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Home / Podcast / Podcast: “We’re Facing a Reliability Crisis” – FERC’s Christie on the Changing Electric Grid

September 22, 2022

Podcast: “We’re Facing a Reliability Crisis” – FERC’s Christie on the Changing Electric Grid

By EPSA

In This Episode

Listen on Spotify, Google Podcasts, Pandora, Stitcher

Host: Todd Snitchler, President and CEO, Electric Power Supply Association 

Guest: Mark C. Christie, Commissioner, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)

In September’s episode of Energy Solutions, EPSA CEO Todd Snitchler sits down with Mark Christie, a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), to debrief this summer’s reliability challenges and discuss FERC’s views of the state of energy today. Christie, as an influential voice within the Commission, shares his two main focuses: cost and reliability, and emphasizes the need for dispatchable generation that keeps the lights on regardless of changing weather or demand spikes.  

“We are reaching a reliability crisis… Any engineer… will tell you that to keep the lights on, on a 24/7, 365-day basis,… you absolutely have to have what is called dispatchable generation… You cannot run a system strictly on intermittents. There’s a role for intermittents… This is not anti-wind or anti-solar. It’s just a position that we have to deal with reality, and you have to have a mix in your system of dispatchable resources as well as intermittents.” 

Commissioner Mark Christie, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

To read the transcript, click here.

Highlights

1:17 | Comm. Christie’s Main Concerns

7:23 | Electrification, Demand, and Extreme Weather

12:12 | Reserve Margin and Dispatchable Generation

16:08 | Tension Between State Policy & Federal Regulation

20:03 | How FERC Balances Reliability and the Energy Transition

26:51 | Rational Middle as Approach to the Energy Transition

29:51 | The Biggest Challenge Facing the American Power Grid Today: Reliability

32:07 | The Solution to the Reliability Problem: Baseload Generation

33:13 | Optimism: The Rise of New Technologies Such as SMRs

Production

Producer, Audio Editor: Christina Nyquist, communications director, Electric Power Supply Association 

Production Associate: Frances Owen, communications associate, Electric Power Supply Association 

Learn More:

NERC Report: Fossil Resources Still Needed for Reliability in a Transitioning Grid
Energy Solutions Ep. 5: When the Lights Go Out, It’s a Bad Day for Everyone
Competitive Power Series: Addressing Reliability in a Changing Grid 

Filed Under: Homepage Featured Article, Podcast Tagged With: affordability, energy solutions podcast, energy transition, FERC, intermittent, Mark C. Christie, reliability

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