A Cleaner AND More Reliable Grid
Andy Johnson, Executive Director
We wrote back in June about how the clean grid of the future can indeed be an increasingly reliable and resilient grid. It was an effort to counter the narrative that reliability will only come through continued reliance on aging (and in fact, increasingly unreliable) coal plants. That narrative continues to be promoted by MidAmerican Energy, whose parent company Berkshire Hathaway Energy ranks nationally in the bottom five of the largest 30 investor-owned utilities for decarbonization efforts, including continued reliance on coal.
With summer in rear view mirror, we continue to learn about how well large-scale renewables can perform even during peak demand, and how a resilient Iowa grid really will depend on transitioning away from fossil fuels. The webinar The Clean Energy Future Is Here: How Renewable Energy Is Building The Reliable Grid Of The Future – presented in part by the Clean Energy Districts of Iowa – is an excellent discussion with the experts. Webinar presenter Michael Goggin also put together a complementary fact sheet on a clean, reliable, and resilient 21st century Iowa grid, and a blog post from our friends at the Iowa Environmental Council shows how wind pulled its weight through some of the hottest days this summer.