Solar and Wind Thrive During Frigid Blast

While the Trump administration was busy trying to prop up old, dirty fossil fuels this week, electrical grids across the country were demonstrating that we are, in fact, in the 21st century. Risks remain from the extended period of frigid weather across the nation, but initial indications are that wind, solar, and battery power are helping to keep the lights on-and power prices reasonable-as demand for electricity surged.

The story from this week shows, yet again, that we need to build a broad and nimble electrical grid that can incorporate these new, low-cost resources. With more transmission lines, cheaper and cleaner power can get to the areas that need it-when they need it most. What we absolutely cannot do is go back to the bad old days of relying on belching coal plants for our power.

Wind delivered

As Arctic air swept into the nation's interior this week, the region's wind plants stepped up to provide reliable energy and keep power prices in check. In the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) region, which stretches from the Dakotas down to Louisiana, wind output was steady at between 10 to 20 percent of total generation during the periods of highest energy usage each morning and evening, known as the peak, on January 20-22, 2025. That was complemented by solar providing around 6 to 8 percent of generation each day, which ramped up with demand each morning.

In the Southwest Power Pool (SPP) territory, which covers the Great Plains to MISO's west, wind output met around 20 percent of demand during peaks on January 20 and 21, before ramping up to 45 percent of peak generation on January 22. As shown below,wind (green) matched the combined contribution from SPP's coal (orange) and gas (blue) generators on January 22.

On ERCOT, the main Texas power grid, wind, solar, and battery storage worked together to keep the lights and heat on during peak demand periods. As shown below, wind generation was between 10 and 20 gigawatts (GW) each morning this week and exceeded 20 GW as demand peaked on the morning of January 22. Solar generation (yellow) exceeded 10 GW in the 9 a.m. hour as demand typically reached its daily peak, while several gigawatts of battery storage (purple) filled in earlier in the morning as solar output ramped up. Together, wind, solar, and storage provided between 17.5 percent and 30 percent of ERCOT generation during each of the morning and evening peaks this week.

Expanding transmission would help even more

As the worst of the cold reached the East Coast, there was not enough transmission capacity to deliver the abundant wind generation in the nation's interior to consumers who needed the power. In fact, SPP deliberately reduced4-8 GW of wind power throughout the afternoon of January 21 into the morning of January 22. If more transmission capacity had been available, that curtailed power could have been sold to consumers in and around Washington, D.C., at a lower cost than the power those consumers were forced to purchase.

PJM, the regional grid operator for the Mid-Atlantic and parts of the Great Lakes states, saw low or even negative prices in the ComEd area of northern Illinois on both January 22 and 23 while prices spiked above $1,000/megawatt-hour in the East, including in the D.C. area. This indicated that there was insufficient transmission capacity to deliver the abundant generation supplies, including wind, that were available in the western part of PJM to where power was needed in the East. A hypothetical 1,000 MW expansion of transmission ties between eastern and western PJM could have provided around $15 million in value to customers in the D.C. area.

During Winter Storm Elliott in 2022, wind generation in the Midwest was also curtailed, even as customers in the Southeast experienced rolling blackouts. Had there been sufficient transmission, the midwestern wind could have reliably served customers in the Southeast, keeping the lights and heat on during a critically cold time. Severe weather tends to be at its most extreme in a relatively small geographic area, so making the grid bigger than the weather mitigates the riskof these localized disruptions. Extreme weather also moves over time, so interregional transmission would allow regions to import during their time of needand then export once the worst moves onto their neighbors. While power flows in the eastern United States were generally west to east during this week's cold snap (due to abundant wind generation in the interior region), flows were east to westwhen Winter Storm Uri in 2021 froze the middle of the country while leaving the East Coast relatively unscathed.

A November 2024 reportby the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), requested by Congress, confirms that expansion of interregional transmission would have helped to avoid the rolling blackouts that many regions experienced during Winter Storms Uriand Elliottand other recent extreme heat and cold snaps. While all generator types experienced outages during these events, NERC's reportshave shown that gas power plants accounted for the majority of outages, followed by coal power plants.

Gas is unreliable

Both extreme heat and cold can cause power plants of all types to fail just as demand and natural gas prices spike. Earlier this week, PJM declared a Level 1 emergency alert as unplanned generator outagesramped up from 11.7 GW on January 20 to 15.5 GW on January 22. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) similarly asked consumers to conserve power on Wednesday. In December 2022, the TVA was forced to resort to rolling blackouts after many coal and gas generators failed during Winter Storm Elliott.

Transmission not only helps to keep the lights and heat on when extreme weather hits but also protects against localized spikes in gas and electricity prices. Preliminary dataindicate that natural gas well freeze-offs caused a large drop in gas supply as the cold hit earlier this week, causing gas prices to spike to 20 times normal levels. All energy sources are subject to unique risks, so a diverse generation mix protects consumers from the reliability and economic risks that can result from excessive reliance on any one fuel type. A stronger transmission system is essential for interconnecting new factories and data centers and supplying them with reliable and affordable power from a diverse resource mix. The market signals from this latest cold snap are crystal clear. The question now is if the Trump administration is willing to see reality and act on facts, or if it will keep trying to drag our electricity system back into the polluting past.

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