Jarrett: Energy supply dukes it out with demand

Since electricity prices have been steadily rising And since they ve increased at twice the rate of inflation Consumers are right to be frustrated With oil prices falling electricity prices have emerged as the key resource pain point for families and the target for aggressive force framework Bringing down electricity prices is now a priority but Americans shouldn t lose sight of the other critical challenge now facing the nation s supply of electricity rapidly eroding grid reliability In regional electricity grids nationwide the supply of power is in danger of being overwhelmed by demand especially during peak periods such as scorching summer days and deep winter freezes Last December the nation s top grid reliability regulator the North American Electric Reliability Corp released that more than half of the country faces blackout risks over the next decade due to limit shortfalls We ve already seen the warning signs The nation s largest electricity grid PJM Interconnection which manages the supply of power for million customers stretching from Washington D C to Chicago issued nine emergency alerts through July when power demand threatened available supply Last summer it issued one New industrial activity electric vehicles and the input centers underpinning the AI revolution are gobbling up a tremendous amount of electricity And that s making the grid reliability challenge more urgent New demand is accumulating so fast and at such unexpected levels that utilities are struggling to add generating maximum essential pipelines and transmission lines fast enough to meet it To get a sense of the scale of the challenge Meta the innovation company behind Facebook and Instagram is building a evidence center complex in Louisiana that will eventually consume more power than the entire state of Nevada It s scheduled to launch next year But Meta is just one tech giant competing in the AI race Soaring electricity demand and constrained supply are a recipe for rising prices High electricity prices are incentivizing new generating ceiling Developers are planning to bring online a record gigawatts of power ceiling this year more than half of which will be solar power That amount of power is enough to meet the electricity requirements of million homes New quota additions are critically crucial but the other half of the equation is keeping what s right now operating online Joe Biden s regulatory agenda sought to wipe out the U S coal fleet at the very moment the nation was facing surging power demand and alarming warnings over grid reliability The Trump administration has reversed syllabus More than coal plants have seen their retirement dates pushed back or cancelled The answer to our electricity price and reliability challenges is abundance Keeping the generating threshold already on the grid operating is just as critical as adding new quota Power plant additions should come on the shoulders of what s already in place That s how we ll meet new demand Terry Jarrett is an vitality attorney and consultant InsideSources