Reliable Electricity During Winter Storms Requires Clean Energy and Transmission Investments, Not More Gas

As millions of people across the United States are experiencing heavy snow and ice, with roughly 60 million people under winter weather alerts, losing power is a massive safety and public health concern. More than 300,000 people were without power this morning due to distribution grid outages, and the severe cold increases the possibility of rolling blackouts due to electricity shortages. The rolling blackout risk winter storms pose is especially pronounced due to the United States’ overreliance on gas power plants.

Research by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) shows gas power plants can fail at alarming rates during extreme weather. From 2011 to 2022, there were five extreme winter storms that jeopardized the reliability of the U.S. electric grid largely due to fuel issues and plant equipment failures. During Winter Storm Uri in Texas, for example, the consequences were tragic and 246 people lost their lives.

There are readily deployable solutions to this pronounced vulnerability to U.S. power systems. In New England, further UCS research found offshore wind to be a winter powerhouse, as the storms that threaten gas and other fossil fuel plants on land generate massive amounts of wind energy at sea. Increasing offshore wind capacity would prevent price spikes during storms and safeguard the electric grid from dangerous blackouts. Other clean resources such as energy storage and demand-side solutions can also go a long way in reliably powering a net-zero-emissions power grid.

As Paul Arbaje, an energy analyst at UCS explains in his new blogpost, long-range transmission lines are another key solution to preventing harmful, costly grid failures during extreme winter storms. “Increasing the country’s long-range transmission capacity will allow much more renewable and energy storage capacity to come onto the grid,” writes Arbaje. “This new generating capacity, coupled with more transmission capacity, will enable us to share far more electricity between regions during extreme weather events. It will also allow us to reduce our reliance on centralized thermal power plants, such as gas plants, which have been disproportionately vulnerable to failure and the largest contributor to grid reliability problems during recent winter storms.”