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 […]

Pennsylvania legislators have prioritized electricity affordability this year. First, they exited the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), the multistate carbon-tax compact. Then, with the newly passed state budget, they defeated Gov. Josh Shapiro’s Lightning Plan, which would have layered an additional in-state carbon tax and expanded Pennsylvania’s clean-energy mandate.  But Pennsylvania’s Alternative Energy Portfolio Standard (AEPS) remains on the books, unexamined for 20 years. […]

Battery storage has long been touted as the solution to wind and solar intermittency—or the variable nature of wind and solar electricity production. A recent report co-authored by Mitch Rolling and Jonathan Lesser, Ph.D., for the National Center of Energy Analytics (NCEA), put this to the test. The report, Batteries and the Grid: Hype, Hope, and Economic […]

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 […]

Isaac Orr, Vice President of Research at Always On Energy Research, joined Fox 5’s Good Day D.C. to discuss whether the electric grid can keep up with AI-driven data center growth. Orr said data centers are currently winning the race against new power plant construction, and that the fastest fix is to stop retiring coal […]

In President Donald Trump’s second term in office, the administration has sought to boost the coal industry’s fortunes by reducing regulatory and permitting hurdles, opening millions of acres for coal leasing, issuing 202(c) Emergency Orders to temporarily keep several coal plants from closing, and approving Department of Energy (DOE) funds for upgrades, extensions, and even new coal builds […]

Always On Vice President of Research Isaac Orr joined Good Morning Liberty to explain why grid reliability went from a 2030s worry to a near-term one. AI data centers and electric vehicle mandates are piling new demand onto a system that keeps retiring coal and nuclear capacity, and Orr points to NERC warning of high […]

Always On energy policy analyst Sarah Montalbano joined the Steve Gruber Show to talk about why electricity bills keep climbing in Michigan and around the country. Montalbano explains that regulated utility monopolies recover costs through guaranteed rate increases, which is why wind and solar mandates and the infrastructure buildout they require add so much to […]

On Fox 5 Live Zone with Guy Lambert, Amy Cooke pushed back on the claim that AI data centers are driving up your electric bill. The affordability crisis dates back to resource and generation policies set 5 to 10 years ago, when states bet on expensive, unreliable power and still needed to maintain a second […]

Always On Energy Research’s policy analyst, Sarah Montalbano, joined WERC Alabama’s Morning News to talk data centers and how states like Alabama can welcome the economic opportunity without sticking residential ratepayers with the bill. The conversation covered bring-your-own-power frameworks, consumer-regulated electricity, and why market-friendly policy beats blunt instruments like moratoriums. If private capital is going […]