Power grids around the globe will be stretched thin as summer begins.
There will be less electricity worldwide to meet the soaring demand for more energy, threatening more than one billion people with rolling blackouts. Power grids are already facing issues, such as fuel shortages; droughts; heatwaves; commodity disruptions and soaring prices due to the Russia-Ukraine War; and the failed green energy transition that retired too many fossil fuel generation plants.
With all these combined, a perfect storm of blackouts threatens much of the Northern Hemisphere in the next months.
The power crisis is also going to affect much of the world’s top economies: Asia, Europe and the United States are all regions of concern as there is not enough power to go around with the expected cooling demands as households crank up the air conditioning to escape the heat.
In the U.S., six Texas power plants already failed earlier in the month.
Asia’s heatwave has already caused hours-long daily blackouts, putting people at risk across Pakistan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and India.
South and Southeast Asia have been experiencing brutal heat waves that forced people to put air conditioners on full blast. Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Myanmar, home to a combined 300 million people, have been experiencing nationwide blackouts. Sixteen of 28 states in India, which has a total of over 700 million people, have also been grappling with outages between two to 10 hours per day. (Related: In the U.S., six Texas power plants already failed earlier in the month.)
Europe, meanwhile, is in a precarious position. If Moscow cuts off natural gas to the region, countries may find themselves in rolling outages. While the chances of Russia making such a bold move are unlikely, analysts are becoming more and more pessimistic as the war in Ukraine continues.
The warnings of blackouts continue as people begin to get ready for their summer in the Northern Hemisphere. An analyst from the Eurasia Group, Henning Gloystein, said that if major blackouts spread across the world this summer, some form of humanitarian crisis could get triggered in terms of food and energy shortages.
Wood Mackenzie Ltd pointed out that as the grids transition to green energy, their lack of battery storage for solar or wind energy will create instabilities and more stress on grids. “You’ll be facing a supply scare every time there’s clouds or storms or a wind drought for a week. We really expect these problems to get worse in the next five years,” Whitworth said.
If grids get too stressed and break down in the summer, then there will be potential problems for winter.
Britons warned of winter blackouts
As many as six million British households could be subjected to power cuts this winter if Russian gas supplies to Europe stop, The Times reported Sunday, citing a Whitehall document.
It said that imports of natural gas from Norway could halve next winter amid surging EU demand. Britain buys around half of its total supplies from the Nordic country.
Shipments of liquified natural gas from major producers such as the United States and Qatar could also halve this winter, the UK government warned, pointing to fierce global competition for supplies of the fuel.
Meanwhile, interconnectors from the Netherlands and Belgium could also be cut off in winter, as the two countries struggle meeting their own demand.
The UK, which has vowed to end the importation of Russian oil by the end of the year, is now seeking to bolster electricity supply by extending the life of its coal and aging nuclear power stations.
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