Welcome to Grid Brief! Here’s what we’re looking at today: the factors that are making our power grid less reliable and a solar breakthrough.

How the U.S. Power Grid Became a Mess

In a recent essay, Bloomberg’s Naureen Malik outlines the many challenges that the grid is facing in the U.S. The problems identified by Malik have been highlighted in this newsletter and include red tape, extreme weather, and inadequate grid infrastructure.

On red tape, Malik writes, “The waitlist for energy projects to be connected to the grid has doubled since 2020, to about 12,000. All told, these backlogged projects would add almost 2.6 terawatts of capacity, according to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, roughly twice the country’s current generating capacity. The longer it takes to connect, the harder it will be for the US to quickly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limit the extent of global warming.”

Lawmakers, major newspapers, and the general public are recognizing the need to upgrade America’s grid infrastructure. With bipartisan permitting bills introduced, there seems to be a strong political appetite to enact meaningful solutions to improve reliability and reduce costs.

Researchers Find Way to Extend Lifetimes of Solar Panels

Halide perovskites are a group of materials that promise higher performance in solar panels at a lower cost. Despite their upside, halide perovskites are not very reliable and can quickly decompose when exposed to light, heat, and extreme voltage (all necessities to generate solar power).

A research team at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology thinks that it has solved this issue. Specifically, the group found a “hidden structure” of surface concavities on individual crystal grains which hurt the stability of the perovskite films. The scientists were able to eliminate the concavities to improve resiliency.

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Conversation Starters

• Texas crude oil pipelines are filling up (Bloomberg)

  Key pipelines that transport barrels produced in the Permian Basin to the Port of Corpus Christi are more than 90% full, and companies that operate some of these lines say the congestion is likely to get worse as pipeline capacity is unable to meet growing energy demand. By the second half of 2025, the pipes could be 94% or 95% full, estimates researcher East Daley Analytics.

• Energy companies rush to shore up the grid (The Wall Street Journal)

  From hurricanes hitting the South to flooding impacting the midwest, utilities are scrambling to harden the grid to extreme weather, which is the number one culprit of power outages in the country.

• Southeast Asia’s slow road to phasing out coal (Cipher)

  As aging coal plants are being phased out in the developed economies of the United States, Europe and Australia, Asia’s coal plants are collectively the world’s youngest. Plants in Southeast Asia have an average age roughly below 15 years, in an industry where plants often last 40 to 50 years.

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