Welcome to Grid Brief! Here’s what we’re looking at today: the grid damage caused by Hurricane Helene, demand growth in America’s heartland, and the federal government finalizes its loan for the Palisades nuclear generating station.

Hurricane Helene Leaves Millions Without Power

Last week Helene made landfall in the U.S. as a Category 4 hurricane, leaving a path of damage in its wake. Experts estimate that Helene dumped 40 trillion gallons of rain on the Southeast, enough to fill Lake Tahoe.

The storm especially impacted Western North Carolina, which saw historic flooding and roads and bridges collapse. As of Monday, 400 roads in the state, including all roads in Western N.C. were closed. At least 11 people were killed in the storm. In Buncombe County, which is home to Asheville, 1,000 people were reported missing.

Millions of people in Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas are still without power. As of this morning, more than 167,000 residents in South Carolina’s Greenville County, the state’s most populous, reported outages. In Richmond County, Georgia—which houses the illustrious Augusta National golf course—nearly 80,000 residents reported power outages.

The National Guard has been deployed in the states affected by Helene and outages will likely last days or weeks. Duke Energy says that some western parts of North and South Carolina will need a complete rebuild of energy infrastructure. The utility is still evaluating its timeline for counties that were the most impacted by flooding, including Buncombe.

The National Weather Service is monitoring three other tropical storms in the Caribbean (Issac, Joyce, and Kirk). However, according to The Washington Post, none pose an immediate threat to land.

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Ohio Regulator Expecting ‘Three New York Cities’ Worth of Demand

In a recent article for The Wall Street Journal, Jennifer Hiller outlined the growing complexities caused by an oncoming wave of data centers. Future demand has grown so much in areas like Santa Clara, California that the local utility, Silicon Valley Power, has “stopped taking requests for electric service for additional data centers.”

SVP’s case is not unique. Across the country, utilities are planning for the rapid buildout of data centers as AI and cloud computing continue to rise. Dominion Power in Virginia is expecting that it will need to double its generation capacity to power the commonwealth’s demand center growth (Virginia has quickly become the data center capital of the country).

American Electric Power in Ohio, says it has three New York Cities worth of data centers asking to connect to the grid after 2028. While some of these requests may be from unserious developers shopping in different markets, it’s clear that the U.S. will need to rapidly build additional grid infrastructure to satisfy future demand. Permitting reform will help.

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Conversation Starters

• Department of Energy finalizes loan for Palisades (The Hill)

  After an initial agreement in February, the Department of Energy has finalized its $1.52 billion loan for the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station in Michigan. Once complete, Palisades will be the first decommissioned nuclear plant to be brought back to life in the U.S.

• Oregon cancels offshore wind lease (OPB)

  In a setback for offshore wind, the U.S. Department of Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said it was delaying the upcoming Oregon auction due to lack of interest. The agency said only one of the five companies eligible to bid was still interested.

• Report finds natural gas to be necessary for an energy transition (E&E News)

  In a new report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, the nonprofit found that the “fastest and most efficient” transition to renewable energy will require natural gas. The report asserts that natural gas is the ideal baseload generator for renewables due to its ability to quickly scale up to meet demand.

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