POWER Magazine: Grid Infrastructure and Renewable Energy Projects Thrive, Workforce and Supply Chain Issues Continue in 2023

As I look forward to the year ahead and contemplate what’s driving change in the power industry, the music and lyrics from the old O’Jays song keeps popping up in my head, that is, “money, money, money, mon-ey … mon-ey.” One of the key places I see money for power projects coming from is the U.S. government, specifically, through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

Power industry experts from Solomon Associates have also noticed how grid constraints are impacting reliability across various U.S. domestic and international markets. “Just as more coal units are retired, nuclear and combined cycle plants are also retiring,” Tony Carrino, Director of Power & Utilities with Solomon Associates, told POWER. “The fossil-fueled, firm capacity units that remain in service have been managing for several years with reduced margins driven down by low variable cost renewable feed-in and years of low natural gas prices. During that time, spending cuts on firm capacity units went to the ‘bleeding edge’ and began cutting into ‘reliability muscle,’ ” he said.