The U.S. “2021-2022 Winter Reliability Assessment” was released Nov. 18, by NERC (North American Electric Reliability Corp.) projecting unreliability and potential outages over the next three months (December-February) for Texas and the Central States, due to lack of base electric resources. Also, low hydropower in the West, and “natural gas supply disruptions in infrastructure-limited areas” can potentially cause electricity outages, in particular in New England. A map and summary give detailed projections.
Both generation resources and transmission systems are judged inadequate from place to place. The NERC forecast also covers the potential impact from “insufficient weatherization” plans and work, and gives a map for both the U.S. and Canada, showing “assessed unavailable capacity” under severe Winter conditions.
