From: ScottW48@hotmail.com   
      
   Its "2023-2024 Winter Reliability Assessment" released Wednesday finds that   
   much of North America is at a risk of having insufficient energy supplies   
   during periods of extreme weather, and that the risk is becoming higher.   
   “The growth of intermittent    
   resources, like solar generation, on the distribution system significantly   
   increases load forecasting complexity and uncertainty. Once again, we strongly   
   recommend that operators take the necessary steps to prepare for winter,”   
   said Mark Olson, NERC’   
   s manager of reliability assessments, in a statement about the report.   
      
      
   All the areas of the eastern U.S. and Great Plains, with the exception of   
   Florida, parts of Southeast, and New York are at elevated risk, according to   
   the report. That means there’s a potential for the grids serving those areas   
   to experience blackouts    
   during high demand.   
      
   The report explains that during past events of extreme cold, more than 20% of   
   generating capacity is forced offline as a result of increased heating demand   
   and plants not being properly prepared to operate in extreme cold.    
   Exacerbating that problem, wind and solar energy only produce electricity   
   under the right weather conditions, which don’t always follow demand. To   
   ensure a reliable electricity supply the wind and solar farms have to be   
   backed up by dispatchable power,    
   which are generation resources that provide electricity almost continuously.   
   Those are primarily hydroelectric, which come from dams, nuclear energy,   
   natural gas-fired power plants and coal-fired power plants.   
      
   ScottW   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)