Government policy and challenges getting projects online complicate energy policy and may have grave consequences.
The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), a nonprofit corporation that oversees regional organizations that support energy reliability, has released its annual long-term reliability assessment of the United States electrical grid. It identified large portions of the United States and Canada as high- or elevated-risk areas for energy reliability. Those areas included Texas, where the cryptocurrency mining industry is seeking to expand.
Both development and demand are rising “faster than at any time in the past five or more years.” New projects are being planned at a rate that challenges operator management, and the industry of facing pressure from mounting demands for energy and on transmission system adequacy, the report said.
Nine states saw rolling blackouts in December 2022, Mateson added.
