The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, and its Regional Entities said on Sept. 10 that the country’s Bulk-Power System demonstrated strong performance during extreme cold weather events earlier this year, with no significant disruptions in either the natural gas or electric systems.
The report credits the improved performance to the implementation of recommendations from previous winter storm reports, as well as 202(c) emergency orders issued by the Secretary of Energy.
The joint report, launched in March following Winter Storms Fern and Gianna, found that generator outages during those storms were comparable in magnitude to the outages experienced during the January 2025 arctic events, but with improvements compared to prior winter storms. Contributing factors include:
- Applying insights from past cold weather events and previous winter storm reports;
- Advanced commitments by generators ahead of the cold weather events;
- Strengthened preparedness and improved situational awareness;
- Implementation of NERC cold weather reliability standards; and
- Additional resource availability stemming from emergency orders issued by the Secretary of Energy.
The natural gas system also performed well throughout the extreme weather, with only moderate production declines and some limited, short-duration force majeure events reported.
Although electric and natural gas entities are implementing recommendations from previous cold weather events, additional opportunities remain to further strengthen reliability during future cold weather events, including:
- Additional build out of natural gas infrastructure;
- Improved communication and coordination between the natural gas and electric industries; and
- Improved load forecasting.
The entire report may be viewed here.
