Stress on US electrical grid fuels new investments
Our power generation and transmission infrastructure is showing its age — brownouts have become routine in California — and rebuilding and modernizing the grid will require manufacturing capacity of its own. Luckily, we're starting to see those projects take shape.
This is JP Hampstead, co-host of the Bring It Home podcast with Craig Fuller. Welcome to the 15th edition of our newsletter, which explains how the movement of electrons across transmission lines helps power the movement of atoms everywhere else.
The U.S. electrical grid is a marvel of engineering, spanning millions of miles and connecting thousands of power plants to millions of end-users. It's a complex system that must maintain a delicate balance between supply and demand, ensuring that electricity is available whenever and wherever it's needed. This system doesn't just feed constant demand but has to respond to complex market dynamics impacted by weather and generation capacity.(Photo: USDA/Lance Cheung. Public domain)
In recent years, our grid has come under increasing stress. Extreme weather events, from hurricanes to winter storms, have exposed vulnerabilities in the system. The Texas blackouts of 2021 served as a stark reminder of the grid's fragility after it left millions without power for days. These events have highlighted the urgent need for modernization and increased resilience in our energy infrastructure.
But it's not just natural disasters putting pressure on the grid. The rise of artificial intelligence and a domestic manufacturing boom have sent electricity demand skyrocketing after more than a decade of level use. According to recent projections, electricity demand is expected to increase by a staggering 128 gigawatts over the next five years – that's five times greater than what was anticipated just two years ago. This surge in demand is being driven by the rapid expansion of data centers, the electrification of transportation and the revitalization of American manufacturing.
The energy needs of the United States are set to take off in the near future. As we race to compete with global powers like China in advanced technologies and manufacturing, reliable and abundant electricity becomes more crucial than ever. The North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) has highlighted the need for an additional 35 GW of transfer capability across the United States – equivalent to the output of roughly 35 nuclear power plants – to strengthen energy adequacy under extreme conditions and alleviate shortfalls during weather events.This pressing need for grid expansion and modernization hasn't gone unnoticed by industry leaders. Major players in the power generation and transmission equipment manufacturing sector are making significant investments to meet the growing demand and ensure America's energy future.
GE Vernova, a key player in the power sector, has announced a substantial $600 million investment in its U.S. manufacturing sites. This move is aimed at boosting production capacity for critical grid components and advanced energy technologies. The investment reflects GE Vernova's commitment to supporting the ongoing energy transition and meeting the surging demand for electrical infrastructure.
Mitsubishi Electric is also stepping up to the plate. The company's U.S. subsidiary, Mitsubishi Electric Power Products, is investing $86 million in advanced switchgear production and power electronics in the United States. This includes the construction of a 160,000-square-foot factory in the Pittsburgh region, which will initially focus on producing vacuum and gas circuit breakers – essential components for managing and protecting electrical systems. The investment is expected to create over 200 jobs when the facility becomes fully operational, contributing not only to grid resilience but also to local economic growth.
Power management company Eaton announced a $340 million investment to increase U.S. production of three-phase transformers. These transformers are crucial for maintaining reliable electrical power across various sectors, including utilities, large commercial operations, industrial facilities and data centers. Eaton's new facility in Jonesville, South Carolina, set to begin production in 2027, represents a significant boost to domestic manufacturing capacity for critical grid components.
These investments by industry giants are more than just business decisions – they're a vote of confidence in America's industrial future. By expanding domestic production of vital grid components, these companies are not only addressing the immediate needs of our electrical infrastructure but also positioning the United States for long-term energy security and economic competitiveness.
It's clear that the electrical grid will play a pivotal role in powering America's reindustrialization. The challenges are significant, from updating aging infrastructure to integrating renewable energy sources and meeting skyrocketing demand.
But it appears that the weaknesses and shortfalls of the electrical grid are already motivating significant investments in manufacturing — over $1 billion in electrical transmission equipment manufacturing in the past few months.
'Nuclear power is the most reliable and efficient energy the world has ever known, and these partnerships will help drive this project forward. Nuclear power is critical to our nation's long-term energy future. Building [a small modular reactor] is not going to be easy. We are Americans. We do hard things, because it's in our DNA.'– Jeff Lyash, president and CEO of the Tennessee Valley Authority, the U.S.'s largest public utility, on Feb. 13
The capacity of major transmission lines in kilovolts. (Map: Wikimedia Commons)
Apple will spend more than $500 billion in the U.S. over the next four years
Apple announced on Monday its largest-ever spend commitment, with plans to spend and invest more than $500 billion in the U.S. over the next four years. This new pledge builds on Apple's long history of investing in American innovation and advanced high-skilled manufacturing, and will support a wide range of initiatives that focus on AI, silicon engineering and skills development for students and workers across the country.
'We are bullish on the future of American innovation, and we're proud to build on our long-standing U.S. investments with this $500 billion commitment to our country's future,' said CEO Tim Cook. 'From doubling our Advanced Manufacturing Fund, to building advanced technology in Texas, we're thrilled to expand our support for American manufacturing. And we'll keep working with people and companies across this country to help write an extraordinary new chapter in the history of American innovation.'
Why Trump's Clean Energy Rollbacks Could Derail a Factory Boom
The flood of investment has been driven by two major categories of subsidies provided under the Biden administration. One offered incentives for the construction of several enormous semiconductor plants set to begin operation in the coming years. The other supercharged the production of equipment needed for renewable energy deployment.
This second category is in jeopardy as the Trump administration and the Republican-led Congress seek to roll back support for low-carbon energy, including battery-powered vehicles, wind power and solar fields.
Trump Told Drugmakers to Move Production to US or Face Tariffs
President Donald Trump warned drugmakers in a private meeting that tariffs are coming and said companies should hustle to move overseas manufacturing to the U.S., according to two people familiar with the conversation.
Trump also didn't commit to pushing Congress to water down a drug pricing program enacted under President Joe Biden that the pharmaceutical industry has been seeking relief from.
The post Stress on US electrical grid fuels new investments appeared first on FreightWaves.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CBS News
16 minutes ago
- CBS News
USDA to relocate HQ in part to Northern Colorado, Congressman Gabe Evans and cattlemen celebrate
The United States Department of Agriculture, or USDA, will close down a major portion of its current headquarters in Washington, D.C., moving some of the staffers to Northern Colorado. Fort Collins was selected as one of five locations around the country where the headquarters will be relocated. "At first blush, everything about having offices out here makes sense," said Kenny Rogers, a cattleman in Yuma. Rogers has been a cattleman for decades, at times serving in leadership roles among his peers. He said the announcement of the partial move to Fort Collins was a surprise to him, but one he welcomes. "Getting boots on the ground where the action is occurring, rather than in an office in Washington, D.C., that is not a bad thing," Rogers said. "If you are USDA, this is where the action is, right around this area." Congressman Gabe Evans said he learned about the USDA's plans on Thursday. "It was great news for us to find out about," Evans said. Evans, who represents a large portion of Northern Colorado, said this change will be beneficial not only for his rural constituents but also for the surrounding area near the office. The office is currently located in the center of Fort Collins near the CSU veterinary sciences school. "We are a massive agricultural producing region here. In Colorado as a whole, but specifically in Northern Colorado," Evans said. "(By moving to Fort Collins) they are closer to the farmers and ranchers. They are closer to the people doing the boots on the ground hard work of producing America's food supply. That can only help our agricultural producers by closing that gap between the bureaucracy and the actual farmers and ranchers," Evans said. The USDA has a wide reach of oversight, including the U.S. Forest Service and even nutrition in schools. While the exact number of jobs moving to Fort Collins has not yet been announced, Evans said he is hoping the change will benefit urban and rural parts of Colorado. "It is a huge boost to our agricultural producers, and it is a boost to the region, honestly. That is more good paying jobs that will be coming to Northern Colorado," Evans said. Both Evans and Rogers noted that the Bureau of Land Management's headquarters was relocated to Colorado years ago, bringing more jobs and access to Colorado. Evans said he hopes the relative proximity of both the BLM and USDA in Colorado will also help cut down fire risks by creating a symbiotic relationship when it comes to ridding of fuels in the Colorado mountains. Rogers said he also hoped the change would save taxpayers money. "I would assume square footage office rental is much less than it is out in D.C.," Rogers said. The other cities selected for USDA offices were Indianapolis, Kansas City, Salt Lake City and Raleigh.
USA Today
39 minutes ago
- USA Today
Trump's golf trip to Scotland reopens old wounds for some of his neighbors
BALMEDIE, Scotland − Long before talk of hush-money payments, election subversion or mishandling classified documents, before his executive orders were the subject of U.S. Supreme Court challenges, before he was the 45th and then the 47th president: on a wild and windswept stretch of beach in northeast Scotland, Donald Trump the businessman was accused of being a bad neighbor. "This place will never, ever belong to Trump," Michael Forbes, 73, a retired quarry worker and salmon fisherman, said this week as he took a break from fixing a roof on his farm near Aberdeen. The land he owns is surrounded, though disguised in places by trees and hedges, by a golf resort owned by Trump's family business in Scotland, Trump International Scotland. For nearly 20 years, Forbes and several other families who live in Balmedie have resisted what they describe as bullying efforts by Trump to buy their land. (He has denied the allegations.) They and others also say he's failed to deliver on his promises to bring thousands of jobs to the area. Those old wounds are being reopened as Trump returns to Scotland for a four-day visit beginning July 25. It's the country where his mother was born. He appears to have great affection for it. Trump is visiting his golf resorts at Turnberry, on the west coast about 50 miles from Glasgow, and at Balmedie, where Forbes' 23 acres of jumbled, tractor-strewn land, which he shares with roaming chickens and three Highland cows, abut Trump's glossy and manicured golf resort. On July 28, Trump will briefly meet in Balmedie with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to "refine" a recent U.S.-U.K. trade deal, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said. Golf, a little diplomacy: Trump heads to Scotland In Scotland, where estimates from the National Library of Scotland suggest that as many as 34 out of the 45 American presidents have Scottish ancestry, opinions hew toward the he's-ill-suited-for-the-job, according to surveys. "Trump? He just doesn't know how to treat people," said Forbes, who refuses to sell. What Trump's teed up in Scotland Part of the Balmedie community's grievances relate to Trump's failure to deliver on his promises. According to planning documents, public accounts and his own statements, Trump promised, beginning in 2006, to inject $1.5 billion into his golf project six miles north of Aberdeen. He has spent about $120 million. Approval for the development, he vowed, came with more than 1,000 permanent jobs and 5,000 construction gigs attached. Instead, there were 84, meaning fewer than the 100 jobs that already existed when the land he bought was a shooting range. Instead of a 450-room luxury hotel and hundreds of homes that Trump pledged to build for the broader community, there is a 19-room boutique hotel and a small clubhouse with a restaurant and shop that sells Trump-branded whisky, leather hip flasks and golf paraphernalia. Financial filings show that his course on the Menie Estate in Balmedie lost $1.9 million in 2023 − its 11th consecutive financial loss since he acquired the 1,400-acre grounds in 2006. Residents who live and work near the course say that most days, even in the height of summer, the fairway appears to be less than half full. Representatives for Trump International say the plan all along has been to gradually phase in the development at Balmedie and that it is not realistic or fair to expect everything to be built overnight. There's also support for Trump from some residents who live nearby, and in the wider Aberdeen business community. One Balmedie resident who lives in the shadow of Trump's course said that before Trump the area was nothing but featureless sand dunes and that his development, carved between those dunes, made the entire landscape look more attractive. Fergus Mutch, a policy advisor for the Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce, said Trump's golf resort has become a "key bit of the tourism offer" that attracts "significant spenders" to a region gripped by economic turmoil, steep job cuts and a prolonged downturn in its North Sea oil and gas industry. Trump in Scotland: Liked or loathed? Still, recent surveys show that 70% of Scots hold an unfavorable opinion of Trump. Despite his familial ties and deepening investments in Scotland, Trump is more unpopular among Scots than with the British public overall, according to an Ipsos survey from March. It shows 57% of people in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland don't view Trump positively. King Charles invites Trump: American president snags another UK state visit While in Balmedie this time, Trump will open a new 18-hole golf course on his property dedicated to his mother, Mary Anne MacLeod, who was a native of Lewis, in Scotland's Western Isles. He is likely to be met with a wave of protests around the resort, as well as the one in Turnberry. The Stop Trump Coalition, a group of campaigners who oppose most of Trump's domestic and foreign policies and the way he conducts his private and business affairs, is organizing a protest in Aberdeen and outside the U.S. consulate in Edinburgh. During Trump's initial visit to Scotland as president, in his first term, thousands of protesters sought to disrupt his visit, lining key routes and booing him. One protester even flew a powered paraglider into the restricted airspace over his Turnberry resort that bore a banner that read, "Trump: well below par #resist." 'Terrific guy': The Trump-Epstein party boy friendship lasted a decade, ended badly Trump's course in Turnberry has triggered less uproar than his Balmedie one because locals say that he's invested millions of dollars to restore the glamour of its 101-year-old hotel and three golf courses after he bought the site in 2014. Trump versus the families Three families still live directly on or adjacent to Trump's Balmedie golf resort. They say that long before the world had any clue about what type of president a billionaire New York real estate mogul and reality-TV star would become, they had a pretty good idea. Forbes is one of them. He said that shortly after Trump first tried to persuade him and his late wife to sell him their farm, workers he hired deliberately sabotaged an underground water pipe that left the Forbes – and his mother, then in her 90s, lived in her own nearby house – without clean drinking water for five years. Trump International declined to provide a fresh comment on those allegations, but a spokesperson previously told USA TODAY it "vigorously refutes" them. It said that when workers unintentionally disrupted a pipe that ran into an "antiquated" makeshift "well" jointly owned by the Forbeses on Trump's land, it was repaired immediately. Trump has previously called Forbes a "disgrace" who "lives like a pig." 'I don't have a big enough flagpole' David Milne, 61, another of Trump's seething Balmedie neighbors, lives in a converted coast guard station with views overlooking Trump's course and of the dunes and the North Sea beyond. In 2009, Trump offered him and his wife about $260,000 for his house and its one-fifth acre of land, Milne said. Trump was caught on camera saying he wanted to remove it because it was "ugly." Trump, he said, "threw in some jewelry," a golf club membership (Milne doesn't play), use of a spa (not yet built) and the right to buy, at cost, a house in a related development (not yet constructed). Milne valued the offer at about half the market rate. When Milne refused that offer, he said that landscapers working for Trump partially blocked the views from his house by planting a row of trees and sent Milne a $3,500 bill for a fence they'd built around his garden. Milne refused to pay. Over the years, Milne has pushed back. He flew a Mexican flag at his house for most of 2016, after Trump vowed to build a wall on the southern American border and make Mexico pay for it. Milne, a health and safety consultant in the energy industry, has hosted scores of journalists and TV crews at his home, where he has patiently explained the pros and cons − mostly cons, in his view, notwithstanding his own personal stake in the matter − of Trump's development for the local area. Milne said that because of his public feud with Trump, he's a little worried a freelance MAGA supporter could target him or his home. He has asked police to provide protection for him and his wife at his home while Trump is in the area. He also said he won't be flying any flags this time, apart from the Saltire, Scotland's national flag. "I don't have a big enough flagpole. I would need one from Mexico, Canada, Palestine. I would need Greenland, Denmark − you name it," he said, running through some of the places toward which Trump has adopted what critics view as aggressive and adversarial policies. Dunes of great natural importance Martin Ford was the local Aberdeen government official who originally oversaw Trump's planning application to build the Balmedie resort in 2006. He was part of a planning committee that rejected it over environmental concerns because the course would be built between sand dunes that were designated what the UK calls a Site of Special Scientific Interest due to the way they shift over time. The Scottish government swiftly overturned that ruling on the grounds that Trump's investment in the area would bring a much-needed economic boost. Neil Hobday, who was the project director for Trump's course in Balmedie, last year told the BBC he was "hoodwinked" by Trump over his claim that he would spend more than a billion dollars on it. Hobday said he felt "ashamed that I fell for it and Scotland fell for it. We all fell for it." The dunes lost their special status in 2020, according to Nature Scot, the agency that oversees such designations. It concluded that their special features had been "partially destroyed" by Trump's resort. Trump International disputes that finding, saying the issue became "highly politicized." For years, Trump also fought to block the installation of a wind farm off his resort's coast. He lost that fight. The first one was built in 2018. There are now 11 turbines. Ford has since retired but stands by his belief that allowing approval for the Trump resort was a mistake. "I feel cheated out of a very important natural habitat, which we said we would protect and we haven't," he said. "Trump came here and made a lot of promises that haven't materialized. In return, he was allowed to effectively destroy a nature site of great conservation value. It's not the proper behavior of a decent person." Forbes, the former quarry worker and fisherman, said he viewed Trump in similar terms. He said that Trump "will never ever get his hands on his farm." He said that wasn't just idle talk. He said he's put his land in a trust that specified that when he dies, it can't be sold for at least 125 years.
San Francisco Chronicle
an hour ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
North Bay Nissan dealership closes amid automaker's financial struggles
As its parent company struggles financially, a North Bay Nissan dealership has permanently closed. A note by the Petaluma dealership's employees on their website Friday afternoon announced the closure, which follows several others in the Bay Area in recent years. 'As of 3 pm on July 25th, we have officially concluded our operations as North Bay Nissan,' the statement said. 'It has been a true honor serving the Petaluma and North Bay communities and we are deeply grateful for your loyalty over the years.' More details were not immediately available Saturday morning. The closure comes as North Bay Nissan's parent company, Nissan Motor Co., has weathered significant losses in recent years, leading to factory closures and thousands of job cuts. The company entered the American market in the late 1950s and by the 1970s as one of the world's largest exporters of automobiles. But the automotive giant ran into serious trouble over the past decade after its former CEO was jailed for underreporting his income to Japanese financial authorities and scandal engulfed the company. Over the past five years, the company has laid off thousands of employees, cut production and closed factories. Last November, Nissan announced a plan to cut thousands more employees, and one executive reportedly warned that without a major turnaround, the company would cease to exist in '12 to 14 months.' Nissan's troubles only grew this year, when the carmaker posted its worst financial results in 25 years and after President Donald Trump threatened to impose tariffs on imported vehicles, which make up a significant portion of the company's U.S. sales. Several other Nissan dealerships have also closed in recent years, including showrooms in Burlingame, Fresno and Antioch.
