While both American Electric Power and the Southwest Power Pool made mistakes that led to a blackout under good weather conditions in northwest Louisiana, the most prominent reason should serve as a warning going forward to state policy-makers.
AEP’s subsidiary Southwestern Electric Power last month had to cut power to around 30,000 people, most in Bossier Parish, for a few hours despite no damage from weather or other sources. It had to at the behest of SPP, because there wasn’t enough power available in SWEPCO’s service area. Trying to draw too much from outside wouldn’t have helped, and more from within would have been as likely to cause cascading failures within the service area.
SWEPCO came up short because it had taken offline temporarily some generation locations for maintenance. This act had been planned months in advance with the expectation that mild spring weather would place low demand on electricity, thus the reduced capacity still could serve all demand. However, unexpectedly high temperatures in the SWEPCO service abrogated that plan and forced the blackout.
So, both the nonprofit consortium and for-profit but heavily regulated company got it wrong. This all came out at a struggle session sponsored by the area’s Democrat Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell, who invited them to attend a show trial at the PSC’s May 19 next meeting, where he hoped somebody would pay customers for the inconvenience.
But the most important aspect to this, and the key to understanding it all, was indirectly addressed at several points: with dispatchable sources – which include coal, gas, and nuclear – being taken offline, the proportion of expected power from non-dispatchable sources – solar, wind, hydro, and battery – was that much higher and unable to keep up. That has become an issue because of the headlong leap AEP and other SPP providers have taken into renewable energy generation.
From 2005 to 2023, AEP’s share of dispatchable power – called that because it can be transmitted almost instantly relative to demand – fell from 95 percent to 77 percent, while non-dispatchable sources went from 4 to 21 percent. But by AEP’s goal, the party hardly has started. By 2033, it hopes to have renewable sources contributing half of all generation with fossil fuels and nuclear altogether just under that. Similarly, from 2012 to 2023 SPP saw coal and gas drop from 86 percent to 54 percent, while wind jumped to the highest single source from 8 to 37 percent.
This is as a result of phasing out fossil fuel sources, particularly coal, for presumed environmental reasons, while replacing this portion with renewable generation. Of course, the problem with this is the sun doesn’t always shine or the wind doesn’t blow adequately all the time, forcing utilities to spend extra on reliable, dispatchable backup that makes reliance on renewable resources far more expensive in per reliable unit costs.
The problem is, politicians like Campbell try to force utilities into taking the more expensive path for no good reason, as heavier reliance on these is the consequence of the article of faith necessary to believe in catastrophic anthropogenic global warming, which is an evidence-free belief system. Then they complain about how rates need to be lower, so utilities become forced to gamble on scrimping on dispatchable sources.
Add to this the hyperbolically-extending demand for electricity courtesy of the technology industry the last thing of which it needs is in non-dispatchable form, and it’s clear if the PSC is to address this event, it must be in a manner that encourages gas and nuclear solutions and even reversing decommissioning of coal mining operations. It can’t make AEP or the other main provider in the state, Entergy, or energy cooperatives halt their ill-advised rush to renewable sources, but it can implement a response that Campbell has advocated for in this instance: heavy fines.
The PSC should not force reparations for customers affected by the outage – SWEPCO did lose considerable revenues, after all, which is a punishment – but it should fine. This stick will make providers think more seriously about reducing reliance, if not increasing this slowly, on renewable sources. Consumers will thank all involved when as a result they have access to cheaper and more reliable power.
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