News & Blog

History and folklore abound with stories of oracles and prognosticators that shaped the course of civilization. The cryptic words of the Oracle at Delphi sent Greek kings on to both legendary conquests and ignominious defeats, and one 16th century monk has parts of the Catholic world expecting the new Pope to be the very last.…

Resource adequacy (RA) programs — from PJM’s Reliability Pricing Model to California’s Resource Adequacy Program — are facing pressure from multiple directions: load growth, changes in generation mix, emerging technologies, interdependencies with fuel supply operations and regulations, extreme weather, energy policy, and interconnection bottlenecks. In response to these stressors, many RA programs, already complex, are…

Successful basketball teams include players with a variety of talents—three-point shooting, rebounding, defending, passing. However, assembling a team where every player excels in all these areas is impractical (and likely prohibitively expensive and difficult to coach). Instead, prudent coaches identify specific skills gaps and recruit players to fill the gaps. In the energy world, a…

Since 2022, many large electronic-based loads have connected to the ERCOT Interconnection. ERCOT has observed that much of this load exhibits voltage-sensitive behavior and will immediately reduce consumption under moderate voltage disturbances. This has the potential to adversely affect reliability, so ERCOT has been actively monitoring load behavior and considering grid code changes to maintain…

The global transition to renewable energy sources, and in particular the increased penetration levels of wind and solar in many jurisdictions, has led to new challenges in power system reliability associated with the integration of these variable, weather-driven generation resources into the electric grid. Forecasting of the variable generation on a wide range of time scales…

Delivering a Cost-Efficient Energy Transition with Flexibility Europe’s commitment to net-zero emissions by 2050, coupled with the energy crisis and the Russian aggression towards Ukraine, has accelerated the push for electrification and renewable energy (e.g., Fit455, RED III, RePowerEU). This transition requires significant investment in distribution grids, a point underscored by Eurelectric’s “Grids for Speed”…

  Imagine this: It’s the 1960s and the world watches as the United States and the Soviet Union square off through several different venues to compete for military, cultural, industrial, geopolitical, and scientific might and influence. Having lost some of the initial forays, an emboldened President Kennedy in 1962 launched the need for an unprecedented call…

Coming out of the ESIG fall technical workshop in Providence, RI, the state of capacity expansion planning in utility applications is on my mind. The workshop offered plenty of food for thought. There were several sessions on how utilities are integrating more comprehensive capacity expansion approaches in their planning processes. These have been driven by…

Grid United Overview Grid United, a transmission development company, is leading the charge for applying concepts of resource adequacy, reliability, and financial value of interregional high-voltage DC (HVDC) transmission lines to the grid. This is especially true for projects such as North Plains Connector (NPC), a jointly developed project with the energy supplier ALLETE. North Plains…

  Decarbonizing electricity systems will require high levels of flexibility from loads that can be leveraged as flexible solutions at both the bulk power system and distribution system levels. Traditional demand response (DR) programs such as direct load control will continue to play an important role, but price-based DR programs, implemented through time-based rates, are…