What Utilities Learned from Winter Storm Fern
When Winter Storm Fern swept across the United States last month, it served as a stress test for the grid hardening measures that utilities have employed in the last few years. As a large swath of the U.S. froze, there was intense scrutiny of how the grid would hold up.
In Texas, a combination of infrastructure winterization and a diversified grid — including new batteries — allowed ERCOT to hold the line. It was the Southeast that ultimately saw the most outages, due to frozen equipment and iced-over lines.
But the debate over why the grid mostly held continues, with stakeholders tending to view the conversation through the lens of their own resource of choice. Even the U.S. Department of Energy has entered the fray, emphasizing the minimal role of coal in keeping the lights on.
Ad Hoc Group founder and CEO Jim Kapsis joined Latitude Media editor Lisa Martine Jenkins on Latitude Dispatch to dissect the impact of the storm.