#19,045
NERC, or the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, was tasked with "ensuring the reliability of the North American bulk power system" in 2006 following the 2003 Northeast blackout which affected more than 50 million people in the United States and Ontario, Canada.Over the years we've looked at a number of their summer and winter reliability reports (see The NERC 2025-2026 Winter (Electrical Grid) Reliability Assessment) and their drills and exercises (see GridEx 2013 Preparedness Drill), amid growing governmental concerns over the reliability of the electrical grid (see NIAC: Surviving A Catastrophic Power Outage).
Previously, the biggest threats to the grid were thought to be natural disasters (hurricanes, ice storms, severe space weather, etc.), `bad actors' (cyber-threats, sabotage, etc.), or aging infrastructure (see ASCE report card on America’s infrastructure).
But the recent and rapidly increasing power demands from A.I. data centers have added yet another potential failure point.
Last summer's the U.S. Department of Energy published a 73-page report that warned that if current schedules for retirement of reliable power generation (especially baseload) continue, without enough firm replacement, the risk of blackouts in 2030 could increase by 100× over current levels.
Number one on their Key Takeaways is:
Status Quo is Unsustainable. The status quo of more generation retirements and less dependable replacement generation is neither consistent with winning the AI race and ensuring affordable energy for all Americans, nor with continued grid reliability (ensuring “resource adequacy”).
Absent intervention, it is impossible for the nation’s bulk power system to meet the AI growth requirements while maintaining a reliable power grid and keeping energy costs low for our citizens.
To this growing chorus we can add a 181-page NERC Long-Term Reliability Report - published in January - which also warns that our power grid is facing a growing risk of electrical shortfalls over the next decade.
For those wanting a brief summary, NERC has published the following press release (see Resource Adequacy Risks Intensify Across North America as Demand Growth Surges).January 29, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. – NERC’s 2025 Long-Term Reliability Assessment (LTRA) and infographic spotlight intensifying resource adequacy risks throughout the North American bulk power system (BPS) over the next 10 years. Summer peak demand is forecast to grow by 224 GW, a more than 69% increase over the 2024 LTRA forecast with new data centers for artificial intelligence and the digital economy accounting for most of the projected increase.
Winter demand growth continues to outpace summer demand growth with 246 GW of growth forecast over the next 10 years, reflecting the evolution of electricity usage. Uncertainty and lag in the pace of new resource additions are driving heightened concerns that industry will not be able to keep up with rapidly increasing demand.
Some brief excerpts from the executive summary include:
Executive Summary
The overall resource adequacy outlook for the North American BPS is worsening: In the 2025 LTRA, NERC finds that 13 of 23 assessment areas face resource adequacy challenges over the next 10 years. Projections for resource and transmission growth lag what is needed to support new data centers and other large loads that drive escalating demand forecasts.
Most new resources in development to come on-line in the next five years consist of battery storage and solar photovoltaic (PV), which are inverter-based and weather-dependent resources that increase the complexity of planning and operating a reliable grid. Meanwhile, more fossil-fired generator retirements loom in the next five years, reducing the amount of generation that has fuel on site and impacting the system’s ability to respond to spikes in demand.
The continuing shift in the resource mix toward weather-dependent resources and less fuel diversity increases risks of supply shortfalls during winter months. As Resource Planners, market operators, and regulators grapple with steep increases in demand and swelling resource queues, they face more uncertainty, adding to the already-complex endeavor of planning for resource adequacy during this period of rapid grid transformation.
To ensure there are sufficient resources for supplying electricity in the future and to reliably meet the growing electricity needs for North Americans, industry, regulators, and policymakers need to be vigilant for shifting projections, keep plans for deactivating existing generators flexible, expedite system development, and perform robust adequacy assessments of future scenarios. In addition, careful planning and broad cross-sector coordination will be needed to navigate a period of potentially strained electricity resources.
The findings presented here are vitally important to understanding the reliability risks to the North American BPS as it is currently planned and being influenced by government policies, regulations, consumer preferences, and economic factors. Summaries of the report sections are provided below.
While the tone of this report is cautiously optimistic that the risks going forward are manageable; it stresses that `broad cross-sector coordination will be needed to navigate a period of potentially strained electricity resources.'
The same sort of broad cooperation that is often called for - but is rarely seen - for mitigating climate change or preventing the next pandemic.
Hopefully, this time the stakes will be deemed high enough that our collective response will be different.
But I'm not planning on selling my solar panels anytime soon.
