Reports and Studies Published in 2025 That Caught My Attention

Reliability, resilience, affordability of electricity grids

As societies all over the world are working to transition electricity grids, it is important to constantly improve and increase our understanding of electricity grids, how they operate, how to maintain them, design them, deploy them, etc to ensure they are LAAR (Low-emissions, Affordable, Abundant, Reliable).

1. “UNECE (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe) and partners launch initiative to develop a full system cost approach to guide investments towards resilient and carbon-neutral electricity systems”

2. Sandia National Labs “Utility Experience with Inverter-Based Resource Impacts on Transmission Protection”

3. Centre for Independent Studies in Australia “The Renewable Energy Honeymoon: starting is easy, the rest is hard”

4. Quantified Carbon (this is a GREAT Organization!) “Planning Challenges in Hydro-dominated Power Systems” or “Strategic capacity expansion planning in hydro-dominated power systems: Insights from the Nordics”

5. Impact of IBRs over CCT - Study by GridX (CAPE) team

6. University of Idaho and National Renewable Energy Labs (NREL) “A Comprehensive Study of the Impact of Inverter-Based Resource (IBR) Modeling and Control on Protection Relay Elements”

7. Dlzar Al Kez authored this post “Spain Just Proved the Problem Isn’t Frequency. It’s Voltage and Synchronism”. Kathryn Porter wrote “The collapse exposes systemic risks in low-inertia grids with high levels of inverter-based resources (“IBRs”) and inadequate voltage control”.

8. Three reports on the theme of “nuclear waste” or “spent nuclear fuel” or “slightly used nuclear fuel” being a valuable asset 1. OECD's Nuclear Energy Agency "Unlocking the Hidden Value of Nuclear Fuel: The Societal Benefits of Diverse Material Recycling" 2. Nuclear Innovation Alliance "Recycling Reconsidered: Unlocking the Value of Spent Nuclear Fuel" 3. "We're Sitting on $100 Trillion and Want to Pay $400 Billion to Throw It Away": Steven Curtis on America's Nuclear Waste Oversight"

9. 12 minute video by Advanced Energy “Transmission-Connected IBRs and Their Impact on the Grid”

10. [Added January 11, 2026] 2024 North America Electric Reliability Corporation Long-Term Reliability Report (Corrected July 11, 2025). Manitoba is importing much electricity from the USA during the 2025-26 fiscal year because hydro dams are producing poorly due to droughts. In this report, “energy drought” is discussed, which Manitoba definitely is in as of this writing. The report states “More reliance on wind, solar, and hydro resources in the resource mix has the potential to expose the electric system to supply shortages under abnormal weather patterns.” Some have proposed the solution to this energy drought is to add more wind, solar and batteries, which I disagree with. Manitoba, in my opinion, already has too much weather-dependent, location-dependent and intermittent sources of electricity generation, the solution is not more of the same. I am a nuclear energy advocate and I feel Manitoba needs to take advantage of Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd’s Whiteshell Labs for demonstrating nuclear micro reactors, deploying them into production and building and exporting them all over the world. The following two pictures provide a good overview of the current Manitoba electricity problem.