The biggest problem facing the U.S. electric grid isn't demand. It's climate change

[Jilly_in_VA]

The power grid in the U.S. is aging and already struggling to meet current demand. It faces a future with more people, who drive more electric cars and heat homes with more electric furnaces.

Alice Hill says that's not even the biggest problem the country's electricity infrastructure faces.

"Everything that we've built, including the electric grid, assumed a stable climate," she says. "It looked to the extremes of the past — how high the seas got, how high the winds got, the heat."

Hill is an energy and environment expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. She served on the National Security Council staff during the Obama administration, where she led the effort to develop climate resilience. She says past weather extremes can no longer safely guide future electricity planning.

"It's a little like we're building the plane as we're flying because the climate is changing right now, and it's picking up speed as it changes," Hill says.

https://www.npr.org/2021/11/24/1040529860/the-biggest-problem-facing-the-u-s-electric-grid-isnt-demand-its-climate-change

[modrepub]

1. PJM Already Looking At Some of This

At least some of the grid operators are forward thinking. And it's really only the high demand time periods where this becomes a problem.

One thing is for sure, don't let politicians get involved. They'll muck everything up. Give the grid operators some basic guidelines and they'll be able to take care of most problems. Bottom line, the power producers ain't making any money if the electric grid isn't working. That's usually enough incentive for them to "keep the lights on".