On May 15, 2025, the FERC’s Office of Energy Policy and Innovation, in coordination with the Office of Electric Reliability, released their 2025 Summer Energy Market and Electric Reliability Assessment, highlighting key industry insights and challenges for the upcoming summer season, measured from June through September 2025. The report anticipates higher-than-average temperatures across the continental United States, coupled with increased uncertainty from extreme weather events. Load is projected to be higher than in the past four summers, leading to noticeably higher wholesale electricity prices across most regions. Despite these challenges, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation forecasts that all regions will have adequate generating resources to meet expected demand under normal conditions. However, certain areas may face tight generation availability during periods of above-normal electricity demand, low wind and solar output, and wide-area heat events, necessitating operational mitigations to maintain reliability. Overall, the report calls for careful monitoring and management of the electric grid to address these challenges and maintain reliability throughout the summer.
The report identifies regions such as the Northeast Power Coordinating Council – New England, Midcontinent Independent System Operator, Inc., Electric Reliability Council of Texas, and Southwest Power Pool, Inc. as potentially vulnerable during periods of high electricity demand and low renewable output. FERC staff explains that these conditions could necessitate operational mitigations, such as calling on demand response, postponing non-critical maintenance, or implementing voluntary conservation measures. In extreme cases, reliability coordinators might declare an Energy Emergency Alert, which would allow system operators to access additional resources available only during scarcity conditions.
The report highlights the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s expectations of higher-than-average temperatures across the country this summer, especially in the western and southeastern regions. Active hurricane and wildfire seasons are also anticipated, with a preliminary forecast indicating 17 named storms and nine hurricanes for the 2025 season. The report indicates that hurricanes and wildfires pose significant risks to coastal states and the western U.S. As the report explains, high temperatures could stress the electric grid by increasing demand and reducing the availability of electricity transfers between neighboring systems and emphasizes the importance of interregional electricity transfers during extreme weather events or localized disruptions. Accordingly, the report underscores the importance of proactive planning and coordination among grid operators to maintain electric reliability throughout the season and warns that utilities are expected to increasingly employ public safety power shutoffs to mitigate wildfire risks.
Further, the report indicates that threats of physical and cyberattacks remain a significant concern, especially during periods of high demand. Such attacks could compromise substations or transmission infrastructure, thus potentially exacerbating supply constraints and leading to localized outages or cascading failures. Given the increasing sophistication of cyber threats to grid operations, the report highlights the vulnerabilities of critical infrastructure, and underscores the need for proactive security measures to safeguard the electric grid.
A copy of the report, issued in Docket No. AD06-3-000, can be found here.