federal energy regulatory commission

Workers install the foundation for a transmission tower at the CenterPoint Energy power plant on June 10, 2022, in Houston, Texas. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

Inside the battle over who gets to build the grid of the future

BY: - April 10, 2023

The U.S. Department of Energy issued a draft report in February that found a “pressing need” for new electric transmission infrastructure across the country to improve reliability, connect a rapidly growing number of solar, wind and battery storage projects, supply increasing electric demand and alleviate scattered pockets of consistently high prices across the country. To […]

Utility workers during winter storm Uri in 2021.

After a series of winter storms, regulators approve new standards for power plants

BY: - February 22, 2023

Two years after Winter Storm Uri, which caused a massive power failure in Texas that caused more than 200 deaths, and just two months after another storm, Elliott, forced blackouts in parts of the South, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has approved new extreme-cold reliability standards for power plants.  However, the vote last week on […]

Workers install the foundation for a transmission tower at the CenterPoint Energy power plant on June 10, 2022, in Houston, Texas. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

Amid a massive American clean energy shift, grid operators play catch-up

BY: - September 26, 2022

For the better part of the past century, the American electric power system evolved around large, mostly fossil fuel power plants delivering electricity to residences, businesses and industry through a network of transmission and distribution wires that collectively came to be called the electric grid. But as the threat of climate change driven by carbon […]