Unplanned outages fell sharply in 2025/26 winter: FERC-NERC — SkimNews
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- FERC-NERC report finds peak unplanned power plant outages in the Eastern Interconnection dropped to ~49,700 MW in January, down from 90,500 MW during Winter Storm Elliott in December 2022
- ERCOT outages peaked at ~19,420 MW in January versus ~35,300 MW during Winter Storm Uri in February 2021, when the Texas Department of State Health Services estimated 246 deaths, mainly from hypothermia
- Despite near-record gas demand and U.S. electric use peaking at 666 GW, no manual load shedding occurred in ERCOT or the Eastern Interconnection, FERC Commissioner Lindsay See said, calling it "significant progress"
- Interregional power transfers played a key role — MISO imports peaked at ~9 GW mainly from PJM Interconnection and Canada, while Florida exported power during Winter Storm Fern but imported during Winter Storm Gianna, engineer Robert Clark noted
- The U.S. Department of Energy issued 15 first-ever emergency orders under the Federal Power Act authorizing backup generation at large loads during Fern and Gianna, and separately directed owners of three coal-fired units to delay planned retirements
- FERC and NERC staff flagged remaining gaps: better electric-gas coordination, improved load forecasting, and additional natural gas storage and pipeline capacity to ensure fuel availability during Arctic cold
Why it matters: Peak winter outages have dropped nearly 50% since Winter Storms Uri and Elliott, according to FERC and NERC — progress that held even as U.S. electric use hit 666 GW. But the same fuel-supply vulnerability that killed 246 in Texas during Uri (frozen equipment cutting off natural gas deliveries to generators) remains the next reliability gap staff are explicitly pressing on.
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