Could this be the future of the electric grid?

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Following the unanimous approval by Lancaster County commissioners of a 304-megawatt solar plant outside Lincoln, one of the largest in the state, local opponents expressed their concerns. The project’s developer, Florida-based NextEra Energy Resources, drew attention in March when its CEO praised the administration’s policy while emphasizing that solar and storage are the fastest paths to increasing energy supply.

Lincoln Electric is headquartered in a modern building named after Anyanwu’s predecessor, Kevin Wailes. TERRY RATZLAFF.

Nebraska is predominantly a Republican state, where only an estimated 66% of adults acknowledge global warming, according to a survey from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. President Trump received nearly 60% of the statewide vote, though he only garnered 47% in Lancaster County—a more balanced area amid the state’s political landscape.

“There are no simple answers,” Anyanwu states thoughtfully. “In our industry, many are eager to win an ideological debate, often insisting on a binary viewpoint. However, if we approach this with intellectual honesty, it should be clear that there isn’t a simple binary answer to any aspect.”

### The New Technical Frontier

What there are, instead, are questions. The most urgent one—how to add capacity without increasing costs or carbon emissions—came to a head for LES starting in April 2024. Like many utilities across the US, LES relies on an independent RTO, or regional transmission organization, to ensure reliability by balancing supply and demand while operating an electricity market. The principle behind this is that when utilities on the grid pool their load and generation, it benefits everyone in terms of reliability and economic efficiency. “Think of the market like a potluck,” Anyanwu explains. “Everyone is meant to bring enough food to sustain their own families, but the agreement is that their families don’t eat only what they bring.” Each utility must arrive at the market with enough capacity to meet peak demands, even though all generated power is combined to serve many. A larger grid can absorb small fluctuations or failures more easily.

However, today everyone is feeling a greater demand, and the production capabilities aren’t always reliable. In a time when the primary variable was merely whether power plants were operational, calculating capacity was relatively simple: a 164-megawatt gas or coal plant could be expected to reliably produce 164 megawatts of power. Wind and solar disrupt this model, despite having no fuel costs or carbon emissions. The industry refers to this challenge as “resource adequacy,” a complex interplay of averages and expectations calculated around seasonal peaks when utility loads are highest. On those record-breaking days, keeping the lights on requires every power plant to be operational. Yet, solar and wind resources don’t function in that manner. A summer peak may occur on a day that is cloudy and calm, while a winter peak often aligns with shorter days. Additionally, coal and gas plants face their own reliability challenges, frequently going offline for maintenance, and the underground pipeline system supplying gas is vulnerable to freezing during winter, affecting availability for both home heating and power plants.

Political discussions then became secondary; the primary goal shifted to ensuring reliable energy for homes and AI data centers.

Confronted with a rapidly evolving mix of energy generation, the Southwest Power Pool (SPP)—the RTO overseeing a significant region, including Nebraska—concluded that a cautious approach was necessary. In August 2024, SPP revised its “accreditations” to reassess how much electricity each power plant, regardless of type, could be reliably counted on to provide during peak periods. The evaluation would now involve a more nuanced grading scale. If a gas plant had a frequent tendency to malfunction, its capacity would hold less weight. Conversely, wind energy would be valued more during winter peaks (when wind conditions are typically better), while solar power would be more influential in summer (when days are longer and brighter).

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