Blackout risk: Nation’s largest grid operator warns of capacity shortfalls

 The nation's largest grid operator is warning it may face a major coming shortfall in electric generating capacity as utilities retire more and more traditional fossil fuel power plants.

It's a challenge facing grid operators across the country as power generators mothball coal and natural gas-fired plants for various reasons, such as reducing high maintenance and regulatory compliance costs or cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

THE CHANGING GRID — WHAT'S IN STORE THIS YEAR

PJM Interconnection, which manages grid operations across 13 states and the District of Columbia, published new analysis Friday showing retirements outpacing new additions in the coming years that could leave its service area short of thousands of megawatts of capacity by 2030.

"Retirements are at risk of outpacing the construction of new resources, due to a combination of industry forces, including siting and supply chain, whose long-term impacts are not fully known," it said in its report.

PJM said this shortfall is on track due to a "potential timing mismatch" between retirements, growing electricity demand, and the pace of new generation coming online.

Nearly 40,000 megawatts, or 40 gigawatts, of generating capacity in PJM is forecast to retire by 2030, 90% of which is coal and natural gas.

PJM's "low entry scenario" envisions an addition of just over 15,000 megawatts over the same period.

Under its high entry scenario, capacity additions through 2030 would be twice that at 30,000 megawatts, still short of making up for retired capacity.

PJM serves more than 65 million consumers living between northern Illinois and the Eastern Seaboard, including all of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.

Traditional generators are retiring rapidly due to government and private sector policies as well as economics, PJM noted.

Coal retirements are forecast to make up well over half of all planned generation retirements in 2023 at 8.9 gigawatts, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Utilities are under increasing pressure from the Biden administration and investors to phase out fossil fuel resources, especially coal, for the sake of mitigating climate change.

The administration, which has a goal of achieving 100% carbon-free electricity by 2035, is also drawing up a suite of regulations to crack down on coal plants after the Trump administration liberalized rules.

The report follows multiple warnings from regulators at the North American Electric Reliability Corporation that utilities, lawmakers, and grid operators need to act to better manage the pace of retirements or else risk more of the blackouts seen during recent extreme weather events.

Several utilities, including TVA and Duke Energy, had to implement controlled outages during peak demand periods in December when winter storm Elliot struck.

PJM had its own issues with generator outages during the storm, during which coal made up nearly half of additional generation, according to a report released Thursday by America's Power, a coal-fired power interest group.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/energy-environment/pjm-warns-of-capacity-shortfall