Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Economy

America Is Depending on Renewables This Summer

It’s a clear sign that wind and solar power really matter.

Summer heat and the electricity grid.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The weather is changing and there are concerns about the reliability of the electric grid. This is a story that can be written at least twice a year and often is. Whether it’s cold snaps knocking off generation or everyone cranking up the air conditioning, more extreme weather means it’s harder to match the supply and demand of electricity.

Earlier this week, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, which sets and enforces standards for grid operators in the United States and Canada, released its annual Summer Reliability Assessment, reporting that while it expected the grid to make it through unscathed, still “two-thirds of North America is at risk of energy shortfalls this summer during periods of extreme demand,” i.e. if it gets really, really hot.

And every year renewable energy skeptics use the report to blame the increased use of renewables and retirement of fossil fuel generation for the brittleness of the grid.

NERC both pre-empts and acknowledges such criticism this year. “Increased, rapid deployment of wind, solar and batteries have made a positive impact,” NERC’s manager of Reliability Assessments Mark Olson said in a statement accompanying the report. “However, generator retirements continue to increase the risks associated with extreme summer temperatures, which factors into potential supply shortages in the western two-thirds of North America if summer temperatures spike.”

More deeply, though, these worries are just a clear sign of the progress the renewables buildout has made, even before last year’s passage of the Inflation Reduction Act.

The interconnected grids of the United States and Canada are now clearly reliant on renewable and non-carbon generation, from utility-scale solar in the Mojave Desert to wind farms in Oklahoma to nuclear power plants in Ontario. This summer (and every summer after it) will be put up or shut up time for an increasingly renewable-heavy grid.

In short, the renewable buildout, while far from complete, has begun to work. Some 400 million people are, in one way or another, dependent on these resources to keep the lights on.

And when it comes to dealing with potential extreme weather in the summer, all eyes are on wind. In the Midwest and Southwest, the NERC report isolates wind power as a "key factor" in whether the grid will function when demand rises.

In Texas, which is debating subsidizing the construction of new natural gas plants to deal with winter reliability issues, the report notes that, while “resources are adequate for peak demand of the average summer," it worries about "an extreme heat-wave that is accompanied by low winds.”

Get the best of Heatmap directly in your inbox:

In the Western United States, NERC called out the familiar issues of vast solar resources disappearing at the end of the day while demand is still high, but noted that there are plans for large-scale batteries to essentially store sunlight for later in the day. NERC, as well as California’s grid operator, also said the massive snowfall this winter will boost generation by the region’s hydropower, a welcome reversal of the typical negative effects extreme weather has on the grid.

All of this by no means indicates that fossil fuels are out, even as coal is forecast to fall to just 16 percent of overall electricity generation by 2024, according to the Energy Information Administration. And natural gas is "vitally important to electric grid reliability,” the NERC report says.

But even natural gas’ portion of the country’s electricity generation may have peaked. The EIA expects natural gas to make up 40 percent of electric generation this year and to decline to 38 percent in 2024, while renewables will rise from 23 to 26 percent of generation.

In the race between the atmospheric carbon dioxide contributing to extreme weather and the carbon-free generation designed to reduce new emissions, the carbon is still winning, but the renewables are at least off the starting blocks. Now it’s time to see if they can maintain their stride.

You’re out of free articles.

Subscribe to access Heatmap’s expert analysis of energy, climate change, and sustainability, including coverage of our regular survey research. Save $57 on an annual subscription, just $156 $99/year.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
or
Please enter an email address
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Podcast

Starting a Giant Online Data Platform Is the Easy Part

Rob talks with climate and data expert Hannah Ritchie about her new platform, U.S. Energy Data.

Power lines.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

America has some of the world’s best data about its own internal energy, industrial economy, and carbon emissions. That’s thanks to a federal agency called the U.S. Energy Information Administration, which painstakingly collects and updates the data every week.

But EIA data can be hard to access — and even harder to share and understand. A new project aims to change that. U.S. Energy Data takes federal energy data and repackages it, helping amateurs and experts understand the power grid, liquid fuels, and more. It is now the easiest way to make and share charts with federal energy data.

Keep reading...Show less
Blue
Energy

AI Heavyweights Team Up to Promote Demand Flexibility

Google, Nvidia, and Emerald AI are founding members.

A data center.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Nvidia, Google, and data center software startup Emerald AI are teaming up to lead the AI Energy Management Alliance, a trade group dedicated to promoting flexible load for AI data centers, the organizations announced on Wednesday.

“There are a lot of AI trade associations, data center trade associations, energy trade associations. This is the only one that is laser focused on flexible AI data centers,” Varun Sivaram, founder and chief executive of Emerald AI, told reporters in a briefing earlier in the week.

Keep reading...Show less
Green
Power lines.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

This transcript has been automatically generated.

Subscribe to “Shift Key” and find this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Keep reading...Show less
Blue