America Can Save the Electric Grid or the Wind and Solar Grift, Not Both

A Time for Choosing is at hand

America's electric grid is experiencing an emerging reliability crisis. While blackouts have already occurred, in the next five to ten years the grid will face a growing risk of widespread rolling blackouts due to surging power demand, federal regulations incentivizing the retirement of reliable coal and natural gas power plants, and a proliferation of unreliable wind and solar resources.

Unfortunately, many Republican members of Congress don’t seem to understand that federal subsidies for wind and solar included in the so-called Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) are the driving forces behind the emerging reliability crisis, and any continued support for these taxpayer handouts will bring America’s grid closer to the brink of blackouts.

If we want to save our electric grid, a choice needs to be made between policies that support reliable and affordable power and policies that merely soak up federal subsidies and erode the backbone of the grid. Our federal lawmakers have an opportunity to use the reconciliation process to help fix this problem—and save taxpayers trillions of dollars—by repealing the Production Tax Credit (PTC) and the Investment Tax Credit (ITC) once and for all.

As grid reliability declines, policymakers can choose to save the electric grid or choose to save the wind and solar grift—they cannot choose both. The choice really is that simple.

The Brink of Blackouts

According to the latest Long-Term Reliability Assessment (LTRA) by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), much of America already faces an elevated or high risk of rolling blackouts in the next five years.

These areas are at risk of blackouts due to rising power demand for data centers and other applications, the retirement of coal, natural gas, and nuclear power plants, and the simple fact that wind and solar are not capable of matching the reliability attributes of the thermal generators they are allegedly replacing.

The region most at risk is the Midcontinent Independent Systems Operator (MISO), which could see rolling blackouts during normal summer and winter grid conditions as early as the summer of 2025, meaning it won’t take a freak winter storm or heatwave to strain the grid.

According to NERC, MISO will experience capacity shortfalls beginning in the summer of 2025. Summer shortfalls persist for every year except 2027.

MISO is most at risk because retiring coal plants are being replaced by mostly solar, wind, and battery facilities. Unfortunately for MISO, and other regions following in its footsteps, solar, wind, and battery facilities have a pesky habit of not showing up to work.

While MISO is at high risk of experiencing electricity supply shortfalls beginning in the Summer of 2025 based on planning reserve margins derived from anticipated resources and demand forecasts, it will also experience shortfalls in the winter months, as well. As the graph below shows, MISO is well below target reserve margins moving into 2029-30.

What’s the Harm in Extending the Subsidies?

NERC explains the changes compromising grid reliability are primarily driven by “economic, policy, and regulatory factors” (emphasis added) that are leading to the retirement of much-needed fossil-fuel generators.

It’s essential for red-state policymakers to understand that subsidies for wind and solar are no longer the mostly harmless, “bring home the bacon,” pork-barrel projects they were in the early 1990s when subsidies were first established to jump-start these fledging industries.

Instead, wind and solar subsidies have been co-opted by unelected bureaucrats to make them the primary weapon in the regulatory state’s war on reliable and affordable electricity.

For example, in 2024, the Biden Administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) claimed that the IRA subsidies, and not its regulations on carbon dioxide emissions from coal and natural gas power plants, would be responsible for most of the coal and natural gas plant closures on the electric grid as companies shift to more wind, solar, and battery storage.

The IRA is a disingenuous accounting gimmick that allowed the EPA to pretend that its regulations on greenhouse gas emissions on coal and natural gas power plants would not cost the country hundreds of billions, if not trillions, of dollars in compliance costs. As a result, the IRA subsidies were the primary enabler of the EPA’s regulatory overreach by allowing the agency to claim the rules passed a cost-benefit test.

Lawmakers must understand that the subsidies are no longer only used to incentivize wind and solar; the administrative state is also using them to punish the dispatchable power plants that keep the lights on and force them to close for good. This is why lawmakers cannot choose wind and solar subsidies and also have a reliable grid.

This new development steadily erodes the grid's reliability, just like the warm days of early spring erode the thickness of the ice underneath the last ice fisherman on the lake. If you ignore the changing conditions long enough, you will eventually suffer the consequences.

Photo credit THV 11: “Fortunately, the driver of the truck was able to escape his sinking vehicle and pull himself to safety. He told authorities that a friend on a snowmobile told him the ice was safe.”

Conclusion

Repealing the subsidies for wind and solar will save the American taxpayer trillions of dollars, but also the electric grid as a whole. The subsidies in the IRA encourage a host of irrational energy decisions that actively undermine the reliability of our most important energy infrastructure.

Lawmakers can either vote to save the grid or save the green grift; they can’t do both.

Unfortunately, the room for middle ground is dwindling with the closure of the nation’s coal plants. Let’s hope it won’t take an event—or several—like Winter Storm Uri for policymakers to understand the gravity of the situation.

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