Saint Paul, Minn. Portions of the regional bulk power system are at risk of insufficient electricity supply this summer if above normal peak demand is coupled with forced generation outages. The 2024 Regional Summer Assessment (RSA) published by Midwest Reliability Organization (MRO) today indicates that similar to last summer, weather officials are forecasting above normal temperatures across much of the United States and Canada that could result in high peak demand and an increase in generation forced outages and derates.

The report also found that conventional generation forced outage rates in 2023 were higher than the five-year moving average. This continues a long-term trend of increasing generation forced outage rates due, in part, to higher penetrations of intermittent resources that force conventional generation to cycle more often than originally designed, causing component failures. The trend of human error-related misoperations continued to be the top event cause in the region during the summer months of 2023.

MRO’s 2024 RSA complements NERC’s 2024 Summer Reliability Assessment, which provides an evaluation of resource and transmission adequacy necessary to meet projected summer peak demands across all North America. MRO’s assessment focuses on the bulk power system in MRO’s regional footprint, and further evaluates past performance to identify reliability concerns and trends that might impact resource and transmission system adequacy for the upcoming summer season.

Read more in the MRO 2024 Regional Summer Assessment │ Infographic