Energy & Environment

Ronald Bailey | From the October 2024 issue

"We face unprecedented challenges to the reliability of our nation's electrical system." That was the testimony of Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) chairman Willie L. Phillips in a May 4, 2023, hearing of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. FERC is the agency that regulates the interstate transmission and wholesale of electricity, and it is sounding the alarm about our electrical grid.

Until recently, Americans took electrical grid reliability for granted. "The average U.S. customer loses power less than two times per year for a total of less than five hours, which represents 99.95 percent reliability," notes National Renewable Energy Laboratory grid analyst Paul Denholm. But that may be changing.

Former FERC Commissioner James Danly pointed out during the hearing that a large part of the growing challenge to electrical grid reliability stems from the "premature retirement of the dispatchable generators"—those power sources, such as coal-fired and natural gas plants, that can be adjusted rapidly to........

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