Report: As power grids rapidly transform, cooperation is needed to mitigate risks

As residential and transportation technology continues to evolve, the demand for power is increasing exponentially. This demand comes at a time when power producers are grappling with the unprecedented challenges of climate change and the impacts of increasingly devastating severe weather events.

An annual report from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation outlines five “significant evolving and interdependent risks—energy policy, grid transformation, resilience to extreme events, security risks and critical infrastructure interdependencies” administrators must overcome.

“Energy policy is a new risk profile and has broad implications across the risk profiles, the report notes, as it catalyzes changes and has the potential to amplify their effects. Consequently, energy policy can drive change in bulk power system (BPS) planning and operations in short time periods, affecting reliability and resilience,” reads a statement about the findings from the reliability corporation, which is a not-for-profit international regulatory authority.

The analysis, titled the 2023 ERO Reliability Risk Priorities Report, highlights a need to coordinate with federal, regional, and state policy makers, and owners and operators of power systems. Collaboration is key to future reliability—and this trend will only grow in importance as climate change increasingly impacts systems.

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