The report says the new solar power will help maintain energy during the state’s hot summers

With parts of the country already struggling with heat waves, the organization responsible for setting reliability standards for the U.S. power grid is warning that a hot summer could lead to power generation shortages in some regions.

Overall, however, the analysis by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation painted a rosier picture than last year’s report, in part because of the rapid expansion of solar power.

The country has enough energy resources to meet normal peak demand, called “load” in the electricity industry, largely thanks to 25 gigawatts of new solar PV capacity – at full capacity, roughly equivalent to the maximum capacity of 25 large fossil or nuclear power plants. (The number of homes that can be powered by one gigawatt of solar energy can vary greatly from country to country.) However, the new panels have helped move some areas from what NERC calls “increased risk” of power shortages in last year’s analysis to “normal risk” this year.

“The additional resources provide the necessary power to keep up with increasing peak demand in most areas,” Mark Olson, the organization’s manager of reliability ratings, told the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Thursday. New power transmission contracts, an increase in demand response programs that encourage customers to reduce energy use during periods of grid stress, and delayed power plant retirements “are also contributing to the overall improved resource outlook for the coming summer,” NERC says.

A separate presentation by FERC staff said solar power will account for 10% of the nation’s total electricity generation capacity by the end of this summer, with natural gas accounting for 42%, coal 14% and wind energy 13%.

Solar energy is growing rapidly across the country, and according to the U.S. Solar Energy Industry Association, the number of solar PV installations totals five million (most of them residential). It took 50 years to reach this milestone, but the industry group’s projects to reach 10 million solar installations will only take six years. The group noted that solar power provided for the first time more than half of the new electricity generating capacity added in 2023. The U.S. Energy Information Administration expects “record growth” in new utility-scale solar power this year, with an installed capacity of about 36.4 gigawatts. More than half of this new capacity is planned for Texas, California and Florida. The Gemini facility is expected to begin operations this year near Las Vegas, with planned solar capacity of nearly 700 megawatts and battery capacity of up to 380 megawatts. become the largest photovoltaic project in the country. Battery capacity is also growing rapidly, with more than 14 gigawatts expected to be added this year, according to EIA. Batteries complement solar power generation well because peak solar power production typically does not coincide with peak grid demand, which occurs later in the day. Batteries allow you to store excess solar energy when you need it.

But the changing energy mix also brings new challenges and risks, NERC warned.

In his presentation to FERC, Olson said that while the overall outlook for electricity reliability has improved over the summer, some regions are seeing what he called increasing risks during extreme weather.

“Shortages can occur when demand is high and solar, wind and hydropower production is low,” he said.

These regions include parts of the Midwest and South within the Midcontinent Independent System Operator network area, New England, Texas, much of the Southwest and California. However, grid operators are becoming increasingly adept at planning and operating electric networks with large amounts of intermittent resources.

“It’s refreshing to finally recognize that renewables can help deliver reliability,” said Simon Mahan, executive director of the Southern Renewable Energy Association.

While most of the country has historically experienced a “summer peak” period, meaning that regions’ highest demand for electricity occurred during the summer months, some areas are increasingly seeing a surge in demand in winter, and this trend is expected to continue will continue as a result of the electrification of heating systems. other decarbonization policies and more extreme, prolonged weather events. Indeed, most recent power grid outages have occurred during severe winter weather, such as Winter Storm Elliott in 2022, which caused power outages in several southern states, and Uri in 2021, which caused a catastrophic collapse of the power grid in Texas, which resulted in an estimated 246 deaths.

But summer heat still poses risks, NERC says, contributing to both high demand and outages at power plants such as natural gas plants.

“Last summer brought record temperatures, prolonged heat waves and wildfires across large parts of North America,” the organization said. And while energy alerts were few and far between and there were no outages resulting from insufficient energy resources, network operators “faced significant challenges and used procedures and protocols to obtain all available resources, manage system demand and ensure energy delivery throughout the life of the transmission network to meet system demand.” Utilities and state and local officials in many areas also “used mechanisms and public appeals to reduce customer demand during periods of tight supply,” NERC added.

Christy Walsh, senior staff attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Sustainable FERC project, said reliability reports show that climate change is central to the pressures facing the electric grid.

“It must also be at the heart of our solutions,” she said in a statement to States Newsroom. “Earlier and more intense hurricanes caused by rising sea temperatures are a new and noteworthy concern, highlighting the need for larger-scale transmission and connectivity between regions. Most of the new developments have been around wind, solar and storage, and last summer in particular we saw how important these resources can be during extreme heat. We need to make sure we have a network that can withstand weather conditions and move resources during times of stress.”