No sports team can rely on one or two players, even if they’re superstars, to win a championship. The same can be said for America’s challenge to ensure reliable electricity generation.

For decades, Americans have enjoyed a level of reliability in the electric sector that has been the envy of the world. This reliability has facilitated economic growth and served as a pillar of high-tech engineering and manufacturing that has transformed 21st century society. Significantly, this achievement has been rooted in a diverse mix of electricity sources spanning fossil fuels, nuclear energy, hydro and renewable technologies.

In recent years, however, this diversity has shown signs of waning, with potentially serious implications.

Natural gas currently and appropriately is the electricity generation source of choice with its relatively low price and plentiful supply. But if the past is a prologue to the future, that may not always be the case. During the recent polar vortex, gas pipelines serving New England were constrained, contributing to a near-doubling of the region’s gas prices from the previous winter. The regional system operator, ISO-New England, already has warned that unless the weather is mild, next winter will be even more challenging because of planned power plant retirements.

The prospect of price spikes and power interruptions is always cause for concern. Particularly during extreme weather, the availability of electricity to power furnaces and air conditioners can be the difference between life and death for at-risk populations. Even under normal circumstances, it’s imperative for our long-term energy security and economic health that the nation maintains a diversified portfolio of energy sources and technologies.

The numbers tell the foreboding story of the threat of diminished reliability in the U.S. electric sector. There are about one million megawatts of combined electricity generating capacity. It comes chiefly from coal, natural gas, nuclear and hydroelectric generating facilities (more than 900,000 megawatts combined).

Consensus estimates are that as much as 100,000 megawatts of generating capacity will be closed by 2020. A significant portion will be the coal-fired plants that, along with nuclear plants, constitute the backbone of our power grid and have helped bring about the reliability of electricity supply that we, not surprisingly, take for granted.

The benefits to society from this reliability are immeasurable, but it would be unwise to believe that America’s blessings in this regard will easily remain with us. An array of federal and state policies and agency rulemakings, such as the imminent EPA final rule focused on cooling water intake structures, affect decisions on the viability of hundreds of existing power plants as well as the construction or lack thereof of new generating plants. Regional electricity markets that fail to fully value the different attributes of our alternative electric generating capacity—i.e., the importance of having facilities that undergird and stabilize the electric grid—similarly threaten the economic viability of many power plants.

Actually, evidence of a stressed electric system already is apparent. Last year, a University of Minnesota study found that electricity blackouts have become more commonplace, even when one excludes interruptions caused by extreme weather. Even with limited growth in electricity demand (the U.S. Energy Information Administration predicts less than one percent annual growth over the next 30 years), this reduction in reliability is troubling.

Add in the warning from Mark Mills, CEO of Digital Power Group, that the emergence of the “digital economy” means that the type of electricity demanded in future decades will differ significantly from historical demand. Specifically, new demand will center on electricity-consuming devices and infrastructure that are always on.

This yields two major conclusions regarding the electric grid:

  • Policymakers must place a value on diversity in fuel and technology to generate power.
  • Regional electricity markets that fail to fully value electric capacity that can be dispatched when needed 24/7 must be fixed and fixed soon.

Over the past year, the owners of efficient and cost-effective nuclear energy facilities in Wisconsin and Vermont announced their closing. These are losses to the regions served and in the communities where the facilities have provided hundreds of well-paying careers on top of massive contributions to local tax bases. Based purely on operating efficiency, these plants would still be operating (Vermont Yankee retires at the end of this year) if they were located in states with regulated electricity markets or with better-designed competitive electricity markets.

Given that nuclear energy facilities are by far the leading low-carbon source of electricity generation (comprising 64 percent of the low-carbon electricity produced nationally) and generate large amounts of electricity around the clock, these distortions in the markets resulting in premature closings make no sense in terms of our national energy or environmental interests.

While five new reactors are under construction in the Southeast, where electric markets are structured differently than they are in the Midwest and New England, our nation will need more if we want reliable power while also meeting our environmental goals. State and federal policymakers, working with industry and other stakeholders, should embrace the policies that are functioning well and correct those that aren’t.