Professor Wiseman coauthors forthcoming paper arguing for new approaches to grid reliability

For two straight years, severe storms have left millions of customers without power. In February 2021, Winter Storm Uri’s record snowfall and cold temperatures led to extended power outages when demand for electricity spiked at the same time as un-weatherized power plants failed to generate as much energy as expected. In December 2022, an Arctic cold front swept across the country, leaving another two million customers in the dark.

At the same time, the U.S. has been entering a new “electric era,” electrifying many sectors—including the transportation and heating sectors—while simultaneously transitioning the grid itself to be powered by clean energy technologies. But the regulators responsible for overseeing bulk power system reliability, led by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), may not be adapting as quickly as needed.

New resources and new challenges demand new approaches to grid reliability, argue Kleinman Center and Carey Law Professor Shelley Welton and her coauthors, Joshua Macey of the University of Chicago Law School and Hannah Wiseman of Penn State Law. In a forthcoming paper, Welton and her coauthors suggest that NERC’s existing model of reliability governance may be insufficient to meet the evolving challenges facing the U.S. electric grid. They also propose a suite of reforms designed to increase accountability in reliability regulation.