aggressive Mandates for Renewables, Michigan’s Electricity Costs Exceed Those of Its Neighbors
Michigan’s policy of demanding more renewable energy is pushing costs higher, according to the Energy Affordability 2025 report of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an organization composed of conservative state lawmakers.
The report found that Michigan ranked 38th of the 50 states in energy affordability, with an average price of 13.2 cents per kilowatt hour, compared with 10.6 cents in nearby Ohio. Michigan ranks worse than all nearby states, including Wisconsin, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Indiana. Similarly, the U.S. Energy Information Administration found that in January Michiganders paid a higher residential retail price for electricity than citizens of all but 10 states.
“One of the primary factors driving Michigan’s high electricity prices is the state’s energy policy,” said the ALEC report. It continued:
Michigan has implemented a renewable portfolio standard that requires a growing share of electricity to come from renewable sources, which has led to significant investments in wind energy and other renewables. While these investments align with the state’s progressive environmental goals, they also contribute to higher current electricity prices as utilities pass on the costs of developing new infrastructure to consumers.
The report added that “Michigan’s reliability has been challenged.”
Michigan’s grid was particularly unreliable even before the new standard was adopted. The research group Climate Central reported last year that the state experienced the second-highest number of weather-related power outages among the states from 2000 to 2023. Only Texas had more outages than Michigan’s 157.
“The combination of high costs associated with federally required upgrades to coal and nuclear plants, the financial burden of meeting renewable energy mandates, and the costs of ensuring grid reliability contribute to Michigan’s high electricity prices,” reported Climate Central. “As the state continues its transition toward a cleaner energy future, these challenges will likely persist, making it difficult for Michigan to significantly lower its electricity costs in the near term.”
Jake Morabito, director of the ALEC’s Energy, Environment, and Agriculture Task Force, noted that “energy costs are a year-round concern – whether you’re heating your home in the winter or keeping it cool in the summer. States that embrace free-market solutions instead of overregulation provide a more affordable and reliable energy landscape for everyone.”
In November 2023, Michigan enacted Public Act 235, which set aggressive renewable energy targets. The law requires suppliers of electricity to use 80% clean energy by 2035 and 100% clean energy by 2040. The standard before the act was 60% in 2035.
After Michigan’s Democratic Governor, Gretchen Whitmer, signed the bill into law, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy released a 2024 report that warned of a decrease in grid capacity and affordability challenges.
The Center said that “over the last decade, the average capacity factor of wind turbines was about 35%, meaning they produced less than half their nameplate capacity. This means that a wind power facility with a nameplate capacity of 300 megawatts will produce only 105 megawatts on average. Solar panels’ average capacity factor is even worse: hovering about 25% for most of the last decade and falling below 15% in winter months.”
Combined cycle natural gas plants, which capture waste heat and turn it into extra power, have an average capacity factor ranging from 50-60%. The fear is that abandoning traditional energy sources will make Michigan’s grid less reliable and secure – and electricity more expensive.
FERC Grants an Investment Authorization to BlackRock. Is That a Clue to a Broader Policy Decision Affecting Access to Capital?
As we reported in No. 38 and No. 45 of this newsletter, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a notice of inquiry (NOI) that would change its policy of allowing firms to make investments — through exchange-traded or mutual funds — in public utilities without first securing authorization from the commission even if amounts are in excess of $10 million.
FERC has allowed for “blanket authorizations,” as they are called, but they are still subject to limitations. For example, an investment company cannot own more than 20% of the voting securities of any one utility, and it can’t “exercise control over day-to-day management or operations” of a utility.
It now appears that sentiment at FERC may be opposed to changing the current policy. At an open meeting on April 17, FERC granted BlackRock renewed permission to own stakes in public utility companies. As Reuters reported:
Technically the decision…extends for three more years BlackRock’s permission to own up to 20% of the voting securities of any one U.S.-traded utility, higher than the traditional 10% baseline threshold. In addition, no single BlackRock fund can own more than 10% of a utility’s voting securities.
Mark Christie, the new FERC chairman, wrote a concurring opinion, acknowledging arguments both for and against the approval.
“One threat,” wrote Christie, “is that asset managers, like BlackRock, will use their ownership of competing assets to exert market power in wholesale energy, capacity, and ancillary services markets… A related concern that I share, raised by the States, is that huge asset managers such as BlackRock have in the very recent past participated in investor advocacy organizations, such as the Net Zero Asset Manager initiative.” (By the way, BlackRock withdrew from the Net Zero Asset Manager Initiative, an environmentally focused investor group, in early January 2025).
Christie noted these concerns as valid, but he said in his decision:
We are faced with the reality that public utilities face already large and still growing capital needs, including to fund investment in greatly needed utility assets, such as power generation. It is a fact of economic life that public utilities regulated by the Commission must seek investment capital from wherever it is available, and much of it is now either owned or managed by huge asset managers. This reality calls for heightened scrutiny of the implications of such financial power, and potential action, by governmental legislative and regulatory bodies.
In other words, in this time of an energy emergency recognized by the White House and much of Congress, access to capital is critical. This concern was raised by groups such as the Electric Power Supply Association (EPSA), the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) and the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) in a joint letter last year.
The groups argued, in responding to the NOI, that “none of the commenters urging radical changes to the blanket policies offers any example, much less concrete evidence, of cognizable harm or abuse under these policies. At the same time, the record contains substantial evidence showing how such policy changes could deter much-needed investment in the electric sector… This is the very opposite of what is required at a time when new investment is critically needed to meet demand and maintain reliability.”
In his concurring opinion, Christie made no mention of the NOI, so it is unclear whether FERC intends to continue with that proposed rule.
A definitive decision is urgent, as former Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) recently wrote, in commenting on FERC’s NOI, arguing that winning the race for energy and AI dominance requires massive capital investment in powering data centers, and throwing up obstacles now makes little sense.
Sen. Gardner wrote that “the President and his team, including both Secretary of Energy Chris Wright and the Secretary of Interior and Chairman of the newly formed National Energy Council, should pay attention to activity at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) that could imperil the President’s objectives for American energy dominance needed to win the important AI race.”
Gardner added that if a more stringent rule is adopted, it “could choke builders’ access to capital and discourage the development necessary to secure and grow our energy grid. The existing rule is intentionally robust and ‘rigorously regulated’ to prevent an investor (or investors) from controlling a utility.” He continued:
Investment in our energy infrastructure is already woefully behind. Seventy percent of the U.S. electric grid is 25 years old or older, making it vulnerable to severe weather events and cyber-attacks. Replacing old transmission lines will require $10 billion of investment each year
The former Senator concluded, “The impact of the Commission’s proposed blanket authorization rewrite is predictable: Investors would take their money elsewhere, the cost of capital would increase, and infrastructure development would slow down.”
A New Executive Order Seeks to Strengthen the Grid
On April 8, President Trump issued an Executive Order entitled, “Strengthening the Reliability and Security of the United States Electric Grid.” The order, which follows on his Jan. 20 order declaring a national energy emergency (see above), begins this way: “The United States is experiencing an unprecedented surge in electricity demand driven by rapid technological advancements, including the expansion of artificial intelligence data centers and an increase in domestic manufacturing.” The order continues:
This increase in demand, coupled with existing capacity challenges, places a significant strain on our Nation’s electric grid. Lack of reliability in the electric grid puts the national and economic security of the American people at risk. The United States’ ability to remain at the forefront of technological innovation depends on a reliable supply of energy from all available electric generation sources and the integrity of our Nation’s electric grid.
The order invoked emergency authority under Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act, which permits exceptional executive-branch action “when an emergency exists by reason of a sudden increase in the demand for electric energy, or a shortage of electric energy, or of facilities for the generation or transmission of electric energy, or of the fuel or water for generating facilities, or other causes.”
The April 8 order directed the Department of Energy to streamline and accelerate approvals for power generators to operate at full capacity during times of forecasted electricity shortfalls, with the goal of preventing system-wide grid failure.
Said the order:
Within 30 days, the Secretary of Energy must develop a uniform methodology to analyze current and projected reserve margins—critical safety buffers in electricity supply—for regions regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. This methodology will be informed by historical grid performance and will be publicly available within 90 days.
The Administration released a Fact Sheet on the state of the national electric grid, stating,
“The Nation’s electricity is expected to rise 16% in the next 5 years — triple the growth forecasted just a year ago. The Nation’s 2,700 data centers, mostly operated by tech giants like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and Apple, consumed over 4% of U.S. electricity in 2022 and are expected to reach 9% by 2030. An estimated 80 million transformers, averaging over 40 years old, are vital to keeping the grid running nationwide.”
These concerns about grid reliability have been echoed widely. In December, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) released its 2024 Long-Term Reliability Assessment Report, which concluded that most of North America “faces mounting resource adequacy challenges over the next 10 years as surging demand growth continues and thermal generators announce plans for retirement. New solar PV, battery, and hybrid resources continue to flood interconnection queues, but completion rates are lagging behind the need for new genera.” The report added:
As a result, less overall capacity (dispatchable capacity in particular) is being added to the system than what was projected and needed to meet future demand. The trends point to critical reliability challenges facing the industry: satisfying escalating energy growth, managing generator retirements, and accelerating resource and transmission development.
The American Clean Power Association said that the report underscores a need for more power from traditional and new energy sources and grid infrastructure developments.
Earlier this month, Rep. Julie Fedorchak (R-ND), also introduced H.Res 290, described as a “resolution recognizing the urgent and growing threats to the reliability of America’s electric grid.” Her resolution warned that the “premature shutdown of reliable baseload power sources—such as coal and natural gas—without dependable replacements is putting the nation at risk of energy shortages, higher costs, and weakened security.”
An inadequate grid is among the greatest challenges faces the United States. Energy Secretary Chris Wright is under pressure to move swiftly to address streamlining and approving new power generation and grid performance to deliver on the President’s energy agenda.
Grid Operators Across the Nation Warn of Electricity Reliability Crisis
At a March 25 hearing of the Energy Subcommittee of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, grid operators across the nation warned of a reliability crisis.
The topic of the hearing was “Keeping the Lights On: Examining the State of Regional Grid Reliability.” Some 29 Members of Congress heard from witnesses representing PJM, the largest of the independent system operators (ISOs) and regional transmission organizations (RTOs), and six similar non-profits. The operators have reliability as their most important priority.
As PowerMag noted, the ISOs and RTOs “oversee bulk power systems serving 200 million Americans.” The operators in attendance, along with PJM, which is responsible for the needs of 67 million people in all or parts of 13 states plus the District of Columbia, were:
- Midcontinent ISO (MISO), serving 45 million in the center of the country
- Southwest Power Pool (SPP), known for high wind penetration
- New York ISO (NYISO); ISO New England (ISO-NE), serving six states in the region
- California ISO (CASIO), managing 80% of the state’s electric load; an
- the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), covering 90% of the state’s load.
At the hearing, Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio), the subcommittee chair, set the tone by stating that “too many electric-generating facilities have been retired in recent years while new and emerging technologies are increasing the need. It is critical that we meet the growing demand for power, the need to secure it, and address the reliability challenges confronting our electric industry.”
The grid operators “raised a unified alarm about an impending capacity crunch,” wrote Sonal Patel of PowerMag. They warned that the “pace and scale of explosive demand—including from data centers, manufacturing, and electrification—pose a precarious misalignment with accelerating generator retirements and transmission constraints.”
For example, the CEO of ISO-NE, Gordon van Welie said,“As demand for electricity in New England grows, the region will need new resources to meet resource adequacy needs. It will be critical to ensure that we have a policy and regulatory framework in place that will allow for the entry of those resources.”
ERCOT’s CEO, Pablo Vegas, testified that Texas “continues to experience unprecedented economic and population growth, driving electricity demand to record-breaking levels.” Last month, he said, ERCOT set a new Winter Peak Demand record of 80,525 megawatts, “a demand level normally experienced in the summer.”
In California, “electrification of transportation and buildings has been the primary driver of load growth to date,” noted CAISO’s CEO Elliot Mainzer in his testimony. The state “projects an increase in data center loads over the next 15 years, with a sharp increase projected to start around the 2028 timeframe.”
Several members of Congress raised concerns about regulatory obstacles constraining power generation. Rep. Troy Balderson (R-OH), for instance, stated:
Last year, PJM, ERCOT, SPP, and MISO jointly filed an amicus brief with the DC Circuit Court against the Biden EPA’s Clean Power Plan 2.0. I’m extremely grateful that just a few weeks ago, Administrator [Lee] Zeldin announced the EPA will be reconsidering the Clean Power Plan 2.0, along with dozens of other Biden era rules and regulations.
Balderson asked Vegas, “If the Clean Power Plan 2.0 were to remain in effect, would your service territory see an increased risk of rolling brownouts and blackouts?”
Vegas replied: “Yes, that plan had risked more than 14,000 megawatts of existing coal plants that are serving the grid today, they would be at risk and that would be a significant reliability concern.”
Rep. Diana Harshbarger (R-TN) asked, “Let’s say that you experienced a wind drought that lasts 40 consecutive hours. How do you make up for that?”
Jennifer Curran, senior vice president of planning and operators at MISO, answered, “The way you make up for it is with resources that do have fuels that are available on demand. So, in MISO, that would be coal and gas generation that is able to run for that duration.”
These grid operators are watching first-hand as raising demand puts pressure on the grid, especially in states with aggressive requirements for renewables. The question is whether this unified alarm with spur policymakers across both parties to take action before it is too late.