Go, team! Let’s keep electricity affordable and reliable.

The most suc­cess­ful bas­ket­ball teams in his­to­ry are con­sis­tent and have play­ers with vary­ing abil­i­ties. Some are bet­ter at shoot­ing, some are best at rebound­ing or block­ing. Hav­ing a bal­anced mix of skills makes the team a pow­er­house on the court. The way to main­tain afford­able and reli­able elec­tric­i­ty is a bit like that, too.

The pow­er team first requires a foun­da­tion of con­sis­tent resources that can be put in the game any­time they’re need­ed. Hav­ing enough “always avail­able” fuel sources like nuclear and coal can ensure con­sis­tent pow­er gen­er­a­tion.

Just like a team needs dif­fer­ent play­ers for dif­fer­ent sit­u­a­tions, our pow­er grid requires mul­ti­ple sources to keep the grid run­ning. Rely­ing sole­ly on one play­er to win every game is not an effec­tive strategy—if they get injured, you’ll like­ly lose. Sim­i­lar­ly, using a sin­gle fuel source for elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­a­tion pos­es a sig­nif­i­cant risk to ener­gy reli­a­bil­i­ty. Nat­ur­al dis­as­ters, geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sions or unfore­seen dis­rup­tions can severe­ly impact the sup­ply chain and eco­nom­ics of a par­tic­u­lar fuel. A diverse mix of ener­gy sources acts as a safe­guard, ensur­ing that the grid remains oper­a­tional even in the face of unex­pect­ed chal­lenges.

A diverse ener­gy mix also enhances grid flex­i­bil­i­ty by accom­mo­dat­ing the inter­mit­tent nature of renew­able ener­gy sources like solar and wind. Think of solar pow­er like a team’s incon­sis­tent three-point shoot­er. It’s awe­some when the sun is shin­ing bright, but what if it’s night- time or a cloudy day? That’s where the oth­er play­ers like wind, hydro, nuclear, nat­ur­al gas and coal can step up and keep the team scor­ing.

Diverse fuel sources con­tribute to the afford­abil­i­ty and reli­a­bil­i­ty of the elec­tric grid. The dif­fer­ent sources have vary­ing char­ac­ter­is­tics, includ­ing gen­er­a­tion pat­terns, fuel cost and stor­age capa­bil­i­ties. This diver­si­ty allows for a more bal­anced and resilient ener­gy sys­tem that can adapt to fluc­tu­at­ing demand and unfore­seen cir­cum­stances. Hav­ing a mix of these ener­gy sources is like hav­ing a team with dif­fer­ent skills to han­dle var­i­ous sit­u­a­tions and sce­nar­ios.

A diverse set of ener­gy sources is essen­tial, but that’s not the only thing we need to have reli­able electricity—or a win­ning team. Bas­ket­ball teams are always try­ing out new plays or train­ing rook­ies to cre­ate a ver­sa­tile line­up. Sim­i­lar­ly, elec­tric coop­er­a­tives are con­stant­ly inno­vat­ing to main­tain reli­a­bil­i­ty for tomor­row. But cre­at­ing new ways to make our pow­er sources more effi­cient and reli­able takes time, mon­ey and advances in tech­nol­o­gy that aren’t nec­es­sar­i­ly ready yet.

As we con­tin­ue to work on the inno­va­tions of tomor­row, the key to keep­ing our elec­tric­i­ty afford­able and reli­able right now is ensur­ing a diverse “team” of fuels. Each one brings some­thing spe­cial to the table and, togeth­er, they make sure we have the pow­er we need, when- ever we need it.