“Regulatory, policy, and environmental pressures on fossil-based generation resources that provide 60 percent of the nation’s electricity further threaten the reliability and flexibility of the grid. Because of these pressures, coupled with projections of electric demand growth, we are concerned about the reliability of the bulk-power system and the actions the Commission is taking or considering taking to ensure that it fulfills its mission to ‘assist consumers in obtaining reliable, safe, secure, and economically efficient energy services at a reasonable cost through appropriate regulatory and market means, and collaborative efforts.” 

“Regulatory, policy, and environmental pressures on fossil-based generation resources that provide 60 percent of the nation’s electricity further threaten the reliability and flexibility of the grid. Because of these pressures, coupled with projections of electric demand growth, we are concerned about the reliability of the bulk-power system and the actions the Commission is taking or considering taking to ensure that it fulfills its mission to ‘assist consumers in obtaining reliable, safe, secure, and economically efficient energy services at a reasonable cost through appropriate regulatory and market means, and collaborative efforts.” 

“In 1990, two-thirds of the generating capacity in this country was coal and gas and today almost two-thirds of the generating capacity is still coal and gas. But what’s happened is in 1990 about half of our capacity was coal and only about 10% was gas, and now it’s reversed. In 1990 we were using gas almost exclusively for gas peakers, turn them on at peak and that’s it. Now, we’re running gas as baseload and that takes a lot more gas and we don’t have the infrastructure—that’s the real energy transition by the way, the coal to gas that’s taken place in this country since 1990.” 

“Right now, when it comes to the reliability of our grid, the United States is facing a rendezvous with reality. Reality is just around the corner. You may think you can avoid it for a while, but reality will track you down. And reality is tracking us down when it comes to the reliability of our grid.”

“The spinning mass that has been the basis for our generation fleet for ages is what allows us to ride through the voltage disturbances that are inevitable in a dynamic system like this. And even if you have grid-forming inverters, the likelihood that they would have that level of resilience given the fact that intermittents can turn on and off in a moment’s notice is very unlikely.”

“The US is heading towards a reliability crisis in our electric markets. This reliability crisis is being driven by two primary factors. The first is the effect of subsidies and the second is the commission’s… abandonment of its long-standing commitment to the rule of law.”

“We are heading for potentially very dire consequences, potentially catastrophic consequences in the United States in terms of the reliability of our grid.”