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(Bloomberg) — Millions of Americans from the upper Midwest to the Gulf Coast are facing the biggest threat of power supply shortfalls in the US this summer.
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About 89 million people access three grids spanning parts of the central US now deemed an elevated risk zone. The shutdown of older power plants, possible forced outages and high demand are contributing to potential deficits, the North American Electric Reliability Corp. said in its annual summer assessment.
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“Going in the summer, the grid operators need to be prepared for the potential conditions to be stressful once again,” Mark Olson, NERC’s manager of reliability assessments, said in a Wednesday briefing.
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America’s aging electric grids are being strained by extreme weather and mounting demand from data centers. They’re also increasingly dependent on wind and solar power, which rely on the whims of the air and sun.
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Adding to the three at-risk systems, the six-state New England grid has frequently been on the regulator’s list as it faces tight energy supplies. In all, 104 million Americans — or one in three people — are in areas where extreme conditions may trigger a grid emergency. Projections in the report are based on high temperatures rolling in this summer and are not predictions of grid emergencies or blackouts.
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The state grid operated by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas has an added risk of transmission bottlenecks in the southern part of the system, NERC said. However, the probability for shortages after sunset fell to 3% in August from more than 15% in 2024. Texas has added 7.5 gigawatts of battery power supply, helping to shore up the grid.
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Though the New York system and 13-state eastern US grid weren’t on NERC’s watch list, both grids recently warned of possible reserve shortfalls in extreme summer heat.
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(Updates with comments from regulator starting in the third paragraph.)
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