U.S. Declares National Energy Emergency - Blames Russia, Climate Change

U.S. declares national energy emergency

The United States declared a national energy emergency on June 6, 2022. The emergency – declared to exist with respect to the threats to the availability of sufficient electricity generation capacity to meet expected customer demand – will stay in effect for at least 24 months or until it’s declared terminated, whichever occurs first.

“A robust and reliable electric power system is not only a basic human necessity, but is also critical to national security and national defense,” the president said in the declaration.1

“Multiple factors are threatening the ability of the United States to provide sufficient electricity generation to serve expected customer demand.”

The declaration continues:

These factors include disruptions to energy markets caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and extreme weather events exacerbated by climate change.  

For example, in parts of the country, drought conditions coupled with heatwaves are simultaneously causing projected electricity supply shortfalls and record electricity demand. 

As a result, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation have both warned of near-term electricity reliability concerns in their recent summer reliability assessments.

In order to ensure electric resource adequacy, utilities and grid operators must engage in advance planning to build new capacity now to serve expected customer demand. 

Solar energy is among the fastest growing sources of new electric generation in the United States.  

Utilities and grid operators are increasingly relying on new solar installations to ensure that there are sufficient resources on the grid to maintain reliable service. Additions of solar capacity and batteries were expected to account for over half of new electric sector capacity in 2022 and 2023.  

The unavailability of solar cells and modules jeopardizes those planned additions, which in turn threatens the availability of sufficient electricity generation capacity to serve expected customer demand.  

This acute shortage of solar modules and module components has abruptly put at risk near-term solar capacity additions that could otherwise have the potential to help ensure the sufficiency of electricity generation to meet customer demand.

Roughly half of the domestic deployment of solar modules that had been anticipated over the next year is currently in jeopardy as a result of insufficient supply. 

Across the country, solar projects are being postponed or canceled.

The Federal Government is working with the private sector to promote the expansion of domestic solar manufacturing capacity, including our capacity to manufacture modules and other inputs in the solar supply chain, but building that capacity will take time.