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NERC Report Raises New Questions About Colorado Energy Reliability
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Complete Colorado, Approved, State

NERC Report Raises New Questions About Colorado Energy Reliability

By: Sarah Montalbano | Complete Colorado The North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s (NERC) 2026 State of Reliability report contains lessons for Colorado’s electricity sector. While the grid as a whole “continues to deliver reliable electric service,” challenges are mounting thanks in part to the “declining availability of aging combustion generation.”  NERC’s report finds that power plants failed more in 2025, with the fleet-wide forced outage rate climbing to 9.2 percent against “historical norms rarely exceeding” 8 percent. Coal-fired plants saw their forced outage rate rise from 11.2% in 2024 to 14.1% in 2025. NERC surveyed owners of generators that s...
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DOE report warns of blackout risk soaring amid push to shut conventional power
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Power Engineering, Approved, National

DOE report warns of blackout risk soaring amid push to shut conventional power

By Paul Gerke, Kevin Clark | Power Engineering The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) began the week following Independence Day with a bang, releasing a report that the status quo is unsustainable for the U.S. electric grid. According to DOE, blackout risks in 2030 could be 100 times higher if the U.S. keeps shutting down conventional power plants. According to DOE’s analysis, the grid will not be able to sustain an estimated 104 gigawatts (GW) of baseload generation retirements by 2030 and isn’t prepared to meet the growth in electricity demand driven by data centers and artificial intelligence (AI). The DOE expects an additional 100 GW of new peak-hour supply to be needed by then; half of that growth is directly attributable to data centers. The United States has more tha...
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