High Levels of Renewable Power Reduce the Intensity of Blackouts

In February 2021, an extreme winter storm caused blackouts across Texas, cutting power to 4.5 million homes and contributing to at least 57 deaths. The public outrage that followed sparked the debate: Was it traditional fossil fuel generation that had fallen down on the job, or were newer renewable sources like wind to blame for failing at the critical moment?

As more and more energy grids turn to renewable sources of power, there have been increasing debates over whether renewable-heavy grids are more or less likely to fail in the face of extreme weather. A new study has gathered real-world data from 2001 to 2020 in the contiguous 48 states and finds that renewables actually provide a boost in resilience.

Blackouts in renewable-heavy grids tend to be less intense, the new study finds. Extreme weather can cripple any grid, but grids that rely heavily on renewable sources are not more vulnerable to blackouts than fossil-fuel-reliant grids. When blackouts do occur, they are briefer, affect fewer customers, and fall less short of meeting demand than blackouts on grids with fewer renewables.

“Renewable energy is doing more than we expected,” says study co-author Fangxing Li, an electrical engineer and professor at the Univ. of Tennessee.

Li and his colleagues studied 2,156 blackout events from 378 municipalities over two decades. They categorized renewables (solar and wind) penetration into the energy grids at each event, ranging from...