Nation’s electrical system may soon come up short

Burns & McDonnell, the Kansas City-based engineering, architecture, construction, environmental and consulting solutions firm, estimates half of intracity deliveries will be with electric vehicles by the decade’s end.

Increasingly, new homes will be allelectric as the future of natural gas supplies is compromised by public policy.

Exacerbating instability in the electric sector has been the swing from fossil-fuel generation — primarily coal and natural gas — to renewables. Those simply aren’t always available. The race is on for better batteries and storage to smooth the variability of wind and solar, especially wind.

Nonetheless, the pressure is constant to close coal and gas plants, which have always available generation, known in utility parlance as “dispatchable,” and account for 19 percent and 38 percent of generation, respectively. It adds to the difficulties of keeping the lights on.

The dilemma was set out for me by Duane Highley, CEO of Tri-State Generation & Transmission, in Westminster, Colorado. It provides power to 42 rural co-ops in four states.

Highley explained the new instability in the industry this way: “The rapid rate of retirement of dispatchable generators has raised concerns among our membership about the reliability of the greater grid.”

He said the industry can and is achieving rapid rates of emissions reduction but will still need “an appropriate amount of cost-effective dispatchable generation.” Today, Highley noted, this is provided by coal and natural gas. This power will be needed to ensure a reliable and resilient grid as the demand for electricity increases.

“The traditional metrics utilities have used to model reliability can no longer demonstrate grid resilience as we rely more on intermittent weatherdependent resources.”

Tri-State, Highley said, is “working with its members on new reliability methodology to assure we have sufficient capacity, even with high levels of renewable generation.”

Electricity loss is a lethal matter. In Texas, 254 people, by official count, died when some of the grid went down during the blackout caused by Ice Storm Uri in 2021. And in last year’s heat dome over Arizona, the state estimates 654 people died of heat-related causes in Maricopa County.

Clearly, job one is to keep the lights on before we retire the tried-and-true generating plant of yesterday. Life depends on it.

Llewellyn King is the executive producer and host of “White House Chronicle” on PBS. He wrote this for Inside Sources.com.