The order directs the Secretary of Energy to designate certain generation resources as critical and work to prevent such resources from being retired or replaced.
On April 8, 2025, the White House issued an executive order titled “Strengthening the Reliability and Security of the United States Electric Grid” (the Order) that directs the Secretary of Energy to use an emergency provision of the Federal Power Act (FPA) to designate certain generation resources as critical and implement a plan to prevent such resources from being retired or replaced.
Section 202(c) of the FPA permits the Secretary of Energy to take actions under certain circumstances involving an emergency to require, as relevant here, “such generation, delivery, interchange, or transmission of electric energy” as under the Secretary’s judgment will “best meet the emergency and serve the public interest.”
This provision has been deployed by the Secretary of Energy in relatively limited situations, including certain weather emergencies or retiring facilities deemed critical to national defense. The most recent uses of the authority were (1) authorizing certain electric generating units located within the Duke Energy Florida service territory to operate at low load as needed under the limited circumstances related to Hurricane Milton in October 2024 and (2) authorizing specific electric generating units located within the Electric Reliability Council of Texas area to operate at their maximum generation output levels due to ongoing extreme weather conditions and to preserve the reliability of bulk electric power system in September 2023. A list of orders issued by the Secretary under this provision from 2020 to 2024 is located on the Department of Energy’s website.
Under the Order, the White House has directed the Secretary of Energy to:
- Streamline the Department of Energy’s process for issuing orders under Section 202(c) of the FPA in circumstances in which the relevant grid operator forecasts that a temporary interruption of electricity supply will be necessary to prevent a complete grid failure.
- Within 30 days of the date of the Order, “develop a uniform methodology for analyzing current and anticipated reserve margins for all regions of the bulk power system regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission” and use this methodology to “identify current and anticipated regions with reserve margins below acceptable thresholds.” The methodology must model generation resources “based on historical performance of each specific generation resource type.” The Secretary must publish this methodology and accompanying analysis on the Department of Energy website within 90 days of the date of the Order.
- Regularly assess the methodology described above, including developing a protocol to “identify which generation resources within a region are critical to system reliability.” This protocol must “ensure any generation resource identified as critical within an at-risk region is appropriately retained as an available generation resource within the at-risk region.” The protocol must also prevent, in the Secretary’s discretion and consistent with applicable law, “an identified generation resource in excess of 50 megawatts of nameplate capacity from leaving the bulk-power system or converting the source of fuel of such generation resource if such conversion would result in a net reduction in accredited generating capacity” as determined by the methodology described above.
