Washington, D.C. (September 26, 2023)—Today, SAFE’s Grid Security Project (GSP) released a report, Grid in Peril: The Problem Statement, detailing the significant risks that threaten the U.S. electrical power grid’s ability to provide reliable and resilient electric power.
This report outlines the confluence of current and emerging challenges facing this essential infrastructure as the U.S. transitions to more sustainable and renewable energy sources:
- Demand is increasing as the United States grows and reindustrializes its economy while rapidly electrifying the vehicle fleet.
- Incremental transmission capacity is imperative but faces permitting obstacles and regulatory barriers.
- Traditional resources will remain essential to meet demand but may struggle to remain viable as the grid evolves.
- External threats including cyber and physical attacks, extreme weather, and generation and transmission deficiencies threaten our grid’s resilience.
“Managing the energy transition to minimize disruption, increase security, and ensure affordable and reliable access to sustainable energy for all households and business is vital if our economy and transportation systems will successfully become more electrified. This requires careful and strategic coordination between public regulators and private sector providers,” said SAFE CEO Robbie Diamond. “It is only with abundant, affordable, clean, and reliable energy that the United States will be able to reindustrialize and remain the preeminent economy in the world.”
Currently, federal and state policies don’t adequately address the known risks to the United States’ electrical grid. To break the stalemate, government and industry must start a fresh dialogue based on a candid assessment of challenges and opportunities.
“Extreme weather events, cyber espionage and domestic terror attacks, combined with increasing demand on aging infrastructure have turned the occasional power failure into alarmingly common events in cities across the United States,” said Thomas Coleman, executive director of SAFE’s Grid Security Project. “Unless we act with urgency—through active engagement with state and federal regulators—these ‘black swan’ events threaten only to become more frequent, costly, and lethal, undermining larger energy transition and infrastructure goals, as well as our national security.”
Grid in Peril is the first in a series of reports from SAFE’s Grid Security Project. Future reports will look in more detail at the problems and recommend concrete policy actions regulators and lawmakers can take to ensure a more secure, reliable, affordable, and sustainable power grid.
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About SAFE’s Grid Security Project (GSP)
SAFE’s Grid Security Project provides policy analysis and recommendations to reverse the potentially devastating trends facing America’s power grid and to build out the national electrical infrastructure. More reliable and affordable power will be necessary to support the mass adoption of electric vehicles and enable America’s reindustrialization. The Grid Security Project formalizes SAFE’s long-time thought-leadership and advocacy for the security and resiliency of the electrical grid. Climate change, electrification, and reindustrialization all pose unprecedented challenges to the power grid paradigm.
About SAFE
SAFE is an action-oriented, nonpartisan organization committed to transportation and energy policy solutions that advance the economic and national security of the United States, its partners, and allies. SAFE has convened business and former military leaders since 2004 to advocate for secure, resilient, and sustainable energy solutions. Visit secureenergy.org to learn more.
Media Contact
Leslie Hayward | lhayward@secureenergy.org | Phone: (908) 420 2905
