Overreliance on Renewables Leaves Americans Out in the Cold

R ight on the heels of Winter Storm Fern, which dumped several inches of snow and ice along the Eastern Seaboard, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) has released a startling report warning that half of America is at a high risk of summer and winter blackouts due to electricity demand growth, the announced retirement of reliable coal plants, and a continuing shift toward the unreliable wind, solar, and battery storage systems that failed to deliver during this week’s cold snap.

Thankfully, such blackouts are not a foregone conclusion, and unlike the way things were during the Biden presidency, the Trump administration appears to understand the scale of the challenge and is taking the correct steps to remedy the situation.

These days, the national conversation about energy differs a great deal from what it was just a few years ago. Electricity sales were essentially flat from 2010 through 2023, rising by just a little more than 3 percent over the course of those years, and the biggest issues in the popular energy discourse were decarbonization and the devastating impacts the Biden Environmental Protection Agency regulations on power plants would have on grid reliability. No more.

Over the past couple of years, data centers have become a hot topic in the world of energy usage, and it’s no wonder why. Data centers are massive buildings packed with computers that run nonstop to support cloud services, streaming, and artificial intelligence, and they require large amounts of electricity both to power the servers and to keep them cool. In 2023, data centers accounted for just 4 percent of total U.S. electricity consumption. By 2030, it could be 9 to 12 percent. According to NERC, data centers will increase the peak electricity demand on the power grid by 224 gigawatts (GW), or 29 percent, in the summer and 245 GW, or 35 percent, in the winter over the next decade.

Meeting this new demand would be exceedingly difficult under any circumstances. But it will be infinitely harder if we continue to prematurely retire existing reliable power plants, like the coal plants that increased their output by 31 percent during Winter Storm Fern compared with the previous week to keep the lights on. NERC urges state policymakers and utilities to “keep plans for deactivating existing generators flexible,” a polite way of asking them to stop making it harder to keep the lights on. If the first rule of holes is to stop digging, the first rule of electric grid reliability is to stop shutting down reliable power plants, including those powered by coal.

Lastly, NERC warns that “the continuing shift in the resource mix toward weather-dependent resources [i.e., wind, solar, and battery storage] and less fuel diversity [as coal plants retire] increases risks of supply shortfalls during winter months.” This is not a hypothetical situation; it is exactly what happened during Winter Storm Fern. Federal energy data show that wind and solar resources throughout the Midwest — the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) — and Texas — the Electricity Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) — faltered during the coldest parts of Winter Storm Fern. For example, wind generated just 7 to 16 percent of its potential output during peak demand in MISO and ERCOT, respectively, and solar generated 25 percent of its potential output when it was needed most. In comparison, the nation’s coal, natural gas, and nuclear plants increased their production to keep the power on as demand surged.

Thankfully, the Trump administration has taken aggressive action to shore up grid reliability and keep costs as low as possible. Much of the NERC report’s blackout projections for high-risk areas, like the Midwest and mid-Atlantic, are based on policy-driven coal generator retirements, as these reliable, affordable power plants were under attack from the Biden EPA, and many remain in jeopardy due to state climate mandates.

For example, in 2024, the Biden administration finalized EPA regulations on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants that would have effectively killed off the remaining coal plants and made it much more difficult to invest in the new natural gas facilities we desperately need. These regulations are now being rescinded, and as a result, utilities have no excuse to endanger the grid or worsen the affordability crisis already grabbing headlines by retiring their coal or natural gas facilities.

In states with carbon-free electricity mandates, such as Colorado, Michigan, and Washington, the Trump administration is issuing emergency orders to keep existing coal plants running. While these orders have been criticized by climate groups, keeping the plants online provided vital capacity during last week’s cold snap, when highly subsidized wind and solar facilities decided not to show up for work.

If only tax dollars could make the wind blow or the sun shine. Alas, last week’s wind and solar failure highlights the fact that America’s energy policy has had the exact wrong priorities for decades, dishing out lavish subsidies for unreliable wind and solar generators — a bipartisan problem — and shuttering reliable nuclear and coal-fired power plants.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act has begun to correct for this malinvestment in the energy sector by accelerating the phaseout of wind and solar subsidies — although Congress should have ended them immediately — sending a signal to the power industry that its capital is better invested in the reliable, dispatchable resources needed to meet the rising demand laid out by NERC.

Fixing what ails the grid will require states and utilities to first do no harm by shutting down reliable power generators, but it will also require Congress to understand that you can’t fix a reliability crisis by subsidizing unreliable resources. NERC’s analysis is a clear warning that dim-witted policy will leave us all in the dark. Hopefully, it’s not during another winter storm.

Isaac Orr is the Vice President of Research and Mitch Rolling is the Director of Research at Always On Energy Research, a nonprofit energy modeling firm.