The power system has held up so far in record-breaking temperatures despite predictions that extreme heat could cause a crash. Here's why.
The power system has held up so far in record-breaking temperatures despite predictions that extreme heat could cause a crash. Here’s why.
The hurricane aside, parts of the Midwest and Southeast sweltered under a heat dome as August closed. The grid operator covering Texas asked residents to conserve electricity on six out of the last seven days of August, while the operator covering parts of 15 central states also signaled tight conditions. On Aug.
Take Texas, which now hosts the most low-carbon energy capacity in the country. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages 90 percent of the state’s power load, said before the summer that the grid could plunge into chaos at peak demand if it saw outages totaling 11,000 megawatts from coal, gas and nuclear plants.
Hensley said renewables’ big role this summer should help address the “skepticism and concern” that more wind and solar means sacrificing reliability.It’s difficult to say, although grid operators benefited from seasonal conditions that they may not be able to count on in the future. “My personal perspective is that wind energy technology will be changing and evolving, so even if winds slow down slightly, the technology will improve so that we will still be able to rely on wind as part of our energy portfolio,” Lundquist said in an email.
According to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, natural gas remained the top source of power generation across the country and accounted for a larger share of electricity than last summer. Research from data firm Refinitiv found that gas’ share of power from January through mid-August was 42.4 percent, compared with 38.9 percent in the same period of 2022.
As the grid transitions, some experts and power providers have said it’s important to keep quick-start fossil fuel power plants online to ensure reliability.can’t manage accelerated retirements of coal and gas plants at the same time, because wind and solar may not hold up in extreme weather.
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