North America’s electricity grid faces a shortfall of power. A grid policy expert explores one region’s efforts to ensure reliability and the controversies its proposals have raised. 

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In December, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, or NERC, released its annual assessment of grid reliability across North America. The results were concerning.

NERC, which is the organization responsible for setting grid reliability standards, reported that electricity supply is struggling to keep up with rapidly growing demand across much of the U.S. and Canada. In several major grid regions, electricity shortfalls could occur under challenging conditions within the next one to three years.

On the podcast, Abe Silverman, assistant research scholar at the Ralph O’Connor Sustainable Energy Institute at Johns Hopkins University, discusses the threat of electricity supply shortages with a focus on one area of the grid in particular, the PJM Interconnection. PJM is the largest regional grid operator in the U.S., serving 65 million people in the eastern part of the country. PJM recently announced that it, too, could face a capacity shortage as early as 2026.

To date, the grid operator has undertaken a complex set of actions to address its challenges, with more efforts on the way. Silverman explores PJM’s looming supply shortfall, and examines the steps it’s taking to shore up supply. He also explains the controversies that some of these actions have raised.

Abraham Silverman is an assistant research scholar at the Ralph O’Connor Sustainable Energy Institute at Johns Hopkins University, and former general counsel for the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities.

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Energy Policy Now is produced by The Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. For all things energy policy, visit kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu

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