While the grid still relies on a good amount of coal-based power, a growing share of power is coming from renewable sources, like solar and wind power, which will hopefully make the grid more sustainable. Last year, about 40 percent of the country’s electricity generation came from natural gas. The grid is woefully unprepared for an imminent and disturbing future. People who are elderly, very young, who have certain medication conditions, or who work outdoors are also more likely to feel the impacts of extreme heat.Ĭlimate change means that extreme weather events are becoming more intense and common, which is worrisome not just because the power grid is aging. Meanwhile, the effects of heat waves have been disproportionately worse for historically marginalized brown, Black, and Indigenous communities. Hundreds of people died during this past week’s heat wave in the Pacific Northwest and Canada. In the most severe power outages during the winter storm in Texas this past February, 700 people are estimated to have died, according to BuzzFeed.

Having a reliable power grid can be a matter of life and death. “It’s like this perfect storm of extreme temperatures, more electricity consumption, and aging infrastructure.” “I would probably give our power grid maybe a C minus,” Kyri Baker, an engineering professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, told Recode. The country is now in a race against time to shift its energy supply toward renewable sources, like wind and solar, while also needing more and more electricity to do everything from powering more air conditioning to boosting the number of EVs on the road. After all, climate change isn’t just increasing the demand for energy to keep people cool or warm amid heat waves and winter storms.

It’s abundantly clear that the power grid in the United States is not ready for the effects of climate change, including the extreme weather events that come with it. And for the first time ever, after power outages hit several neighborhoods during this week’s heat wave, New York City officials sent residents an emergency mobile alert urging them to conserve energy. In June, California suggested that residents charge their electric vehicles during off-peak hours to save energy. During the winter storm that hit Texas in February, nearly 5 million people lost power. In Portland, Oregon, this week, the recorded official temperature reached 115 degrees Fahrenheit, power cables for the city’s streetcars melted, sagging overhead wires forced the light rail to shut down, and more than 6,000 people lost electricity.īut it’s far from the first time extreme weather has caused serious problems with the power grid in recent months.

Pacific northwest heat wave temperature