Lawmakers say federal policies and political pressure are helping to turn the lights off in the West and in Utah, with the state facing the very real possibility of rolling blackouts.
Rep. Colin Jack, R-St. George, pointed out that the National Energy Reliability Corp. classifies a huge swath of the West as “Code Orange,” meaning the region is at elevated risk of not being able to meet energy demands.
“What we want to avoid here in Utah is repeating the same mistakes other states have done, which is to demolish our reliable, affordable generating resources and replace them with intermittent and expensive resources that work 20% of the time,” Jack told the Deseret News.
He said what states have done is take federal incentives to demolish power plants, replace them with intermittent resources and rely on the market to make up the difference.
“What we have seen in recent years is there is not excess capacity in the market to go get (that energy) all the time. So multiple states, maybe a dozen states in the last couple years, have had regular rolling blackouts.”