WASHINGTON, D.C. – The National Mining Association (NMA) issued the following statement from Rich Nolan, NMA President & CEO, responding to the North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s (NERC) 2021 Long-Term Reliability Assessment. The Assessment underscores that the rapid remaking of the nation’s electricity mix presents the greatest challenge to reliability over the next decade, and that maintaining a fuel-assured, diverse generation mix is essential to ensuring reliability in the years ahead.
“This assessment very clearly echoes many of the concerns the industry has raised about an escalating reliability crisis and provides important recommendations about the need to maintain dispatchable fuel diversity and fuel security over the coming decade. The coal fleet offers invaluable optionality to the grid, shielding consumers from natural gas price volatility and provides fuel security and a reliability backstop we must stop trying to dismantle. The challenges of integrating variable sources of power and building new electricity infrastructure are growing more acute, not less. Responsibly managing the energy transition should mean building on the shoulders of the existing coal fleet, not in place of it. It’s time for policymakers and regulators to recognize that without greater steps to reinforce the reliability of the nation’s grid, last winter’s Texas grid catastrophe, or something tragically similar, will happen again.”
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