On July 20th, 2026, Southwest Power Pool West (SPPW), the newest regional transmission organization (RTO) area in America, declared an Energy Emergency Alert 3, narrowly avoiding rolling blackouts. According to GridStatus, SPPW’s close call was caused by high demand, exceedingly low wind generation, a forced outage at a 250 MW coal unit, and reduced solar output. In all likelihood, SPPW […]

As if to welcome the nation’s utility regulators to Minneapolis for the National Association of Regulatory Commissioners (NARUC) summer meeting next week, MISO declared an Energy Emergency Alert Level 2 on Wednesday, July 15th, citing forced generation outages, above-normal temperatures, and higher-than-forecasted load. Interestingly, MISO did not mention that its wind resources, which constitute 33,687 megawatts (MW) of installed capacity and […]