Glenn English, CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association testified before the House Subcommittee on Conservation, Credit, Energy and Research on electric reliability in rural areas. 

“A serious energy challenge faces this nation,” English declared. “Frankly, I believe that many in Congress are focused on only one half of the looming challenge - global climate change. But the other half is just as critical, though it has not received the same spotlight, and that is the fundamental question of whether the nation will have enough electricity capacity to meet consumer energy needs.”

For over a year, NRECA has been working to raise awareness in the policy community about capacity shortfalls and looming risks to electric reliability. 

English told subcommittee members:

“[t]he reliability problems posed by a lack of adequate capacity will begin to manifest as early as 2009, according to the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), the self-regulatory organization responsible for monitoring and strengthening the bulk power system’s reliability. In some regions, demand will soon outstrip capacity unless generation and transmission are added. Rapidly thinning capacity means that technicians and operations personnel, whose daily behind-the-scenes efforts keep the electric grid intact, are already seeing reliability “near-misses” when key lines or power plants go down…. [I]f we fail to address our growing energy infrastructure and technology development needs, some regions face increasing probabilities of brownouts and blackouts in the near future.”

English expressed concern that the Senate Farm Bill prohibits the Rural Utilities Service from making loans to cooperatives for generation plants:  “Without RUS financing for baseload generation, co-ops will have to buy increasing amounts of power on the open market because they cannot generate enough power to meet their consumers’ needs. … Preventing cooperatives from accessing the RUS program places an additional heavy burden on their efforts to build generation that will reduce carbon emissions.”

While there many solutions have been proposed to address pieces of our energy challenge, there is consensus that we need technological advances: 

“Technology is the key to retaining our nation’s diverse menu of electric generation fuel options and for lowering the costs of carbon reduction,” English told the subcommittee.  

“The sooner an array of clean energy and efficiency technologies are commercial, the sooner we will pass through this dangerous period. Congress can speed the arrival of that day by substantially increasing funding to $2 billion per year for the next decade for carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology and all other options for low- or no-carbon technology solutions.”

See the “Related Links” box for full text of the testimony.