By: Steve Barnett & Jim Matheson
South Dakota’s families and businesses rightfully expect their lights to stay on at a price they can afford. Our national energy policies should support our cooperative mission, which is to provide safe, reliable, and affordable electricity to our member-owners.
Unfortunately, our country is now confronted with a harsh reality – we are quickly approaching a point where there won’t be enough electricity to go around.
The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) is the nation’s grid watchdog. For years, the organization has issued a string of increasingly dire reports warning that threats to grid reliability are mounting and more frequent rolling blackouts could soon become the norm.
In fact, nine states experienced rolling blackouts at the end of 2022 as demand for electricity outstripped supply during a period of extreme cold. In its 2023-2024 Winter Reliability Assessment, NERC warned that half of the nation faces the same risk during extreme weather this winter.
Keeping the lights on is not a partisan issue. Yet, politics and energy policy have had an outsized impact on how we got here. The current state of our nation’s energy policy related to electricity can be summed up simply: Do more with less.
That’s just not sustainable. From data centers to EVs, from home heating and cooling to the way we run America’s farms, our nation is increasingly reliant on electricity to power the economy. As technology and energy demands advance, a recipe for rolling brownouts and blackouts is brewing.
Opposite that increasing demand for electricity is an alarming reduction in supply as our country shutters existing always available power plants to comply with various federal and state regulations.
South Dakota experiences extreme weather conditions throughout the year with temperatures rising above 100 degrees in the summer and falling far below zero in the winter. When the sun is not shining and when the wind is not blowing, renewable energy sources do not fit the bill for reliability. We simply cannot fully retire power plants that still have a useful life ahead of them.
The final challenge to meeting our nation’s energy needs is the arcane set of rules and regulations required to build anything in this country. The process for siting, permitting and building infrastructure - everything from solar farms, to pipelines to transmission lines - is mired in red tape and years of litigation.
These trends are not going to get any better in the coming years.
The EPA recently proposed a rule to overhaul the way always-available power plants operate – requiring them to either deploy carbon capture technology or run on clean hydrogen in seven years. The proposal is unlawful and will lead directly to more blackouts, higher costs, and uncertainty for America. That’s a dangerous approach to regulation.
We must have a serious conversation in this country about where we’re going and what it will take to realistically get there. Policymakers cannot overlook the laws of physics or the reality of the current situation. Adding more renewable resources to the nation’s energy portfolio can be part of the solution; however, since the wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine, our country also needs a robust supply of readily available energy resources to call on at a moment’s notice.
Any long-term solution requires policymakers to recognize the need for time, technology development and new transmission infrastructure. These are essential ingredients for an energy future that prioritizes reliable electricity for all consumers.
Electricity powers industries, businesses, and technology. It fosters economic development vital for medical facilities, ensuring the functioning of life-saving equipment. Reliable power is essential for emergency services, law enforcement, and disaster response efforts. It also fuels innovation by supporting research, development, and deployment of new technologies.
Keeping the lights on is vital to South Dakota’s economy. The stakes are too high to get this wrong.