One hyperscaler, for example, has embedded PJM grid telemetry into its scheduling systems and partnered with two utilities to reduce AI processing workloads during periods of grid stress.34 The US Department of Energy projects about 104 GW of coal and natural gas retirements by 2030, offset by 209 GW of new capacity.11 Yet only 10% of those additions will be firm baseload, widening the reliability gap (figure 1).12 In 2025, rising load forecasts and shrinking capacity margins prompted utilities and regulators to emphasize near-term reliability alongside long-term planning. According to Deloitte analysis, peak demand is projected to grow by approximately 26% by 2035, testing today’s grid limits.1 The surge was driven by artificial intelligence training workloads, alongside electrification https://orwell.ru/test/web/ in transportation and industry. His focus areas include utility generation and distribution, gas transmission–related midstream activities, and storage, as well as nuclear generation, independent power production, and renewable energy.

“Energy-only markets have the potential to result in an equilibrium point for the market that is not consistent with what users and regulators want to see”, so every wholesale electricity market in the world relies on offer caps in some form. As any capacity-based scheme, this approach relies on credible estimates of firm capacity. These monopoly utilities had an incentive to overestimate the peak demand in order to build more capacity and justify an increase in their regulator-approved rates. When discussing the future capacity needs, the planning reserve margin term is used for the metric. Installed reserve margin (IRM) is the amount of the generating capacity in excess of the expected load, calculated to satisfy the loss of load expectation, typically 1 day in 10 years. Resource adequacy (RA, also supply adequacy) in the field of electric power is the ability of the electric grid to satisfy the end-user power demand at any time (typically an issue at the peak demand).

Learn how MISO uses PLEXOS® to enhance resource adequacy with advanced modeling that captures increasingly complex energy systems. Utilities must also incorporate granular demand forecasts, account for policy uncertainty, and evaluate new business models, such as data centers building on-site generation to “self-power” and potentially avoiding grid reliance altogether. This complex mix of factors, taken together with the United States’ shift in energy priorities, means utility planners must increasingly embrace an “all of the above” approach to resource adequacy. For the consumer, this could eventually mean a more resilient power supply and a buffer against the rising costs of energy transmission. This is known as congestion pricing, and it costs American ratepayers billions of dollars annually. A primary driver behind this DOE Grid Infrastructure Investment is the need to lower consumer costs.

What the EU’s carbon market is costing American industry

PCI Energy Solutions provides optimized tools to help manage your organization’s participation across SPP’s wholesale, capacity, and ancillary service markets. Markets Plus would centralize day-ahead and real-time commitment and dispatch, enabling more reliable integration of renewable generation resources across the western regions of the SPP network. It is designed to provide day-ahead and real-time market services to improve reliability and integrate renewable resources more efficiently. In 2014, EIS was replaced with the more robust Integrated Marketplace, which includes EIS’ Real-Time market as well as a Day-Ahead market with transmission congestion rights and a reliability unit commitment process.

Current RA Proceeding: R.23-10-011

Complicating matters are changing weather patterns – hot spells and cold snaps – and demands on the grid from both distributed energy resources and increasing variable wind and solar resources. The increased use of renewable resources and the intermittency of these resources create more uncertainty of supply continuing to meet demand at every moment during the day. Historically the resource mix in the Northwest included coal, hydro, and other thermal resources. Resource adequacy is one element of a reliable electric system.

This example illustrates how inattention and imperfect pass-through of retail prices to consumers mean higher wholesale market prices may not always reduce the electricity demanded. A consumer who buys toilet paper typically does not also buy the assurance that there will be toilet paper available to buy in the future. The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas estimated the total economic cost of the outages at $4.3 billion (Golding et al. 2021).

• Historically the resource mix in the Northwest included coal, hydro, and other thermal resources.
• In addition, with increased interest in storage and demand response, the duration of the resource adequacy events increasingly affects availability.
• Per Wolak, lower offer caps complicate the situation, as do the electrification of space heating, adoption of electric vehicles, and an increasing share of the variable renewable energy sources.
• The US Department of Energy projects about 104 GW of coal and natural gas retirements by 2030, offset by 209 GW of new capacity.11 Yet only 10% of those additions will be firm baseload, widening the reliability gap (figure 1).12
• The report also identified best practices in resource adequacy planning for the Southwestern utilities to follow, including a probabilistic analysis framework that would allow them to capture the effects of a volatile climate, as well as an effective load carrying capability methodology that evaluates resource capacity values in an equitable fashion.

Sept. 22, 2025 – Meeting Resources

The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) guidance emphasizes that AI should serve as a decision-support tool rather than an autonomous controller.42 In line with this, the industry is beginning to put safeguards in place—such as model registries, audit trails, and risk controls. In 2025, US data centers emerged as one of the fastest-growing sources of https://www.softcourier.com/list.php?cat=System%20Utilities%3A%3ASystem%20Maintenance&page=58 electricity demand. The Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition also pointed to the CRGA as an important step to addressing the projected shortfalls, however, passing “commonsense guardrails for data centers” is “the next critical step” to protecting Illinois’ ability to meet energy demands in the future. Though Illinois zones are considered “resource adequate” today, sources of energy across Illinois are becoming increasingly constrained.

PART 2 of 2: ERCOT Large Load Integration Strategies and Forecast

However, customers of electric utilities frequently do not have an ability to shift their consumption away from high-priced periods (consider, for example, the space heating needs). Electricity markets are quite unique in their need for an RA mechanism, even though the high fixed cost/low marginal cost nature of electricity production is fairly typical among other industries that have no problems recovering production costs and generating return on investment at market-determined prices. In the case of a vertically integrated electric utility RA was part of the integrated resource planning, done by the utility itself, additional expenses were negotiated with regulators that were representing the captive customers. About PPLPPL Corporation, headquartered in Allentown, Pennsylvania, is a leading U.S. energy company focused on providing electricity and natural gas safely, reliably and affordably to more than 3.6 million customers in the U.S. With surging demand from data centers, increasing retirements of aging dispatchable generation, and the vast majority of resources in PJM’s interconnection queue being intermittent with historically low completion rates, new solutions are needed now.

Is the risk of capacity shortages only during the peak demand period?

That includes understanding not only what a utility plans to build, but also what other players in the market are doing. With this approach, reliability demands tapping and orchestrating all available resources — from dispatchable resources like coal, natural gas, and nuclear power plants, to variable utility-scale wind and solar plants, demand response, and DERs. What’s more, the report explained, the presence of inverter-based resources like solar, wind, and batteries increases reliability risks because they sometimes trip offline during grid disturbances. The combination of accelerating load growth and a growing proportion of renewables is an immediate reliability concern.

A challenge today, not in the distant future

The New England electric grid could require up to $1 billion in annual transmission investments through 2050 to support the clean energy transition, but even with that level of spending the grid operator said it will still face potential resource adequacy challenges. Batteries make up 46% of ISO New England’s interconnection queue, but the grid operator said https://www.yaldex.com/Bestsoft/Utilities.htm that as peak demand grows they may “struggle to recharge during the winter months.” This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.

Electric power is an essential resource for households, businesses, and economies, from keeping lights and life support machines on to powering water conveyance and transportation networks. The resource mix in the United States continues to undergo a transformative period that started for many parts of the country in the early-2000s and has accelerated during the past decade.