Winter Storm Fern delivered the kind of cold that grid operators and generators dread, driving up electricity demand, squeezing fuel systems and forcing regions to lean hard on dispatchable resources that can run when wind and solar output dips.

So how did North America’s generating fleet perform during Fern as wintry conditions continue to grip large swaths of the U.S., with additional cold weather forecast to move into parts of the East Coast this weekend?

“It’s still probably a little early to tell,” NERC’s John Moura said during a media briefing Thursday as the cold persisted in parts of the country. “But what I will say is, you know, as we’re looking at the data, both on the electricity generation performance, but also the gas performance, things are holding up.”

The dispatch response was clear in the federal data. In the week ending Jan. 25, coal-fired generation in the Lower 48 states increased 31% from the prior week as Fern affected large portions of the country, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). Natural gas generation rose 14% over the same period, while generation from solar, wind and hydropower declined.

Coal’s share of total Lower 48 generation climbed to 21% during that week, up from 17% the previous week, EIA said, while natural gas contributed 38% and nuclear was about 18%.

In New England, the fuel picture turned more extreme. Although petroleum accounts for less than 1% of total U.S. utility-scale generation, the region leans on oil-fired units during winter peaks when cold weather drives demand and natural gas availability tightens. During Fern, petroleum became the predominant energy source, beginning around midday Jan. 24 and lasting until early Jan. 26, EIA said.

EIA noted that New England holds a disproportionate share of the nation’s petroleum-fired capacity and that petroleum-fired generation reached almost 8.0 GW between Jan. 25 and Jan. 26, exceeding the capacity from units that predominantly use petroleum. That indicates fuel-switching units contributed as well, including a sizable portion of the region’s natural gas fleet that can burn distillate fuel oil when gas is too costly or unavailable.

ISO New England is now bracing for the next phase: sustained high demand as the cold lingers, and the operational challenge of replenishing stored fuels. The grid operator said it plans to publish updated 21-day forecasts each morning through the weekend, rather than its typical weekly cadence, to reflect heightened uncertainty.

ISO New England also said it will request a two-week extension of the existing U.S. Department of Energy order under Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act. The order, which allows all available resources, including those subject to emissions or other permit limits, to operate if needed, currently expires Jan. 31. ISO New England said it will ask DOE to extend it through Feb. 14.

Further south and west, Texas avoided the kind of systemwide emergency that still looms over winter planning after 2021. In a post-event report dated Jan. 28, ERCOT said it managed the statewide grid through Fern without calling for conservation, without issuing an Energy Emergency Alert, and without any systemwide outages tied to grid conditions.

The grid operator said it leaned on mandatory weatherization, increased reserves, earlier operational actions and a market design change implemented in December 2025 that incorporates batteries into real-time co-optimization.

Some outages did occur in Texas, ERCOT said, but they were localized and tied to ice and downed lines rather than bulk system failures.

In PJM’s footprint, the operational posture included preparing for a tool that, until recently, sat mostly outside the normal reliability playbook: directing certain customer-owned backup generation at data centers and other large-load sites to operate under emergency conditions.

On Jan. 26, DOE issued an emergency order to PJM under Section 202(c) authorizing PJM to direct identified backup generation resources to operate as a last resort before an Energy Emergency Alert Level 3 is declared, or during an EEA 3.

PJM said in an update that the expedited federal process for emergency orders tied to backup generators could help as a last resort if the generation fleet or transmission system experiences major outages, and that it has been working with DOE to identify data center customers who have volunteered to transition to backup generation if needed.

NERC, which highlighted winter energy risks in its 2025-2026 Winter Reliability Assessment, is watching Fern as a real-world stress test of fuel and performance assumptions.

Moura said Thursday that the storm has already produced some operational surprises, including curtailments of interconnections between New England and Canada.

He also pointed to forced outages, noting that a detailed accounting will come later.

“We’ve had a good amount of generators that have been forced out, offline,” he said. “We will come to find those.”

Still, Moura said there is evidence that winterization investments and standards have improved performance compared with prior years.

“What we have done is put a number of NERC standards in place, and there’s been a lot of PUC action on winterization,” he said. “Billions of dollars in winterization have been invested in winterizing the generation fleet, and some of that seems to have worked.”

Coal’s role during Fern sits at the center of a larger debate about reliability through the energy transition, and Moura addressed it directly when asked whether coal provided primary support during the event.

“I think it’s an essential part of the portfolio today,” he said, while also noting the fleet’s limitations, including higher forced outage rates in winter conditions and challenges such as frozen coal piles.

Reliability risk across North America is rising over the next decade as electricity demand growth, driven largely by new data centers, outpaces the pace of new generation, transmission and fuel infrastructure needed to support it, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) said Thursday in its 2025 Long-Term Reliability Assessment.

NERC said summer peak demand is forecast to grow by 224 gigawatts (GW) over the next 10 years, a more than 69% increase over the demand forecast in last year’s assessment. Winter peak demand is projected to rise even faster, up 246 GW over the same period, as electricity use patterns evolve and more end uses shift toward electric heating and other winter-peaking loads.

“This assessment is not a prediction of failure but an early warning on the trajectory of risk,” John Moura, NERC’s director of Reliability Assessment and Performance Analysis, said during a media briefing Thursday. “The path forward is still manageable but only if planned resources come online and on time.”

NERC’s long-term assessment is built from a mid-2025 “snapshot in time” based on utility and market projections, and it is intended to flag areas where resource adequacy could tighten under the current buildout trajectory. In the briefing, Moura emphasized that the biggest issue is not a lack of awareness, but the speed of change.

“Reliability risk is increasing, and really not because we lack awareness, but that the system is changing faster than the infrastructure need to support it,” Moura said.

Mark Olson, NERC’s manager of Reliability Assessments, said the report’s risk map reflects the highest risk category each assessment area reaches over the next five years, using reserve margin targets and probabilistic analysis to evaluate the likelihood of unserved energy and load loss. Olson said more areas show elevated or high risk as demand projections rise and resource plans become more uncertain.

The report argues that uncertainty is now a structural feature of resource planning, and that timing has become as important as megawatts. NERC said projected retirements remain high, with 105 GW of seasonal peak capacity planned to retire over the next decade, although that total is down 10 GW from the prior assessment.

At the same time, the composition of planned additions is shifting quickly. NERC said battery storage projects have grown to match solar projections, and that natural gas additions represent about 15% of projected capacity additions, followed by wind and hybrid resources at 8% each.

During the call with journalists Thursday, Olson described a key seasonal challenge that planning models are now surfacing more clearly: resources in the development pipeline may show strong capability for summer peaks, but a very different contribution in winter.

“When we look at what their winter capability is, we can see this shortfall emerging where a lot of resource development is going to be needed in order to meet year-round peak demand and pay close attention to those winter demands,” Olson said.

NERC also pointed to lagging transmission development as a constraint on both reliability and resource delivery. The assessment notes that projected transmission development is rising compared with last year, but that miles of projects under construction have not increased substantially yet, and that delays tied to siting, permitting and other process hurdles remain common. Olson said interregional transmission projects are especially important during wide-area weather events because they can support transfers between neighbors.

Moura said the grid’s changing mix is altering what “stress” looks like, and why planning needs to move beyond traditional reserve margin thinking.

“We must move beyond margin only thinking to thinking about probabilistic and energy risk analysis,” he said.

In the briefing, Moura also pointed to system performance concerns that are not captured by an energy-only risk map, including stability challenges during periods of very high inverter-based resource output. He said the industry is paying closer attention to essential reliability services such as inertia, voltage support and frequency response.

“We’ve seen examples of that in the international space, including the recent Iberian Peninsula outage that underscored the need to manage system performance during periods of high inverter-based resource output,” he said.

The assessment’s headline demand story is closely tied to data centers. Olson said new data centers are the main driver of load growth in many areas, though large industrial loads and electrification also contribute.

During the briefing, Moura said flexibility from data centers could help them interconnect faster and reduce the need for near-term system upgrades if their peak contribution can be managed.

“If data centers can offload their demand usage to their backup centers or move load to different data centers … that flexibility, if that can happen and they are committed to not being there on during peak conditions, well, then they can be interconnected a little quicker,” Moura said.

NERC’s recommendations focus on speeding infrastructure development and improving coordination. The organization urged streamlining siting and permitting for generation, transmission and natural gas infrastructure, managing generator deactivations carefully, expanding adequacy assessments that incorporate energy limitations, and improving electric-natural gas coordination as reliance on gas-fired generation increases.

The bottom line, Moura said, is that the trajectory is moving in the wrong direction, but there is still time to bend it.

“The question is no longer whether the change is coming,” he said. “It’s whether the infrastructure and coordination can keep pace.”

Winter Storm Fern has passed, but roughly half a million Americans were still without power or heat on Tuesday, and temperatures were forecast to fall well below freezing in areas where the massive ice storm did its worst damage.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) issued new emergency orders on Monday aimed at keeping power available as extended cold from Winter Storm Fern drives up demand and stresses fuel and generation availability in parts of the U.S.

One order authorized NYISO to run all generating units in the grid operator’s region and operate them up to maximum output levels, even if doing so conflicts with air quality or other permit limits, or if fuel shortages emerge during the emergency period. The order took effect Jan. 26 and runs through Feb. 2.

DOE issued two separate orders focused on behind-the-meter backup generation at large-load sites, authorizing both PJM Interconnection and Duke Energy Carolinas/Duke Energy Progress to direct certain backup resources at data centers and other large customers to operate as a last resort before an Energy Emergency Alert level 3 is declared, or during an EEA 3. The PJM order expires at 11:59 p.m. EST Jan. 31, and the Duke order expires at 11:59 p.m. EST Jan. 30.

Another order covers Duke Energy’s balancing areas on the central-station side, authorizing generating units in the Duke region to operate up to maximum output levels, regardless of air quality or other permit limits. It became effective at 12:00 a.m. EST Jan. 27 and expires at 12:00 p.m. EST Jan. 30.

DOE is using Section 202(c) to widen the operating envelope in multiple regions, both by authorizing grid operators to push central-station units harder and by allowing system operators and utilities to lean on customer-owned backup assets when grid conditions deteriorate. 202(c) is a temporary emergency authority that can require changes to how the electricity system operates during qualifying emergency conditions.

DOE’s actions began Jan. 24 with orders to PJM and ERCOT. The PJM order authorized operation of generating units across PJM up to maximum output levels, “notwithstanding” permit limitations or fuel shortages during the emergency window, effective Jan. 25 through the end of the day on Jan. 31.

The ERCOT order authorized the Texas grid operator to direct backup generation resources at data centers and other large-load customers under the same “last resort before EEA 3 or during EEA 3” construct, expiring at the end of the day on Jan. 27.

About 130,000 customers had no electricity in the Nashville, Tennessee, area, according to poweroutage.com. About 140,000 remained without power in Mississippi, and nearly 100,000 more in icy Louisiana.

Stay with Factor This Power Engineering for updates.

U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Jan. 22 directed grid operators to be prepared to call on unused backup generation at data centers and other large facilities as Winter Storm Fern bears down on much of the country this weekend.

The storm is testing the electric system across multiple regions, with heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain spreading across the south-central U.S. and moving east through Sunday. As of Saturday morning, more than 95,000 power outages had been reported nationwide, including roughly 36,000 in Texas and about 10,000 in Virginia.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, more than 35 GW of backup generation capacity remains idle nationwide. DOE said making those resources available, if needed, could help mitigate the risk of rotating outages during periods of extreme cold and high demand.

The draft emergency order, issued under Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act, would apply to data centers and major industrial or commercial facilities with auxiliary, standby, directly connected or battery storage resources. The order would allow grid operators to call on those resources only after demand response options are exhausted and before a Reliability Coordinator declares an Energy Emergency Alert Level 3.

The action aligns with warnings raised in the North American Electric Reliability Corporation 2025 Winter Reliability Assessment, released in November. The assessment found elevated risk across much of North America of insufficient energy supplies during extreme operating conditions.

NERC urged Reliability Coordinators, Balancing Authorities and Transmission Operators in higher-risk regions to review seasonal operating plans and communication protocols for managing potential supply shortfalls. The assessment also emphasized advancing winterization measures and securing fuel supplies to ensure generation remains available during prolonged cold weather events.

“At this time, NERC is encouraged that industry has taken actions to prepare for what appears to be a very challenging winter storm system,” the organization said in a statement Jan. 22.

In a separate update issued Jan. 23, PJM Interconnection said it has issued precautionary alerts ahead of the winter storm and an extended period of extreme cold expected to affect much of its footprint, which spans 13 states and the District of Columbia. Forecasts call for single-digit temperatures across much of the RTO between Jan. 23 and Jan. 27, with subzero conditions possible in PJM’s Western Region.

PJM peak demand could exceed 130,000 MW for as many as seven consecutive days next week, a duration PJM said it has never experienced during winter operations. Depending on conditions, PJM could also set a new all-time winter peak load on Tuesday, Jan. 27.

PJM said it is taking additional precautions with generation and transmission owners, including issuing Cold Weather Alerts and expanding them to the full region through Jan. 27. The alerts prompt coordination with generators to ensure staffing levels are sufficient, units are fully winterized, and operational limitations are accurately communicated to the grid operator, including startup times and minimum and maximum run durations.

PJM said it is preparing for the possibility that the cold weather could extend into early February and emphasized the importance of fleet performance during sustained, high-load conditions.

CPS Energy Chief Strategy Officer Elaina Ball has spent years in an industry built around machines that cannot be allowed to fail. She has also raised a family. On Wednesday afternoon at POWERGEN 2026, she offered a comparison that drew knowing laughter from a room full of power professionals.

“I don’t know what’s worse, a colicky turbine or a colicky baby, but both keep you up at night,” Ball said.

The power generation industry does not pause for convenience, and neither does life. The inaugural Women in Power panel at POWERGEN 2026 Wednesday leaned into that reality, pairing candid stories about leadership, self-doubt and risk, along with lessons about building a career in an industry that often demands everything.

The panel and subsequent networking event, sponsored by Kingsbury, was held at the Center Stage in the exhibit hall at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio.

Jhansi Kandasamy, vice president of advanced nuclear at The Nuclear Company, framed the discussion as both overdue and broadly representative of where the power sector is headed. She traced her own career through four decades in nuclear, beginning in electrical engineering and expanding across nearly every major plant and corporate function.

“This is amazing to be a part of the first inaugural women in power,” she said. “I love that this panel really represents very diverse positions or diverse energy fields.”

Ball anchored her remarks in the operational reality of a vertically integrated municipal utility serving Central Texas. When asked about defining challenges, she focused less on technology and more on timing.

“I’ve been a wife and a mother while running very large power plants,” Ball said. “I think one of the most challenging experiences that that I have throughout my life is just, it’s not work-life balance, but it is about understanding the seasons of your life and the seasons that you go through as a working mother.”

She described early mornings, nights and weekends that came with balancing plant operations with family life.

“There were times when I had to forego work responsibilities to be at a band concert,” she said.

Those tradeoffs, she said, shaped her leadership approach.

“Give yourself grace,” Ball said.

Gretchen Dolson, senior vice president and renewables practice lead at HDR, described a career built through pivots rather than planning. A registered civil engineer, she started in heavy highway and municipal work before moving through water resources, industrial facilities and biofuels, eventually transitioning into power.

She said her most difficult lessons were not technical. Mentors helped her recognize that leadership required more than delivering projects on time and on budget.

“What I maybe didn’t do so well was communicate with my own team, and I have almost zero empathy,” said Dolson. “If you do like the personality test, oftentimes, women who are driven don’t necessarily have some of those soft skills.”

Meghan Eyvindsson, general manager for the Americas at Stamford | AvK, offered a story that began far from an executive role.

“I have a very non-traditional educational and professional background,” she said. “I am the cliche college dropout. Originally, I pivoted and went to cosmetology school, so I was working as a hairdresser before I stumbled into power gen.”

She applied for a receptionist job at a Cummins distributor in Wyoming and did not get it.

“I was devastated,” she said, believing she had failed. Two weeks later, the company called back with a different offer in parts.

“My first thought was, I don’t know anything about diesel parts,” she said. Then she reframed the moment. “What I do have is the desire to learn, and I’m capable, and I can do hard things.”

That experience shaped her leadership philosophy.

“I end up looking for potential, not credentials,” Eyvindsson said. Even now, she admitted, self-doubt persists.

“I still feel like I can’t believe I’m sitting on the stage,” she said, recalling that when she was offered her current role, her first thought was, “Why me?”

Eyvindsson argued that “soft skills” and “relationship building” are often treated as secondary to technical expertise, even though the industry’s challenges now require teamwork across disciplines, geographies and business models.

“If we all had the same skill set, we wouldn’t have the diversity of solutions,” she said.

As the conversation turned to mentorship, the panelists emphasized that advancement often comes through sponsorship and visibility, not just advice. Eyvindsson credited a mentor who taught her to set boundaries.

Dolson described mentorship as a series of relationships over time, adding that her earliest influence was her mother, who taught her, “You can fail, but you aren’t quitting.”

Kandasamy closed by naming what she sees missing at the highest levels of the industry.

“What I noticed moving up is less and less women sitting across the table,” she said. Paying it forward, she added, means “making room,” recognizing talent and making contributions visible.

Then the microphones went down and the networking began, with a roomful of power professionals trading stories that, like Ball’s opening line, were equal parts demanding and familiar.

POWERGEN 2026 opened Monday in San Antonio with a strong focus on the practical, technical work that underpins power generation, as attendees took part in in-depth workshops and an offsite technology tour ahead of the conference’s main programming.

The day began with the 43rd Electric Utility & Cogeneration Chemistry Workshop (EUC²W), a long-running forum that has drawn thousands of chemists, engineers and plant professionals since its launch in 1981. Now co-located with POWERGEN, EUC²W again centered on the day-to-day chemistry and environmental challenges facing power plants and industrial facilities. Sessions addressed makeup water treatment, boiler and HRSG chemistry, cooling water reliability, wastewater treatment and emerging environmental issues, including PFAS and evolving regulations. For plant personnel, the workshop offered a rare opportunity to exchange field experience and best practices with peers, consultants and technology providers focused squarely on reliability, safety and compliance.

Monday also featured a technical tour of Southwest Research Institute’s Power Cycle & Energy Systems Laboratory, giving attendees a close look at advanced power cycle and storage research underway in San Antonio. Participants toured the STEP Demo facility, a DOE-funded 10-MW supercritical carbon dioxide pilot plant designed to demonstrate higher-efficiency power cycles with smaller equipment footprints than conventional steam systems. The tour also included SwRI’s pumped thermal energy storage demonstration and turbomachinery laboratories, where compressors, turbines and heat exchangers are tested for next-generation applications. For many attendees, the tour provided tangible insight into how emerging technologies could shape future generation options across nuclear, gas, geothermal and industrial heat recovery.

With workshops and tours complete, attention now turns to the main conference program as POWERGEN officially opens Tuesday morning.

The Opening Keynote, beginning at 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday, brings together leaders from utilities, engineering firms, technology providers and the research community to examine how the industry is responding to rapid change. An executive panel featuring Rudy Garza of CPS Energy and Victor Suchodolski of Sargent & Lundy will discuss how utilities and EPCs are managing accelerating load growth, evolving regulations and tighter project timelines.

The keynote also includes a joint presentation from Westinghouse Electric Company and Google Cloud on the use of artificial intelligence and digital tools to support nuclear construction and long-term asset performance, followed by a system-level perspective from Mike Caravaggio of Electric Power Research Institute.

Beyond Tuesday morning, three additional keynote panels will anchor the week’s discussion. Sessions on grid market reform, AI-driven load growth and the bottlenecks slowing new generation projects will feature voices from ERCOT, Southwest Power Pool, utilities, developers, EPCs and major power customers. Together, they aim to move beyond theory and focus on how the industry is adapting in real time to deliver reliable megawatts.

POWERGEN 2026 continues through Jan. 22 at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center, building on Monday’s technical foundation with a week of executive dialogue, technical sessions and networking for the power generation community.

POWERGEN 2026 will devote three of its keynote sessions to a question many power generation professionals are grappling with daily: how to deliver reliable megawatts in the face of accelerating demand, tighter markets and persistent project constraints. Together, the panels offer a practical look at how grid operators, utilities, developers and EPCs are responding to conditions shaping the industry in early 2026.

The first of the three, The New (Grid) Balancing Act, takes place Jan. 20 from 1 to 2 p.m. and centers on the growing strain facing organized power markets. Load growth tied to data centers, manufacturing expansion and electrification is colliding with limited new capacity and heightened seasonal reliability risks. Executives from ERCOT and Southwest Power Pool will discuss how their regions are responding through market reforms, changes to capacity accreditation and shifts in how risk is allocated across market participants. Moderated by Hari Gopalakrishnan of Mitsubishi Power Americas, the panel will examine what these changes mean for utilities and independent power producers navigating competitive markets under pressure.

On Jan. 21 at 8:15 a.m., Powering the AI Era: A New Blueprint for Growth turns the focus to the demand side of the equation. As artificial intelligence and data center development drive unprecedented electricity growth, power providers are being forced to rethink resource planning, generation strategy and customer relationships. The keynote brings together leaders from utilities, developers and large power customers, including CyrusOne, TECfusions, NextEra Energy and CPS Energy, to discuss how new partnership models are emerging to support reliability and growth. Moderated by Richard Esposito of Southern Company, the session will explore how these shifts are influencing the future generation mix and the technologies utilities are prioritizing to keep pace.

Later that day, from 1 to 2 p.m., Bottlenecks & Breakthroughs: Getting Power Projects Built addresses the obstacles slowing the delivery of new generation and upgrades. Equipment shortages, multi-year interconnection queues and permitting uncertainty continue to delay projects, even as demand forecasts rise. Moderated by Terri Poussard of HDR Engineering, the panel features leaders from utilities, EPCs, legal and supply chain organizations, including the Lower Colorado River Authority, NiSource and Zachry Group. Speakers will share how they are rethinking procurement, standardizing equipment and adjusting construction strategies to move projects forward more quickly, and what those changes mean for schedules, workforce planning and capital deployment.

These three keynotes offer a grounded look at how the industry is adapting in real time. Rather than focusing on theory, the discussions highlight how market rules, customer demand and project execution are evolving, and what that means for delivering reliable power in today’s environment.

POWERGEN 2026 begins next week at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio, Texas. Be sure to register to join your customers and peers!