Its "2023-2024 Winter Reliability Assessment" released Wednesday finds that much of North America is at a risk of having insufficient energy supplies during periods of extreme weather, and that the risk is becoming higher. “The growth of intermittent
resources, like solar generation, on the distribution system significantly increases load forecasting complexity and uncertainty. Once again, we strongly recommend that operators take the necessary steps to prepare for winter,” said Mark Olson, NERC’
s manager of reliability assessments, in a statement about the report.


All the areas of the eastern U.S. and Great Plains, with the exception of Florida, parts of Southeast, and New York are at elevated risk, according to the report. That means there’s a potential for the grids serving those areas to experience blackouts
during high demand.

The report explains that during past events of extreme cold, more than 20% of generating capacity is forced offline as a result of increased heating demand and plants not being properly prepared to operate in extreme cold.
Exacerbating that problem, wind and solar energy only produce electricity under the right weather conditions, which don’t always follow demand. To ensure a reliable electricity supply the wind and solar farms have to be backed up by dispatchable power,
which are generation resources that provide electricity almost continuously. Those are primarily hydroelectric, which come from dams, nuclear energy, natural gas-fired power plants and coal-fired power plants.

ScottW

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