Reinforcing Winter Grid Reliability

The weather predicting skills of a certain groundhog remain up for debate, but Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow this week and, sure enough, the brutal cold is sticking around.  
 
Eastern states are likely to face frigid temperatures for much of February as the polar vortex pushes arctic air south. The forecasters at AccuWeather say to expect more snow and ice across a large stretch of the country. That’s not welcome news for grid operators who have already seen record power demand across several grids and navigated multiple close calls. On Monday, utilities from the Carolinas down through Florida were forced to ask customers to dial back power usage when demand threatened to overwhelm available supply.
 
While the nation has so far dodged a grid catastrophe this winter, there’s been far too much white knuckling for anyone to feel good about the state of our power supply. Just this past weekend, the Energy Department issued seven emergency orders, and extended another five, to mitigate the risk of blackouts. This is hardly business as usual. And as the North American Electric Reliability Corp.’s (NERC) new long-term reliability assessment made very clear, the winter grid reliability challenge is only going to get far greater.
 
NERC found that the nation’s peak winter demand is going to jump by 245 gigawatts (GW) in just the next decade. That’s an enormous number. And as NERC pointed out, most of the resources projected to enter service in the next decade aren’t a good match to meet it. Solar panels and batteries with just a few hours of storage are of little assistance during peak winter demand on a dark, brutally cold January morning.

“Underpinning and balancing role”

 Meeting the peak winter demand we know is coming – much less continuing to meet the demand that’s already here – is going to take the coal fleet. It’s almost certainly going to require getting even more power from it.
 
The U.S. Energy Information Administration noted that in the week ending January 25, as winter storm Fern socked the country, coal generation surged 31% from the previous week as renewable power faltered.
 
Coal power is the grid’s winter reliability backstop. There’s very good reason the Department of Energy has worked so hard to keep coal capacity on the grid and stop the closure of essential power plants.
 
What is happening in China is worth careful consideration. While China is adding renewable energy at a stunning scale – 315 GW of solar capacity and 119 GW of wind in 2025 – it is also doubling down on coal capacity. China brought 78 GW of new coal power capacity online last year, a sharp increase from previous years,  and construction began on another 83 GW.
 
China’s energy development certainly signals rising power demand but also a clear recognition of the need for fuel-secure, dispatchable power to be paired with variable renewable generation. China’s National Development and Reform Commission has said, coal should “play an important underpinning and balancing role” for years to come.
 
As the U.S. stares down its own grid reliability and affordability crises, we must recognize and value the energy sources that underpin and balance our grid. If not, we’re going to be left shivering in the dark.